Chalkbeat

Philadelphia’s state test scores are delayed this year

2026-08-18T22:51:00+00:00

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Typically, Philadelphia teachers and principals use state test scores from the prior school year to assess student learning, roster kids into the proper classes, and prepare for the year to come.

Not this year.

Several teachers told Chalkbeat this week they haven’t seen results from the 2025-26 PSSA or Keystone exams and aren’t sure why. In the past, these scores have been shared with educators and school leaders around June. Teachers returned to classrooms this week for professional development, and students will return on Aug. 24.

School district officials said the holdup is with the state.

The district “has been notified that the release of official statewide PSSA and Keystone results by the Pennsylvania Department of Education is on hold,” district spokespeople said in a statement to Chalkbeat Tuesday. They did not respond to requests for clarification.

A spokesperson from PDE said in an email that school-level data did get sent out to school districts in June but that a “review of preliminary data is still underway.”

The delay will have ripple effects for students, educators, and school leaders. Though they have some student data from STAR benchmark exams, school staff rely in part on state assessments to determine which students need additional support, where teachers are most needed, and where extra resources should be spent.

The district “cannot use the 2025-26 assessment results to evaluate year-over-year student achievement or as the required criterion for school selection,” according to its statement.

Instead, students will be able to take an “alternative assessment” in the fall and submit those results. Not having state test scores for school selection could pose a host of new issues for families when that process opens on Sept. 8, but without further information from the district, any potential impact on admissions is unclear.

Typically, the state releases PSSA and Keystone test data to districts early in the summer. District officials then have a period, usually from June through July, to review the data, share it with school leaders, and make sure nothing looks awry. After that, the state sends out statewide comparison data that districts can share publicly. In past years, that comparison data was shared at school board meetings by September or October.

According to a field message PDE sent Tuesday morning, the statewide comparison data is still being analyzed and is not being shared publicly. However, that message confirms districts received preliminary school-level assessment data in June.

It is unclear why the district wouldn’t be able to rely on those results to measure student achievement or make school selection decisions.

Several Philly charter school leaders have shared preliminary state test results with their teachers, Chalkbeat has confirmed.

At least one Pennsylvania school district — Conrad Weiser Area School District in Berks County — has shared its preliminary PSSA data, according to school board documents.

Philadelphia is not the only district grappling with test score controversy. Testing experts are calling for an investigation into New York City’s scores, and New Jersey educators say their state score delays are forcing schools to start their academic years without crucial data.

This story has been updated to include comment from the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania state budget includes $157 million more for Philadelphia’s schools

2026-07-13T17:59:38+00:00

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Pennsylvania school districts will receive $11.8 billion next year in the state budget Gov. Josh Shapiro signed over the weekend, a $670 million increase from last year.

The $50.8 billion budget includes an infusion of money for career training programs and special education, along with more funding for teacher training stipends and additional requirements for cyber charter schools to monitor students’ wellbeing.

But the budget, which often includes major education legislation, does not have the school cellphone ban Shapiro wanted, and less money for early childhood education than the governor sought.

The budget puts $157 million more towards Philadelphia’s schools, the state’s largest district.

In response to a 2023 court ruling that found the state’s school funding system was unconstitutional, the budget provides a $565 million increase to districts in what’s commonly known as “adequacy funding.” It also puts $58 million more towards basic education funding and $47 million more towards special education funding.

While the overall budget is some $2 billion less than Shapiro had proposed, the final amounts for education are greater than what he initially put forward.

“To me, a quality education doesn’t just require dollars and cents, it also requires common sense,” Shapiro said during his budget address Sunday. He said that’s why he pushed to require schools to give all K-5 students 30 minutes of recess each day, a mandate that’s in the budget. Philly schools guaranteed daily recess for all district students back in February.

Mai Miksic, executive director of the Pennsylvania-based advocacy group Children First, said in a statement the budget will help schools “maintain and build on the academic progress made possible by increased adequacy funds.”

But she was disappointed that the budget “did not go far enough to support early learning.” Shapiro had initially proposed a $10 million increase to a program meant to recruit and retain childcare workers, and a $7.5 million increase to the state’s free pre-Kindergarten program, Pre-K Counts. But the final budget only included half those increases.

Laura Boyce, the Pennsylvania executive director of the advocacy group Teach Plus, said the boost to adequacy funding and teacher stipends was “something to celebrate.”

But she had hoped the budget would increase early literacy funding rather than hold it steady at $10 million. That’s a “good down payment,” Boyce said, but “not close to what we will ultimately need” to help schools meet the literacy requirements slated to kick in during the 2027-28 school year, like implementing professional development and screenings.

Over the past two years, Philadelphia students’ English language arts and literature test scores have fallen. Around one-third of students in grades 3-8 scored proficient or above in ELA on the most recent state assessments.

Some conservatives were hoping the budget would include more investment in the state’s existing school choice tax credit programs, while the deadline looms for Shapiro to say whether Pennsylvania will opt into the federal tax credit program. “Unfortunately, the budget deal does not meaningfully expand educational choice,” said Nathan Benefield, chief policy officer at the Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg said in a statement that he was disappointed the budget bill did not include a statewide cellphone ban. But he welcomed the additional overall funding for schools.

“We are, as ever, impatient for a faster schedule to close the adequacy gap between wealthy and non-wealthy districts once and for all,” Steinberg said.

Pennsylvania boosts funding for career training, student teachers

This year’s budget includes a $10 million increase for career and technical education programs as part of a $193 million total annual investment in workforce development. It also slightly changes testing requirements for those programs by allowing career training centers to administer the competency exams before students are in 12th grade, and therefore help them complete the programs.

Rep. Peter Schweyer, a Democrat and chair of the House Education Committee, applauded the changes, saying they would enable programs to enroll more students.

The budget also puts $10 million more towards the popular student-teacher stipend program, for a total of $40 million. The program has been oversubscribed in past years.

The increase means some 700 more student teachers and their cooperating teachers will receive stipends next year, according to a statement from the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

The budget also increased funding to the state’s childcare staff retention and recruitment program by $5 million for a total of $30 million.

Budget directs $120 million to K-12 mental health, safety

This year’s budget also includes $120 million for mental health and school safety improvements in K-12 schools. Last year, Shapiro’s administration approved the same amount for this category for school security updates, security personnel training, and mental health resources such as calming spaces inside schools.

Organizations that help prevent gun violence in Philadelphia and statewide will get $62.2 million from the new state budget, a similar amount to what was allocated last year. Violence prevention advocacy groups hailed the move, especially since those and similar efforts face threats on the federal level.

Last year, this funding also supported out-of-school-time activities that help children stay connected to trusted adults and reduce the risk of being exposed to violence.

The Shapiro administration credits the investment for a 35% decrease in homicides and a 40% decrease in firearm-related crimes statewide, according to Uniform Crime Reporting data cited on the state’s website.

Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that affect students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.

Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s how education spending is affecting Pennsylvania’s state budget negotiations

2026-06-30T19:33:49+00:00

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for their free newsletters.

Gov. Josh Shapiro wants to include $565 million in this year’s budget to continue closing an “adequacy gap” among public schools as his fellow Democrats push a proposal to overhaul tax-credit programs that fund private school scholarships.

Republicans who control the state Senate have pushed back, calling for changes to the formula adopted two years ago to rectify the funding disparity and for an expansion of the scholarships.

While a dispute over education funding contributed to a months-long budget impasse a few years ago, one key lawmaker thinks the issue won’t be much of a sticking point, in part because lawmakers in the divided state Legislature are pursuing a less ambitious agenda.

“Last year’s education code bill was extremely dense and had a lot of things in it that we were extremely proud of,” said state Rep. Pete Schweyer, a Democrat, who chairs the House Education Committee, referencing additional oversight of cyber charter schools and a reduction in the money districts pay them.

“This year, I don’t think it’s gonna be quite as robust, but I don’t necessarily think it has to be.”

The state budget, negotiated behind closed doors by the governor’s staff and top lawmakers, is due June 30. While the major players have offered few details about negotiations publicly, they have all sounded optimistic they will avoid a prolonged impasse. Still, there remain differences of opinion, primarily on overall spending.

