PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Lawyers in Pennsylvania’s long-running and sprawling funding case made their closing arguments in Commonwealth Court.
They summed up more than 14,000 pages of testimony from 41 witnesses in the trial that started in November, seven years after it was initially filed.
The districts behind the suit, which includes Delaware County’s William Penn School District, argue that the school funding model in Pennsylvania is broken and unfair.
They said the state legislature has failed to fulfill its constitutional duty to maintain an efficient system of public education, and that the system violates either the education clause or the equal protections clause of the state constitution.
“The General Assembly has chosen to remain willfully ignorant to the amount of money necessary to adequately fund schools,” said lawyer Katrina Robson on behalf of those schools.
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She argued that such a belief yielded “a system of insufficient resources.”
Robson shared testimony from one student who talked about roaches and rodents, a dirty cafeteria and worse bathrooms. The student said it made him feel like he was less and he didn’t matter. She also pointed to students learning in hallways or in storage closets, crumbling buildings, and not enough money to fix mildew or asbestos problems.
Thomas DeCesar, the lawyer representing state Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R-Centre, Huntingdon, Juniata and Mifflin counties), told the judge that everyone wants children to succeed, but a constitutional challenge needs to focus on the basics.
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In his words, “simply because a program an additional feature, or support is good or would be helpful to some students, does not transform it into a constitutional requirement.”
He pointed out the finances of some of the districts involved in the suit are affected by decisions those districts made like one buying lights for the football stadium, and another opting for iPads over Chromebooks. That decision cost an additional $2.3 million.
A decision in the case isn’t expected until later July.
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