Advocates for fair funding, including ELC and our partners in the PA Schools Work coalition, will be working hard all spring to ensure that the legislature adopts Gov. Shapiro’s education budget plan and makes a multiyear commitment to funding increases to close the state’s school funding adequacy gap. A new state budget must be adopted by June 30.

The governor’s budget proposal would implement the first year of the remedy proposed by the Basic Education Funding Commission, which is still the only plan that responds to Commonwealth Court’s order that state officials must ensure every child’s right to a comprehensive, effective, and contemporary public education.

Our message to legislators is simple: Do your job. This isn’t optional. The court’s decision requires that you adopt a new constitutionally compliant school funding system. Pass the governor’s budget proposal — and enshrine in law a plan for continued increases in future years to finish the job.

Contact your legislators today! And volunteers are needed for phone banking to encourage Pennsylvanians to contact their legislators. Learn more and volunteer here.

ELC testified at the School District of Philadelphia’s board meeting on March 28 regarding the district’s continued failure to provide COVID compensatory education services to 22,000 Philadelphia public school students with disabilities — students who were unable to access services while going for more than a year without in-person schooling. The district failed to comply with corrective action ordered by the state in 2023 in response to an ELC complaint.

ELC’s testimony urged the board to take steps to rectify this. Staff attorney Rebecca Preuss told the board that “there is nothing on the district’s website about this process. There have been no trainings or webinars for parents. Many parents report to ELC that they were never invited to a meeting and never received notice about make-up services.” Press coverage has included information on how to apply for services.

Meanwhile, ELC continues to meet with Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) to ensure that their COVID compensatory services (CCS 2.0) process is equitable for students and families. PPS is currently contacting families of students that have since transferred or graduated from the district to set up meetings to determine the compensatory education owed to each student, if any. The district is also beginning to provide compensatory education services; more information about specific programming can be found here.

ELC filed a state administrative complaint March 12, claiming that the School District of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Department of Education are systematically denying access to education to school-age young people with disabilities at the Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Services Center (PJJSC).

PJJSC is Philadelphia’s secure juvenile detention center, licensed to hold 184 young people awaiting a hearing or further placement. However, it often holds many more children due to overcrowding. Nearly half are students with disabilities, who are entitled to receive a free appropriate public education.

Ashli Giles-Perkins, ELC staff attorney, said policies of PJJSC “clearly and unequivocally violate the federal and state disability laws. Due to systemic racism, the policies and practices at PJJSC disproportionately impact Black and Brown students, who are harmed most by the school-to-prison pipeline.”

ELC is seeking needed changes in policy and practice and meaningful oversight at PJJSC to ensure that educational rights are upheld. Read more in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

A landmark study on Black girls (Epstein, Blake & González, 2017), said that “Adul­ti­fi­ca­tion is a form of dehu­man­iza­tion, rob­bing Black chil­dren of the very essence of what makes child­hood dis­tinct from all oth­er devel­op­men­tal peri­ods: inno­cence. Adul­ti­fi­ca­tion con­tributes to a false nar­ra­tive that Black youths’ trans­gres­sions are inten­tion­al and mali­cious, instead of the result of imma­ture deci­sion-mak­ing — a key characteristic of childhood."

Join a virtual symposium on the topic on Friday, April 5, at noon ET. Staff attorney Paige Joki, who leads ELC’s Black Girls Education Justice Initiative, is one of the speakers at this dynamic event! Paige will be speaking from 1:45 to 2:30 ET. Register here.

ELC staff attorney Paige Joki has co-authored a first-of-its-kind study of school-based fines and fees, published in the Boston College Law Review, written with Thalia González, professor of law at University of California College of Law, San Francisco.

The study is based on first-hand accounts from ELC clients and reviews of 729 school handbooks in Pennsylvania, which contained 3,846 different ways students could be fined or charged while attending public school. Sadly, it revealed that there are no fine-free schools in Pennsylvania and that schools that serve the most children of color are hotspots for fines and fees.

Fines and fees deprive children and families by denying them access to a range of educational opportunities, including participation in activities like field trips, dances, and even graduation events. Schools could stop levying fines and fees today. We encourage you to join us in ending this harmful practice.

ELC joined community partners and elected officials at a March 8 event in Pittsburgh supporting Pennsylvania legislation known as the CROWN Act, HB 1394, which would ban racial discrimination based on a person’s hair texture or for wearing a protective hairstyle such as afros, locs, twists, knots, and braids. Speaker of the House Joanna McClinton and state Rep. La’Tasha D. Mayes, who introduced the legislation, officially launched the Pennsylvania CROWN Act Coalition and led a discussion about the importance of addressing this longstanding, persistent form of discrimination against Black people. (CROWN stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.)

In conjunction with National Library Week, which starts next Sunday, an ongoing campaign opposing book bans is organizing the second annual “Right to Read Day,” a national day of action on April 8 (the day of the upcoming solar eclipse) around the theme: “Don’t let censorship eclipse your right to read.”

The Unite Against Book Bans campaign offers suggested actions for April 8, ranging from contacting your member of Congress to making a plan to attend your school board or city council meeting, which is where many of the battles around book bans are taking place.

One action we recommend is reading and sharing ELC’s fact sheet, Challenging Book Bans: What You Can Do!

Ashli and her fellow panelists from WESA 90.5, Education Voters-PA, and Lancaster Online dove into topics including right-to-know requests, school board authority, transparency for charter schools, recognizing Sunshine Act violations, and the overhaul of public education funding in PA. You can watch the full program here, review ELC's presentation here, and check out Spotlight-PA's coverage for more information. 

The Education Law Center-PA was honored last month to be named one of the recipients of a $1 million unrestricted grant from the Yield Giving Open Call, established by philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. Out of more than 6,300 applicants, fewer than 6% received grants of $1-2 million.

Awardees were chosen for “advancing the voices and opportunities of individuals and families of meager or modest means, and groups who have met with discrimination and other systemic obstacles.”

The gift is validation of the significant victories, meaningful systemic reforms, and successes in advocacy for clients that ELC has won, impacting thousands of students, including the decision in our recent fair funding litigation, declaring that “education is a fundamental right.”

The gift comes as ELC prepares to celebrate its 50^th anniversary in 2025, and ELC’s leadership team is committed to identifying the best ways to allocate this funding to sustain and strengthen our work for the years to come. 

Check Out Our Job Postings!

ELC is hiring a policy director, with the position based in Philadelphia or Harrisburg.

ELC is seeking a director of our Western Pennsylvania office in Pittsburgh.

See our website for a description of internship opportunities at ELC.

The false promise — and hidden costs — of school vouchers by Joshua M. Cowen for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Suburban Segregation Is Rising. What States and Districts Can Do by Sarah D. Sparks for Education Week.

Central Bucks to pay suspended teacher, attorneys $425k, remove references to report by Jo Ciavaglia for the Bucks County Courier-Times.

District Under Federal Investigation Following Death of Nonbinary Student Nex Benedict by Evie Blad for Education Week.