Some Republican lawmakers oppose the ‘adequacy gap’ formula

Looming over all discussions about education is a 2023 ruling in which a state court found Pennsylvania’s school funding approach to be unconstitutionally inequitable and ordered lawmakers to fix it.

In response, the legislature in 2024 adopted a state budget that acknowledged a $4.5 billion “adequacy” gap and instituted a formula that uses factors such as poverty and level of English proficiency to decide how much additional money a district should receive. Lawmakers have so far appropriated more than $1 billion to close the gap.

Shapiro proposed an additional $565 million for underfunded schools this year, and state House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, a Democrat, told Spotlight PA this month that passing that boost is among his “priorities.” Shapiro also pitched $50 million increases to basic education and special education funding.

But for many Republicans, the adequacy formula has become an issue. State Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, a Republican, told Spotlight PA in early June that his caucus does not support it and that it should be reevaluated: “We view that formula as picking winners and losers.”

Schweyer said any significant changes to the formula this year would likely “elicit some sort of response from the litigants.”

Hillary Linardopoulos, policy director at the Education Law Center, one of the groups that brought the original school funding lawsuit against the state, declined to comment on the possibility of litigation should lawmakers approve a spending plan advocates deem inadequate.

ELC and other public education advocacy groups have pushed lawmakers to adopt a firm funding timeline, rather than renegotiating an adequacy payment every year. The legislature hasn’t done that.

Linardopoulos said she thinks the General Assembly should accelerate its funding, but the advocates recognize that rectifying the “decades-long injustice” takes time.

“The court’s mandate is clear, and we intend to ensure that it’s properly implemented so that kids can thrive,” Linardopoulos said.

The budget is negotiated by the governor’s office and top lawmakers from each chamber, and no one close to the talks has publicly commented on their status. Still, some Capitol insiders remain optimistic a deal could be signed as soon as early-to-mid-July. Such predictions have circulated in the past, before deep divides on certain issues spark hostilities.

Possibly the worst example in recent history happened in 2023. That year, the state Senate passed a budget that included $100 million in taxpayer money to fund private school tuition for students in low-performing public districts. Shapiro had been publicly supportive of a voucher program during his campaign, but — facing pressure from fellow Democrats — vetoed that part of the budget. That decision remains a point of tension in his relationship with GOP leaders.

With a multibillion-dollar gap expected between the state’s revenue and its expenditures, lawmakers will likely need to tap the state’s rainy day fund to offset rising costs, like education. State House Appropriations Chair Jordan Harris, a Democrat, said the public will understand.

“We know that there is a significant cost to carry with public education, as well as we know what the court has required us to do,” Harris told reporters in mid-June. “These are things that must happen.”

Democrats want more oversight of private school scholarships

Pennsylvania has for decades run programs that provide tax breaks to businesses and individuals that contribute money to educational nonprofit organizations, which then pay for students to attend private schools.

The Educational Improvement and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit programs have grown steadily, and the amount allocated for scholarships is currently capped at $575 million.

Last week, state Senate Republicans passed a budget-enabling tax code bill that makes several tax cuts and expands EITC by $25 million. Pittman said in an interview with WCCS Radio in Indiana County that the move was “very important for empowering parents.”

The state House, meanwhile, has passed a bill that would overhaul these tax credits and replace them with a program that its supporters say targets more funding at disadvantaged students and provides more oversight. (The overall level of funding would stay the same.)

According to the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Nikki Rivera, the legislation was inspired by an Independent Fiscal Office report from 2022 that showed the research agency did not have enough information to determine whether the credits “substantially enhance educational opportunities available to all Pennsylvania students.”

At the time, the IFO’s analysts recommended the legislature permit the state to collect student performance and demographic data so that the programs could be meaningfully evaluated.

Rivera’s bill would require the state’s auditor general to conduct compliance audits of scholarship organizations and participating private schools, while the IFO would produce reports studying overarching trends of contributors, scholarship organizations, and recipients.

“It’s the same level of detail that any public school has to provide,” she said.

The Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank, claims those requirements are designed to “intimidate” donors, schools, and parents from participating.

Another point of contention over Rivera’s bill is the proposed 2% administrative fee on contributions to help cover the cost of running the program. Rachel Langan, senior education policy analyst at the Commonwealth Foundation, said the fee would unnecessarily take away money from the organizations’ donations.

Schweyer, the chair of the House Education Committee, said he doesn’t “hate” the tax credit programs. He backed the more thorough reporting requirement legislation, which won support from three House Republicans, to ensure the credits are working most effectively.

“I’m not adversarial to it,” Schweyer said. “I want to expand it where it makes sense, and I want to make sure we have oversight over a massive program.”

State Sen. Lynda Schlegel Culver, chair of her chamber’s Education Committee, declined to comment for this story. Her spokesperson deferred emailed questions to Senate GOP leadership.

The state’s longstanding debate over education tax credits is also being projected onto a much larger stage this year — Shapiro has until Jan. 1 to decide whether to enroll the state in a federal program that works essentially the same way as EITC. It offers individuals up to $1,700 in tax credits for contributions made toward private school scholarships.

Even if the General Assembly passes legislation to opt in, the governor’s administration must provide a list of qualifying scholarship providers before the dollars can be rolled out next year.

More than half of states have enrolled in the program, the Internal Revenue Service reported earlier this month, despite opposition from two unions representing 4.8 million educators nationwide.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick are among the Republicans urging Shapiro to sign the state up.

But the Shapiro administration has not yet made a decision. Last week, after the U.S. Treasury Department released more information regarding the program, Shapiro’s spokesperson Rosie Lapowsky said in an email that officials continue “to evaluate as we await additional information on how this will affect use of our existing tax credits, how states will be expected to administer the program, and how eligibility will be determined.”

Langan told Spotlight PA that Shapiro should enroll in the federal program “as early as possible” because families are beginning to look into school tuition rates for the next semester.

“It would just make it a much smoother rollout if we’re going to eventually opt in to do it before the school year starts,” Langan said.

Spotlight PA’s Stephen Caruso contributed reporting.

BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. This story was funded in part thanks to the support of the Lancaster County Local Journalism Fund. Learn more about how we are supported here.

Half of Philadelphia’s high school graduates opt out of college. Can pre-apprenticeships help them find jobs?

2026-06-25T19:04:29+00:00

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In a rehabbed shipping container in West Philadelphia, Nakiah Walker leaned over her friend’s Chromebook to take a peek at logo ideas.

Walker, 20, was among a group of high school students and recent graduates trying to apply the tips and tricks they’d learned during a semester-long digital marketing program.

She joined the program because she was interested in learning more about marketing. But more than anything, she said she’s glad to have the opportunity to explore different career options.

“They don’t really offer that in school,” said Walker. “In school, they just tell you to get your work done, graduate, then go to college. They don’t really tell you there are other things to pursue, and you can have a career doing things that you actually want.”

The program, launched in 2023 by the Philadelphia nonprofit We Love Philly, is part of a recent statewide effort to expand what’s known as pre-apprenticeships, which provide job training to high school students and recent graduates in a variety of fields. Pre-apprenticeships must be connected to apprenticeships, which are often connected with employers. The idea is that that pipeline can help ensure programs actually connect young people to jobs. But there isn’t comprehensive data yet to show whether that’s working.

Last year in Pennsylvania, there were nearly 150 pre-apprenticeship programs with around 3,200 active participants, according to state data. That’s three times the number of participants compared with two years prior, and a large portion are concentrated in the Philadelphia area. Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed doubling the state’s investment in pre-apprenticeships and other career training programs for students to $7 million next fiscal year.

The investment comes as the number of students in Philly and statewide who opt out of going to college directly after high school has grown. In Philadelphia, around half of high school graduates in the Class of 2025 did not matriculate, according to district data. The rate was slightly higher for Black students like Walker. State officials are backing pre-apprenticeships as a way to help fill high-demand jobs and connect students to career pathways that don’t require a college degree. Still, those pathways remain rare, and college is still the surest bet for expanding economic opportunity. Experts and educators say students need more support for pre-apprenticeships to ultimately lead to real jobs.

“We talk a big game about, ‘You don’t have to go to college,’” said Taylor White, director of the Postsecondary Pathways for Youth program at New America, a think tank. “But there are very, very few other ways, and they’re really inaccessible and hard to find.”

Several other states have worked to expand apprenticeship opportunities for young people in recent years. And studies of some programs show they can help connect youth to careers, especially if students also take coursework in the same area. But the field is still fairly new in most states, said White.

Pennsylvania doesn’t publish any data on pre-apprenticeship participants’ outcomes. A spokesperson for the Department of Labor and Industry said in an email that the department has only recently begun collecting data on pre-apprenticeships “so the information we have at this stage is still somewhat incomplete and is not yet ready to share with confidence.”

Patricia Blumenauer, deputy secretary for workforce development at the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry, said the pre-apprenticeships goal is broad: connect more young people with industries looking to fill jobs and help them get relevant skills. Even if a student doesn’t continue in their pre-apprenticeship field, she said she still sees it as a win if the experience gives a young person a better sense of what they want to do.

“Really getting that experience and making a decision either way for us feels like a success,” Blumenauer said. That’s partly why the state wants to keep expanding pre-apprenticeship opportunities and get more employers on board to work with young people, she said.

Officials push pre-apprenticeships as a college alternative

When Walker graduated high school in 2024, she felt stumped about what to do next.

She thought about going to college, but didn’t want to pay for it before she knew what she wanted to study. But coming up with another long-term plan for her future felt impossible, she said.

After graduation, she spent a year working a mix of jobs. Then she got a call from someone she considered to be a mentor, telling her about the pre-apprenticeship. She was skeptical at first, and felt that it was risky to leave her job to start the short-term program. But she agreed to check it out.

Soon, Walker was showing up four days a week and earning a stipend of $12 per hour. She built a portfolio and earned a certification from Google in digital marketing. The team at We Love Philly also helped her format a resume and update her LinkedIn profile.

“I was at a point in time when I was stuck, until I got recommended here,” said Walker.

Walker was one of thousands of Philly students in her year who did not go to college the following fall. Of those who matriculated, around one-quarter dropped out after a year.

Research shows going to college remains the surest way for young people to access economic opportunities and move out of poverty.

At the same time, members of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration have repeated that alternatives to college — like military training, apprenticeships, and trade school — are valuable options for Pennsylvania’s young people.

“We need to respect each and every pathway the same,” Shapiro said at a rally earlier this year as part of his reelection campaign.

Blumenauer said many Pennsylvania students are looking for options other than college, even if they understand the relative value of higher education. She hopes pre-apprenticeships will help those students and help fill jobs in the state.

“We are constantly hearing from businesses that they are concerned about the future and where their pipeline of workers going forward is going to come from,” said Blumenauer.

Participants in the cybersecurity pre-apprenticeship program at We Love Philly learn coding skills that could lead to a job after the program.

Still, it’s unclear if the approach is working. Many states, including Pennsylvania, have set their own definitions of what an apprenticeship for young people should look like and standards for what it should accomplish. Data on outcomes of students after they leave the programs is also hard to come by.

The tension between college and careers comes up frequently in Philadelphia. Even groups working on helping students access college say they see lots of value in expanding career-oriented opportunities.

But some worry the push for career-related opportunities has eclipsed support for kids looking to go to college. Farah Jimenez, CEO of the Philadelphia Education Fund, which works with Philly high schoolers to access college and career training, said it’s useful to expose young people to different careers. But she worries the emphasis on career-related paths perpetuates the belief that college is expensive, likely to result in debt, and out of reach for many.

The question kids hear all the time now, she said, is: “Why would you go to college?”

Pre-apprenticeships provide job training, but no job guarantee

After Walker finished her pre-apprenticeship in digital marketing, she said she was hopeful and excited about what might come next for her professionally. She felt her resume, experience, and credentials would help her get noticed by employers, and she’s been able to find work since the program ended.

But that work isn’t in digital marketing. These days, she’s working at a hospital and considering applying for college in a year or two. She still isn’t sure if she wants to go into marketing, but in her free time, she enjoys using some of the skills she learned to help friends design websites and is preparing to launch her own jewelry business.

“It’s not just like we’re learning a skill — it’s also like we’re learning other things that goes into being an adult, being a good worker and just having and maintaining a career,” she said.

Josiah Miller, another recent pre-apprentice at We Love Philly, participated in the organization’s cybersecurity training program. He learned about and got into a paid two-year program to train recent graduates for tech-related jobs. He now plans to go into tech, and he attributes that to his time in the pre-apprenticeship.

His pre-apprenticeship motivated him “to learn new skills, put myself out there more,” Miller said.

At We Love Philly, directing students to jobs isn’t the only goal. The organization dedicates a portion of each day to social-emotional learning to help students build trust and prepare for the professional world.

“We have to create an environment where they want to be and are comfortable enough to take risks without feeling embarrassed or angry because, you know, they messed up or didn’t do something right,” said Cory Zoblin, who runs the cybersecurity pre-apprenticeship.

As with schools, workforce training programs can’t provide all the answers, Zoblin said. “But they can make learning and curiosity more integral, so that kids want to keep going.”

Students across Pennsylvania step up on Election Day to keep democracy working

2026-06-05T18:52:21+00:00

This story was originally published by Votebeat. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

If you’ve voted in person in Pennsylvania recently, you may have noticed that one of the poll workers checking you in was a high school student. And if you ask one of them why they wanted to be a poll worker, most will give a similar answer.

“My school was offering it, and I thought it would be a good piece of money,” explained Aiden Martinez, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School in Philadelphia.

Aiden Martinez, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School stands for a portrait at the state capitol after winning one of the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards in Harrisburg, Pa. on May 27, 2026.

But, once the allure of a paycheck and a day off school has faded away, they’ll tell you something else as well: They enjoy getting to see the voting process up close.

“I kept going back afterward because it was interesting to see everyone in my community … and how seriously they took voting,” Martinez said. “It kind of inspired me to come back, and for my last year that I worked there, I voted too.”

In Pennsylvania, 17-year-olds are eligible to be poll workers, and each year high school students staff voting sites across the state. And they’re not just stuck in corners or being sent to fetch coffee, either; they are meaningfully involved in running the polls.

Advocates of the practice say it both helps counties fill a staffing gap and gives students valuable life experience.

In Lebanon County, student poll workers have become an integral part of the county’s Election Day workforce. During the May 2026 primary, students made up 13% of all poll workers, and Jamie Shoemaker, the county’s poll worker coordinator, said she’s trying to increase that number.

Shoemaker had hands-on experience with the program before taking it over full time. Shoemaker was a pollworker in her mother’s precinct before joining the county elections office, and one year her own high school aged daughter helped out as well. Her daughter, she said, ended up enjoying the experience.

That was in 2019, when Lebanon County was mainly working with Lebanon High School to find students to work the polls. But after Shoemaker began working at the county elections department full time, she expanded the program to other high schools in the area. The county now averages about 50 to 55 student poll workers each election.

Kayla Marshall, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School, stands for a portrait at the state capitol after winning one of the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards.

Jeannetta Dormil, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School stands for a portrait at the state capitol after winning one of the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards.

Andrew Abreu, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School stands for a portrait at the state capitol after winning one of the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards.

Aiden Martinez, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School stands for a portrait at the state capitol after winning one of the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards.

Tanicha Cadesca, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School walks throug a hallway during a portrait at the state capitol after winning one of the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards in Harrisburg.

Rebecca Torres, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School sits for a portrait at the state capitol after winning one of the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards.

Rubiel Gutierrez, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School sits for a portrait at the state capitol after winning one of the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards.

Shane Hannigan, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School stands for a portrait at the state capitol after winning one of the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards.

Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt stands alongside students from Franklin Towne Charter High School after they received the Governor’s Civic Engagement Award.

The students do all types of jobs in the polling place, from checking voters in to keeping track of turnout and helping voters feed their ballots into tabulation machines.

Many non-student poll workers in Lebanon — and nationally — skew older. And as elections become more technologically integrated with devices such as electronic pollbooks, older poll workers sometimes struggle to adapt.

“Having the student there helps bridge that tech gap,” she said. “They can just look at it and know [what the issue is].”

Keith Rolon is the cooperative education teacher at Lebanon High School and manages the school’s student poll worker program. His goal is to have two students at each of the city’s polling sites, including at least one who is bilingual to help translate for the city’s large Spanish-speaking population.

“For me as a civics teacher, it was important for me to show them voting is important and elections are safe and here’s what goes into them,” he said.

It’s also an opportunity for students to learn valuable life skills like self-advocacy that Rolon said can’t be learned in the classroom. During the primary, as he does every Election Day, he traveled around to all the polling places in the city to check on his students.

At the Lebanon County Senior Center in the city’s 10th ward, he stopped in to see senior Ella Whalen and junior Emely Liriano. Whalen was recording which voters came in on a numbered list, and Liriano was seated next to her checking them in on the polling place’s e-pollbook.

The judge of elections gave Rolon a positive review of their performance so far, and Rolon reminded them it was their responsibility to speak up for themselves when it was time for them to take a break or get lunch.

Whalen and Liriano agreed the money they got from working the polls was nice, but the act of being civically engaged was appealing too. Their parents are politically active, and Whalen said it was good to help out.

It was both Whalen’s and Liriano’s first time working an election, and although turnout was rather low (as usual for a primary), they said they still learned about the voting process.

“It surprised me how quick it was,” Liriano said. “You just go in, you check off the boxes, you put [the ballot] in the thing, and then you leave. I didn’t even know there was a machine that you just put your ballots in.”

Students from Franklin Towne Charter High School walk out before receiving the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. on May 27, 2026.

Diane Gordian, the civic engagement and language access engagement coordinator for the Pennsylvania Department of State, helps organize student poll worker programs across Pennsylvania. She said a benefit of the programs is that they help students, and importantly also their families, build habits of democratic engagement.

“Those students come home and say, ‘Hey Mom and Dad, I want to do this,’ and that gets those parents motivated, not only to register to vote, but they sign up to be poll workers,” she said.

Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt hands one of the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards, to a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. on May 27, 2026.

The state is still tallying numbers from the primary, but Gordian said she expects this year to have the highest-ever rate of students serving as poll workers.

Each year, the state honors certain students and their schools with the Governor’s Civic Engagement Award for registering eligible student voters and for working as poll workers.

Martinez, from Franklin Towne Charter High School, was one of the 633 students who received that award this year, and he and eight of his peers recently spoke about their experiences at a press conference with Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt.

Kayla Marshall, another student at Franklin Towne Charter, said the poll worker programs give students a chance to actually experience civic engagement rather than just hearing about it “in a PowerPoint at 8 in the morning while trying not to fall asleep.” Marshall worked the polls in three elections starting in November 2024.

Kayla Marshall delivers remarks on the Governor’s Civic Engagement Awards, alongside fellow students from Franklin Towne Charter High School at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. on May 27, 2026.

“Working the polls taught me more than just how elections work,” she said. “It taught me responsibility, teamwork, patience, and the importance of giving back. It also showed me that young people don’t have to wait until ‘someday’ to make a difference.”

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

How dubious high school credentials like ladder safety are boosting Pennsylvania’s graduation rate

2026-04-09T18:39:08+00:00

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When Pennsylvania introduced new graduation requirements four years ago, lawmakers said there would be options for students who struggled with standardized tests to show they were ready for college or careers.

Monica Hawk, CEO of Philadelphia’s One Bright Ray Community High School, understood the aim. But in her role running six accelerated high schools, she also had concerns. Some of her students were months or years behind in school before returning to get their diplomas. Few could pass state tests.

In addition, the new requirements would mean a new bureaucratic headache. And she wouldn’t have more money, staff, or resources earmarked to help.

So Hawk focused her team on a graduation pathway established by the requirements that she called her school’s “fail-safe plan.” Students still have to pass their main classes. But the pathway’s additional requirements have nothing to do with academic achievement.

Instead, it hinges on students presenting three pieces of “evidence” that they’re ready to graduate from a state-approved list. In practice, it means a student can take a couple of quick online courses to earn a few industry-recognized credentials, count those as evidence, and then be dubbed graduation-ready. This pathway has quickly become the most common way Philadelphia students are graduating.

Since the state introduced the “evidence-based” pathway as part of its graduation overhaul, starting with the Class of 2023, graduation rates have improved. But at the same time, high school students’ scores on state math and reading tests have declined. And educators who spoke with Chalkbeat said they’re seeing a troubling trend: Students are getting low-value credentials just to check off requirements, especially in schools with large shares of high-needs students and resource-poor districts.

“Credentials are often the tail that wags the dog,” said Adriana Harrington, managing director of policy at ExcelinEd, a nonprofit that has compiled nationwide data on credentials. “Folks will decide what (career and technical education) programs they want to offer by which credential they think they can get a student to pass.”

Educators did say they appreciated that students who may be poor test takers have another path to graduation, unlike other states where passing state tests is required. And they were glad more students were graduating. A high school diploma means more opportunities and better pay on average.

Still, they worry that schools are incentivized to push students to earn these credentials by state and district officials who want to see graduation rates continue to rise. Many of those credentials — like a popular one in ladder safety — have little value or relevance to students after graduation.

One Bright Ray Community High School's Elmwood campus on April 8, 2026. All but one of the school's 29 graduates last year used the "evidence-based" pathway to fulfill requirements.

It’s unclear whether students are any better off after they graduate because of these changes. Today, no one at the state or district level is analyzing which credentials students submit to meet graduation requirements. Many of the lawmakers who championed the requirements under a state law called Act 158, including former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, are no longer in office.

Erin James, press secretary at the Pennsylvania Department of Education, said the state works to ensure all graduation pathways are “equally rigorous.” She said students graduating via the evidence-based pathway can use credentials to “step directly into the workforce.”

“A ladder safety credential is not ‘low value’ if the student wants to be a firefighter or is doing an internship with a roofer. It may actually be required for that student’s job,” James said.

Philadelphia district leaders said they were not focused on analyzing credentials students use to fulfill requirements.

Adam Zeiser, principal of One Bright Ray’s Elmwood campus in Southwest Philadelphia, was blunt about the typical value of many of the credentials students use to fill the evidence-based pathway’s requirements.

“The short answer is, no, I don’t think they help prepare them for much,” he said. “But I think that we help prepare them, as much as we can.”

Pushing Philadelphia students towards credentials now routine

Since the state’s graduation overhaul, graduation rates have improved every year. Last school year, nearly 90% of Pennsylvania students graduated within four years, up two percentage points over three years.

The evidence-based pathway is one of five options students can use to fulfill graduation requirements. It’s quickly become the most popular one in many Pennsylvania districts.

Statewide, around 20,000 students met the requirements through the evidence-based pathway last school year, equal to around one-fifth of all students in districts where data was available. At some schools, more than three-quarters of students used this pathway to graduate, including at several cyber charter schools.

In Philadelphia, around 40% of all graduates fulfilled requirements via this pathway. At One Bright Ray’s Elmwood campus, all but one of last year’s 29 graduates used the evidence-based pathway, according to district data.

The other pathways largely require students to earn certain scores on standardized tests, or to be enrolled in a specific career and technical education program or pre-apprencticeship.

Several Philadelphia high school educators said that creates a simple problem: Many seniors can’t earn those high scores or access those career and technical education programs. But it’s a virtual guarantee students can pass the evidence-based pathway by submitting easy-to-earn credentials.

Many options for “evidence” can count towards the requirements, including a full-time job offer, a dual-enrollment credit, and an AP or IB score. But by far, the most common kind are industry-recognized credentials. Last year, in districts where data was available, 85% of students statewide who graduated via this pathway submitted at least one credential. Some met the requirements solely by submitting credentials.

Researchers have found some credentials do lead to better paying jobs, but they’re often the ones that are more expensive and difficult to get.

At One Bright Ray, Hawk said schools offer credentials in CPR, workplace safety, mandated-reporter training on how to spot and report suspected child abuse, and ladder-safety training. “If we had a really dedicated student, and they absolutely wanted (something else), we would find a way,” she said.

But for the most part, students don’t know of other options. And even if the school helped out a single persistent student access more costly options, doing so for all students is an expense that One Bright Ray can’t afford, she added.

Teachers at several Philadelphia high schools who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak about the issue publicly described similar challenges with the lack of funding and time.

One district teacher said the pathway system created “a host of work arounds that schools have to go through to get kids to graduate.”

Unlike dedicated career-and-technical education programs, for example, standard high schools don’t get money specifically to spend on credentials.

That’s part of why the ladder safety credential — a free, two-hour online course — is so popular, teachers said.

But even though many students take the ladder-safety course, teachers said they’ve had trouble persuading students that the course is truly worthwhile. How do you convince a teen who wants to be a cosmetologist, for example, that ladder safety will be a key step towards that goal?

Pennsylvania does not appear to be studying whether the new pathways have benefitted students, or if more credentials mean better outcomes for graduates. Philadelphia school district officials said they’re not tracking long-term data about the credentials students use to fill graduation requirements.

“I couldn’t answer why a certain school would give them ladder safety, if it’s not linked (to their interests),” said Michelle Armstrong, the district’s director of career and technical education. “But our advice has always been: the certification that you offer young people, try to align to their interest.”

Armstrong said the Philadelphia district consults with industry experts to determine which credentials to offer. For students in career and technical education programs, the district has spent decades ensuring students get credentials that are useful and pays for all of them.

But for students not in those programs, Armstrong said she’s not focused on monitoring which credentials students get. The district leaves that responsibility up to individual schools.

Graduation requirements create unequal burden for Pennsylvania schools

While thousands of Philadelphia students earned credentials to meet graduation requirements last year, they’re not dispersed evenly across the city.

At the city’s most-selective high schools, like Central and Masterman, nearly every student does well enough on state tests to use their scores to meet graduation requirements through test-related pathways.

But for schools where most students do not pass the tests, the alternative graduation requirements require hours of staff time to manage, explain to students, and track.

District data shows that at schools like Strawberry Mansion and Vaux Big Picture, more than three-quarters of students used the evidence-based pathway to fill graduation requirements last year.

State data obtained by Chalkbeat shows a similar trend. In some of the state’s highest poverty districts, like Chester-Upland and York City, the vast majority of students graduated last year via the evidence-based pathway. The majority of those students counted credentials towards the requirements.

But in some districts in Philadelphia’s wealthy suburbs, like Radnor Township and Upper St. Clair, almost no students graduate via the pathway.

Philadelphia teachers at non-selective high schools said the new requirements amount to an additional burden on schools and teachers who are already spread thin.

Some Philadelphia teachers said students get credentials in CPR to meet graduation requirements.

One charter school teacher said many students at his school make up failed courses through quick online credit-recovery programs that experts say are often suspect. Then, those students fulfill Act 158 requirements through additional and easy online modules.

It troubled him that students could get their diploma without meeting any academic standards the school set for them.

“I feel like we’re kind of just saying, you don’t have to learn anything to graduate,” he said.

But others said they saw some value in the new graduation requirements.

One district high school teacher said the requirements meant teachers at least had conversations with students about their plans. And he’s seen that earning credentials can boost students’ confidence.

He wished his school could offer students more mentorship programs and pre-apprenticeship opportunities.

“The idea of some of this is useful,” he said. “But they don’t always set a student up for their own pathway.”

Pressure is acute on high school students close to graduation

It’s not just Pennsylvania dealing with this issue, experts say. Across the country, the number of students earning credentials during high school has shot up as local and federal legislation supports training students for careers.

Studies of workplace credentials have found that many don’t result in more opportunities for those who earn them.

In one recent study of Texas students who earned credentials between 2017-2022, the most popular ones, by far, were credentials in Microsoft Word and “floral skills.”

Matt Giani, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the study’s lead researcher, said in an email that the findings show that “the way we’ve designed accountability systems has allowed schools to game the system and pump out short-term, online, open book, low-hanging-fruit certifications.”

Adam Zeiser, principal of One Bright Ray’s Elmwood campus, and Monica Hawk, One Bright Ray Community High School's CEO, say they support students in ways outside the state's graduation pathways to help them access college and careers.

Because Pennsylvania’s requirements are relatively new, it’s likely to be years before school leaders have any sense of whether Act 158 has meant students are more prepared or successful after graduation.

At One Bright Ray, a poster in the hallway of the Elmwood campus explains the different pathways. Staff check in regularly with students about how they’re progressing with the requirements.

But none of that eliminates the pressure to take the easiest route to a diploma.

“There are some students who are right up against graduation, they need one more piece of evidence,” Hawk said. “And they’re like, ‘let me just do ladder safety.’”

Supporters of the new federal school choice tax credit pressure Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro to opt in

2026-03-12T19:44:47+00:00

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School choice advocates and two Philadelphia lawmakers are urging Gov. Josh Shapiro to opt into a federal tax-credit scholarship program that would pay for private school tuition and other education expenses.

But Shapiro is delaying his decision until President Donald Trump’s administration releases rules laying out how much control and accountability states will have over the federal program.

The strategy from Shapiro and other Democratic governors to put off making a yes-or-no decision on the tax credits reflects the barrage of political pressures they are facing.

Supporters of the tax credit say that governors who spurn the program are simply losing out on funding that will go to other states, instead of helping their students. But embracing a measure backed by the Trump administration that promotes private school choice might clash with the ideological preferences of Democratic officials and many of their voters.

Pennsylvania already authorizes two tax-credit scholarship programs, the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and Educational Improvement Tax Credit. Both give tax breaks to businesses that donate to organizations that provide private school scholarships to students.

But the federal program doesn’t rely on state funding. The new federal tax credit, which passed last summer as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill, would reimburse taxpayers for donations of up to $1,700 annually to scholarship-granting organizations.

The program allows donations to pay for more than just private school tuition. Proponents say those scholarship funds could be put toward tutoring, after-school programs, education technology and other educational expenses for both private and public school students.

But there are still many questions unanswered.

The U.S. Treasury Department is developing rules outlining how much authority states will have over the program. Those rules could spell out how public school students could benefit alongside private school students, or whether states could require that scholarship granting organizations serve only low-income families or prohibit them from discriminating against LGBTQ students and teachers.

The rules could also outline how the federal program may or may not stack with existing state tax-credit scholarships.

A spokesperson for Shapiro said in a statement Thursday his office is “awaiting federal guidance to address key questions about how this program would work, including which students will be eligible, how this federal initiative will interact with existing programs.”

Meanwhile, Democratic and Republican supporters of the tax credit made their case at a press conference Thursday.

“If Pennsylvania does not opt in, residents here can still claim the [tax] credit, but their donations will go to scholarships in other states,” state Rep. Martina White, a Republican who represents parts of Philadelphia, said at a press conference on Thursday. “In other words, Pennsylvania taxpayers will help fund scholarships elsewhere while our students miss out.”

Democratic state Sen. Anthony Williams, who represents Philadelphia, was not in attendance on Thursday, but sent a statement in support of the federal program.

“If Pennsylvania chooses to opt out, then we can say with certainty that the first $1,700 of every single Pennsylvania taxpayer’s federal taxes will leave the state, and it’s going to go to the U.S. Treasury, to the IRS,” Jorge Elorza, CEO of Democrats for Education Reform, said at the press conference. “Who knows what’s going to happen with the money when it gets there?”

But Susan Spicka, executive director of the public education advocacy group Education Voters PA, told Chalkbeat it is “wildly irresponsible for anyone to call for Pennsylvania to opt into the federal voucher program before Treasury issues rules delineating how the program will work.”

Spicka said without those rules, it’s unclear how much it will cost taxpayers for the state to implement and oversee the program.

Without clear accountability measures, Spicka worried the program could open the door “for extraordinary opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Families turn to states for civil rights support as Trump dismantles the Education Department

2026-03-10T16:57:58+00:00

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WASHINGTON (AP) — In their mostly white school district, Black students routinely heard racial slurs. White classmates hurled insults like “slave,” “monkey,” or worse. It often went unpunished.

Parents made those claims in a 2024 complaint asking the U.S. Department of Education to investigate racial bullying at the Pennridge School District in Pennsylvania. They thought their complaint had the power to make things better. Instead, it became one of thousands sitting in a federal office with little hope of gaining attention after layoffs by the Trump administration.

Families say they’ve had nowhere else to turn.

“There was an expectation that something was going to happen,” said Adrienne King, who has two daughters in the district and is president of the NAACP Bucks County chapter. When nothing did, “it’s a very hollow, empty feeling.”

One of the Education Department’s biggest jobs is to police discrimination in America’s schools. But amid mass firings and shifting priorities, that role has waned. In its place, there’s an emerging push for states to step up.

In Pennsylvania, a lawmaker is proposing a new state agency that would investigate schools and uphold students’ civil rights — traditionally the role of the federal government. At the same time, advocates there and in other Democrat-led states are pressing existing state agencies to intervene when students face discrimination based on race, disability, or sex.

The idea carries risk. Pushing the work to the states could create a patchwork of systems with uneven protections. Some worry it will embolden the Trump administration to retreat further on civil rights.

Lawmakers propose more muscular state agencies

Pennsylvania state Sen. Lindsey Williams offered a blunt message last fall when she proposed a new state civil rights office to be modeled after its federal counterpart. “If the federal government won’t stand up for our most vulnerable students, I will,” said Williams, a Democrat.

Her bill, to be introduced this spring, faces long odds in the state’s Republican-controlled Senate. Yet even if it fails there, Williams believes it has potential to become a national model. She’s already heard interest from lawmakers in other states, and similar proposals have been put forward in Maryland and Illinois.

Colorado lawmakers want to help parents who feel ‘ghosted’ by the federal Office for Civil Rights

More immediately, advocates in Pennsylvania are calling for heavier investment in an existing but often overlooked agency. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission already has the power to investigate schools and enforce students’ rights, but it’s rarely used for that end. It’s better known for handling employment disputes, with just 5% of its recent cases involving education.

Kristina Moon, a lawyer at the Education Law Center in Pennsylvania, has started encouraging families to take discrimination complaints to the commission instead of the federal government. She sees it as the next best option for families left in limbo amid federal turmoil.

“It’s incredibly important for students and families to be aware of any other option available to them,” said Moon, who represents families in the Pennridge complaint.

The commission is welcoming complaints that have stalled at the federal level. Yet officials are also realistic about their limitations. The agency has about 100 staff — down from more than 200 in the past — and some question its ability to handle a sharp increase in complaints.

New banners of Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King Jr., and Anne Sullivan hang from the U.S. Department of Education building on March 1, 2026. The department has brought back some laid-off civil rights staff but still faces a backlog of complaints.

The federal Education Department had more than 300 open investigations in Pennsylvania as of January 2025, according to the most recent federal data. Each is a possible candidate to be shifted to the state.

“It would be tough, I’ll be totally honest,” said Desireé Chang, the commission’s education director. “A stark influx would definitely put some weight on our agency. But we would do it because that is what we are charged with doing.”

Civil rights work has slowed under Trump administration

Before President Donald Trump took office last year, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights was already struggling under a heavy caseload. Work has slowed further after sweeping layoffs, which closed entire offices in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and elsewhere. Some remaining staff say time-consuming investigations have become rare as they focus on the quickest complaints.

At the same time, Trump officials have used the office to go after schools that make accommodations for transgender students and athletes, arguing that it discriminates against girls and women.

Trump officials blame the previous administration for leaving a backlog of complaints. Trump officials have brought back some fired employees to help clear cases.

The fallout is being felt across the country. In Maryland, a recently proposed bill would give the state’s Commission on Civil Rights new power to investigate discrimination in schools. The office has long handled discrimination cases in areas like housing and employment, but students don’t have a comparable option to file complaints.

At a hearing last week, officials at the commission supported the bill and said they can no longer rely on the federal government to defend students’ rights.

“Offices have been closed, people have been fired, cases are piling up or not even moving — that’s why we sought to step in that gap and provide Maryland students an option,” said Glendora Hughes, general counsel for the commission.

In Massachusetts, advocates are turning attention to an existing office in the state’s education department. State officials say anyone can file a complaint with the Problem Resolution System to address violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or other laws protecting students from discrimination.

“It is imperative that the Office for Civil Rights perform its congressionally mandated duties, rather than leaving states on their own to protect the rights of their students to learn in environments free from discrimination,” the Massachusetts Executive Office of Education said in a statement.

Some legal aid groups are also filling in gaps. The Southern Poverty Law Center is suing a Louisiana school district on behalf of a 10-year-old boy with autism. The suit says the St. Tammany Parish School District illegally cut the boy’s classroom time to just two hours a day starting in 2024, down from a full day. The nonprofit said it’s the kind of case that would have been handled by the federal government in the past.

One of the U.S. Education Department’s most powerful tools is the ability to pull federal funding from schools that violate civil rights laws. Facing that threat, schools usually have agreed to make changes when pressed by the agency.

Proposals at the state level have varying enforcement powers. Some would allow states to mediate disputes between families and schools and to issue legal orders. By contrast, a newly created Office of Civil Rights in California primarily aims to provide anti-discrimination guidance and training to local schools.

In Pennridge, families are weighing their next steps. King said she has little hope in the federal complaint, and the bullying hasn’t stopped. Her daughters still hear racial slurs at school, and students make insensitive comments about their hair. She wonders how it will all shape her daughters’ lives.

“I feel as though my girls have normalized a lot of this, but for the sake of survival — middle school is hard,” she said. “You just want to be like everybody else.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Pennsylvania’s teaching workforce is in trouble. ‘Strategic staffing’ could change that.

2026-02-23T22:41:50+00:00

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Teaching in Pennsylvania is at a breaking point, according to a new report.

The rate of educator attrition is rising, turnover is disproportionately impacting urban and rural districts, and on the ground teachers are reporting feeling burnt out, overworked, and underprepared.

All of this creates an inhospitable environment for student learning, according to new research from PA Needs Teachers, a statewide coalition led by the Teach Plus advocacy group and the National Center on Education and the Economy.

Their solution is to radically reimagine what it means to teach in Pennsylvania schools. The report’s authors, including Philly teacher Trey Smith, are proposing shifting from a traditional one-teacher-in-front-of-one-classroom approach to something that’s more collaborative that would help students as well as educators.

In the various models they propose, small groups of educators and support staff work together to schedule, plan lessons, give constructive feedback on their teaching, and help each other grow.

New teachers would receive mentorship and guidance, experienced teachers would be compensated and recognized in their schools, and paraprofessionals and tutors would pay extra attention to struggling students.

In practice, a group of 100 students may share a team of six educators who get guidance and support from a “lead teacher.” That would replace a model, for example, of four teachers each responsible for their own separate classroom of 25 students with little feedback on their individual teaching styles.

The report authors call it “strategic staffing.” Smith thinks of it as a teaching team. And schools in Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia, are primed for this sort of innovation.

“I really want us to think about, how are we honestly accounting for what teachers know and how they can grow?” said Smith, who teaches at Marian Anderson Neighborhood Academy in Southwest Center City. “Teachers are not all the same, so whatever system we design, we can’t treat teachers like widgets or cogs in a big machine.”

Smith said any new teaching model has to “maximize the talent we have,” including teachers with varying levels of experience and classroom management skills.

New teachers with the least classroom experience are often given the most challenging school assignments. Black or Hispanic students and those from low-income families are therefore the least likely to receive the most experienced, qualified teachers in Pennsylvania.

And Philly, which employs less than 20% of the state’s teachers, accounts for 30% of statewide attrition, according to the report.

As a digital literacy teacher, Smith is a specialist. That means when other teachers need coverage, either because they’re absent or trying to find time to plan ahead, he’s often the first to get the call to step in. But what he said he really wants is to be in constant conversation with other teachers to game-plan and get creative about ways lessons can interlock and students can engage with the same ideas across multiple subjects.

“I have no collaborative planning time with my colleagues and my grades because I’m their coverage,” Smith said.

Doylestown middle school teacher Jill Weller-Reilly, another co-author of the report, said if the state wants teachers to stay in the field, schools need to provide educators with opportunities to grow and advance in their careers.

“We don’t lose new teachers because they can’t do the job. We lose them because we don’t help them learn how and set them up for success,” Weller-Reilly said.

According to Teach Plus polling from 2025, 70% of educators nationwide said they “definitely” or “probably” would want their school to adopt such an approach.

The report authors note there are no state-level limits on class size at the K-12 level, and the state does not mandate a specific student-to-teacher ratio. As a local control state, Pennsylvania school districts have a fair amount of autonomy for things like budgeting, teacher time, and compensation. Those factors could make “strategic staffing” easier to implement.

However, union negotiations and limited district resources do mean districts like Philly would have to get buy-in from multiple parties to launch a strategic staffing model.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg signaled some interest in the idea, saying in an email to Chalkbeat that “districts including ours must be more innovative with resource allocation to improve hiring, retention, and professional support.”

But change can be notoriously hard for educators, administrators, and school communities. And the report’s proposal comes with a cost.

While most strategic staffing models are intended to be budget-neutral after schools have gone through the design process, the Teach Plus advocates said, there are significant up-front costs to getting one of these models off the ground.

Teach Plus wants state lawmakers to establish a grant program and a way to evaluate the effectiveness of Pennsylvania’s programs alongside similar models like North Carolina’s Advanced Teaching Roles program. State evaluations of the North Carolina program are beginning to show promise, with some data demonstrating it helped improve students’ math and science scores and teachers’ perceptions of their jobs. North Carolina’s program costs about $16.5 million to run annually in 17 districts.

Another major hurdle to establishing strategic staffing in classrooms is simple exhaustion with new initiatives. Philadelphia, like other major city school districts, has experimented with innovative teaching and learning models in the past, only to have them fade away or lose funding and attention.

But Smith said if the changes are born from the bottom up, and truly take educators’ ideas into consideration, it could make Philly a prized destination for future teachers.

“I still am hopeful if the approach is such that it really honors what teachers know and think, that’s how the model can work,” he said.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania is getting closer to passing a bell-to-bell cellphone ban

2026-02-05T19:30:30+00:00

This story was originally published by The Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

Legislation that would mandate a universal bell-to-bell cellphone ban in public and private schools across Pennsylvania now heads to the House after getting the nod from senators.

A bipartisan group of senators petitioned their colleagues Wednesday to move the proposal, noting that Gov. Josh Shapiro has already endorsed the idea.

“We are spending nearly $12 billion here in Pennsylvania on K-12 education this year alone, but we’ll be flushing it down the drain if we can’t recapture our students’ attention,” said sponsor Sen. Devlin Robinson. “Our schools are for learning, and our kids need a break from these devices.”

In particular, lawmakers shared concerns about the addictive nature of smartphones and how they disrupt learning in the classroom. Sponsors pointed to numerous studies linking cellphone use with poor mental health and worse academic performance.

Combining a pocket-sized handheld computer with addictive apps creates “the perfect storm … not just for kids, but frankly for adults too,” said Sen. Steven Santarsiero, a cosponsor.

“Kids actually have to be able to pay attention in class, to absorb what’s happening,” said the former teacher. “But more than that … those hours, the minutes between classes and the time spent in recess or in the cafeteria at lunch, that’s time when young people need to be talking to each other. They need to be having those relationships.

“Saying, ‘From bell to bell, you’re not using (a phone),’ is what will enable them to do that,” he added.

Proposed ban includes exceptions for students with disabilities

Some early pushback came from parents, including legislators, worried about contacting their children during an emergency, such as a school shooting.

Santarsiero shared a story from 17 years ago during a 90-minute school lockdown, back when students started using flip phones. As it stretched on, kids texted each other rumors, convinced that a gunman was roaming the halls.

“Kids were understandably becoming hysterical, and it made my job in keeping them calm and quiet much more difficult,” he said. “It turns out that the lockdown happened because there was a burglary a couple blocks away … there was never anyone inside the school who had a gun.”

“From my personal experience, these things are not helpful in those circumstances; they are an impediment,” Santarsiero continued.

In a November hearing, school safety experts echoed the need for students to listen to their teachers and school officials in emergencies — and not be distracted by their cellphone.

The bill does include exceptions for students with individualized learning programs or other medical needs. Teachers can also request to incorporate the devices into a lesson plan with administrative support.

Over three dozen states and Washington, D.C. have enacted statewide phone restrictions for students, including 18 with full-day bans or other comprehensive prohibitions.

Senate Bill 1014 advanced on a 46-1 vote over the opposition of Sen. Dawn Keefer. In a December committee, Keefer hesitated to support a one-size-fits-all approach, noting maturity differences between middle grades and high school, and pushed for schools to adopt their own policies.

Kelly Marsh, a mother of three outside of Pittsburgh, is one of the leaders of parent-led PA Unplugged pushing for the law. She called it the “gold standard,” noting the increasing amount of time students report spending on their phones during the school day.

“Teachers, kids, and parents have been tasked with managing the unmanageable. It’s time to recognize that our current approach isn’t working,” said Marsh. “This type of legislation is an important first step for a much-needed cultural change.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro proposes $151 million funding boost for Philadelphia schools

2026-02-03T20:59:56+00:00

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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s newly proposed budget would add $151 million more for Philadelphia schools and increase public school funding statewide by more than $660 million.

The Philadelphia school district would get a total of $2.2 billion in general funding under the new proposal, including money for basic education and special education, and funds meant to go to the state’s highest needs school districts.

Shapiro is also seeking $420 million for publicly funded pre-K programs, $158 million for career and technical education programs, and $35 million for the popular student teacher stipend program.

Speaking at the state Capitol Tuesday, Shapiro said the new proposal follows his administration’s promise to make school funding statewide more fair after a judge ruled in 2023 that the state’s previous school funding formula was unconstitutional.

“We’ve invested a record amount of money in public education, and created a brand-new formula that drives that money out to the schools that need it most,” Shapiro said.

But the proposal still leaves poor school districts, including Philadelphia’s, underfunded and leaves out funding advocates say is essential for some education programs.

In addition, Shapiro is calling for further reform to how school districts fund cyber charter schools. In last year’s budget, lawmakers reduced the amount districts had to reimburse cyber charter schools compared with brick-and-mortar schools. That change was estimated to save school districts at least $178 million statewide.

The new proposal would allow school districts to write off more of the money they used to send to cyber charters and creates new limits on how cyber charter schools calculate tuition rates. It’s estimated to save an additional $75 million for districts.

Shapiro called for several changes to statewide education law in his address. He called on lawmakers to move forward with legislation that would ban cell phones use for kids while they are in school. And he said he has directed members of his administration to explore legal options to require the developers of AI chatbots to require age verification and parental consent.

Shapiro also said he has directed the State Board of Education to develop recommendations for schools to guarantee recess for all students.

The spending plan comes at a crucial time for Philly schools. Superintendent Tony Watlington last month released a wide-ranging facilities plan that would downsize the district, close 20 schools, merge others, and renovate some buildings. But even with Shapiro’s proposed funding boost, the district would still need to find more government and grant funding to pay for the $2.8 billion facilities plan.

Philadelphia is in a unique and difficult funding position. It’s the only school district in the state that cannot raise its own revenue and, as such, 99% of its operating budget is controlled by state and city officials.

Mayor Cherelle Parker in 2024 increased the district’s share of city property taxes from 55% to 56% in the 2025 budget, which her office claimed would send an additional $250 million to the city’s schools through 2030. Parker said she would increase that percent again in 2030, but her four-year term concludes in 2027. There’s no guarantee that a 2030 increase would materialize.

Still, the district is staring down a multimillion annual deficit. And Shapiro’s proposed increase is not a done deal. The state Legislature will deliberate and must offer its own spending plan by July 1. Last year, the final budget arrived four months overdue, forcing school districts to take out millions in loans.

Shapiro’s proposal leaves districts underfunded by more than $3 billion

Many education advocates welcomed the increased investment in education and said they would urge state lawmakers to support the proposed boost to school funding.

“The governor is making good on his commitment to fully fund our public schools and bring real opportunity to kids in Pennsylvania,” said Laura Boyce, Pennsylvania executive director of Teach Plus. “We will be fighting alongside him to ensure these commitments are passed into law in this year’s budget.”

Still, Pennsylvania schools remain underfunded by more than $3 billion compared with what they should get under the state’s adequacy formula, which was developed by a bipartisan commission to determine how much money schools need to operate. Some groups also worry the proposal leaves some education mandates unfunded.

Last year’s budget, for example, created new requirements for all districts to use evidence-based reading curriculums and implement new literacy training for teachers. But the new budget proposal does not include more funding for early literacy initiatives. The Pennsylvania Literacy Coalition, which has advocated for increased early literacy support, has called on state lawmakers to invest $50 million in those initiatives.

“In recent years, our commonwealth has taken important steps forward, but there is more work to be done,” said Pennsylvania Literacy Coalition leader Rachael Garnick. “We must meet this moment with the urgency, leadership, and sustained investment required to ensure that no child’s future is determined by whether the system was prepared to teach them to read.”

Some advocates also say the student teacher stipend program needs more money to effectively address the state’s severe teacher shortage. Though this proposal boosts funding for the program by $5 million, Lenny Sweeney, a leader with the group PA Needs Teachers, said in a statement the program needs further investment to meet the need.

The group is calling for state legislators to commit $40 million toward the program. “It is a practical, cost-effective, bipartisan strategy to rebuild Pennsylvania’s educator pipeline, bolster local economies, and support student success across the commonwealth,” Sweeney said.

Shapiro, who is broadly rumored to be seeking a presidential bid in 2028, took several hits at the Trump administration during his address, including its move to freeze some federal education funds last year. He also highlighted statewide gains since he took office, including improved statewide attendance and graduation rates.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

More Philadelphia students are graduating without passing state exams, new data shows

2026-01-12T19:37:10+00:00

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In the three years since Pennsylvania overhauled its high school graduation requirements, Philadelphia students have increasingly graduated without passing state exams.

Instead, students last year were most likely to graduate by fulfilling alternate requirements, according to new district data.

All students still must earn a certain number of course credits. But they can meet additional graduation requirements by being accepted into a four-year college, earning a certain score on career and technical education exams or SATs, and showing “evidence” that they’re prepared for college or jobs, among other options.

The change has been fast. The Class of 2023 was the first to graduate via the new system. Since then, the portion of Philly students who graduated by meeting certain score thresholds for their state exams dropped from more than 50% to around a third.

Tell us about your experience with Pennsylvania's graduation requirements

But lawmakers and state officials have published little follow-up that examines whether the shift has left young Pennsylvanians more or less prepared for their futures.

Pennsylvania Department of Education spokesperson Erin James said in a statement that it is “difficult to correlate graduation pathways with other postsecondary metrics” because it is hard to track students after high school. Researchers partnering with the district in Philadelphia say understanding the impact of the new system in the city will likely take years.

Since the switch, one alternative pathway to graduation has ballooned in popularity: submitting industry-recognized credentials. That’s a broad term used to describe certifications that are sought after by certain sectors, like medical assistant credentials, emergency first aid certifications, and auto mechanic qualifications.

Last school year, more than 3,400 Philly students — around 40% of those who had completed enough credits that made them eligible to graduate — submitted at least one industry-recognized credential to graduate. Some submitted them exclusively.

Neither the district nor the state publish a list of which credentials students are using to fulfill this requirement.

When then-Gov. Tom Wolf signed the new graduation requirements into law in 2018, he said in a statement that the aim was to give students “several options to demonstrate what they’ve learned and that they’re ready to graduate from high school to start a career or continue their education.”

The move permanently did away with the legislature’s previous plan to make passing the Keystones a requirement to graduate.

“How a student does on high stakes tests is not a useful way to decide if someone is ready to graduate from high school,” Wolf said at the time.

Yet amid the booming number of students earning industry-recognized credentials in Philadelphia and nationwide, some researchers worry that there isn’t enough evidence that they’re all useful.

“It’s great to have an alternative option, because there just are going to be some kids who aren’t going to go to college,” said Jay Plasman, a professor at The Ohio State University who has studied how earning credentials affects student outcomes. “The problem is not all credentials are created equally.”

Earning credentials is part of what’s called the “evidence-based” pathway to graduation. It requires students to submit three pieces of “evidence” from a pre-approved state list. Credentials count as evidence, as does being accepted into a two-year college; attaining a guarantee of full-time employment; earning a college-level course credit; achieving certain AP, IB, or SAT scores; and other options.

There are a total of 12 evidence options. Submitting credentials is the most popular one by far.

The state’s list of recommended credentials includes everything from certifications for barbers and child care workers to credentials related to Microsoft Office and ladder safety. Experts warn it’s important that states carefully review credentials to ensure they’re valuable to students and can lead to good jobs.

Philadelphia offers credentials from a subset of the state’s list, along with additional options based on student interest and industry recommendations for students graduating via the “evidence-based” pathway, according to district Executive Director of Career and Technical Education Michelle Armstrong.

It’s unclear which credentials are most popular among students, given the lack of public data about them.

The district’s graduation rate has risen in recent years, with more than 77% of students graduating within four years in the 2023-24 school year, the most recent year of data available.

Obtaining a high school diploma is valuable, and researchers have found that those who graduate high school are likely to earn more and live longer than those without.

But the increase comes as Philly students’ achievement on some state exams has fallen or remained largely unchanged. Last year, only around a third of Philly students achieved proficient scores on the state literature Keystone. Even fewer achieved proficient scores in algebra and biology.

Alyn Turner, co-director of the Philadelphia Education Research Consortium, which partners with the district, said her team is working to analyze which pathways students are accessing and what evidence they’re using to fulfill requirements. But she said the larger question of whether students are more prepared for jobs or college is still unknown.

“The extent to which this policy is supportive of that, or adding additional barriers to that, we just don’t know,” Turner said.

As more students in Philadelphia and statewide graduate without passing state tests, instead earning credentials or fulfilling alternate graduation requirements, Chalkbeat wants to hear from you: tell us about your experience with the state’s new approach to graduation.

We need your help reporting on how students, families, and teachers have experienced the new graduation requirements. And we want to understand how students graduating by earning credentials or fulfilling alternate requirements are faring during their final years of high school and after they leave.

Help us by filling out this survey.

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Pennsylvania will require schools to use evidence-based reading curriculum

2025-11-13T16:57:55+00:00

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Pennsylvania will require schools to adopt evidence-based reading curriculum by the 2027-28 school year and institute new literacy instruction training for teachers.

The new requirements come as part of the state’s 2025-26 budget, which Gov. Josh Shapiro signed into law Wednesday, four months past the budget deadline. Literacy instruction and initiatives will get $10 million in the budget. The $50.1 billion budget deal puts $665 million total towards public schools.

Moments before signing the bill, Shapiro said the budget invests in “something known as structured literacy,” referring to an approach to reading instruction that includes teaching students phonics and phonemic awareness, which research supports as effective.

The approach “puts a renewed emphasis on teaching [kids] to read well and training our teachers to teach reading effectively,” Shapiro said.

Last year, national test scores showed only about 1 in 3 Pennsylvania fourth graders could read at a proficient level.

Some Pennsylvania school districts previously used reading curriculums that did not follow research-backed methods. In Philadelphia, the school district implemented an evidence-based curriculum last school year. But the rollout has been rocky. Students’ reading scores dipped after the first year.

The curriculum mandate brings Pennsylvania up to speed with several other states that have passed laws that require literacy instruction to follow the science of reading, a body of research that has found young children need phonics instruction to learn how to read well.

Under the new legislation, districts can choose their own literacy curriculum as long as it follows research-backed best practices. Districts will have to report which curriculum they use beginning this school year.

It also requires schools to provide all teachers with professional development in literacy instruction from an approved state list beginning in the 2027-28 school year.

Schools also will have to screen students in kindergarten through third grade for reading competency three times each year. If schools find students to be behind in certain reading skills, they’ll be required to provide a reading intervention plan with additional support.

Pennsylvania will require schools to report on literacy progress

Along with instructional requirements, the budget bill also creates new accountability measures.

Districts will be required to report on how many teachers have participated in literacy professional development as well as provide annual data on the percentage of students identified as having a reading deficiency. The bill requires the Department of Education to share some of this information publicly.

“These accountability measures are essential,” said Rachael Garnick, manager of the Pennsylvania Literacy Coalition, which supports the new literacy requirements in the budget. “They ensure that every district moves forward on a clear timeline and that the state can monitor progress toward the goal of ensuring every child receives effective reading instruction.”

It’s unclear how districts will interpret the evidence-based curriculum requirement.

Legislation passed last year required the Department of Education to create a state Reading Leadership Council that would publish a list of recommended reading curriculum by June of this year.

But almost immediately after the council published that list, it received swift pushback from advocates, including the Pennsylvania Literacy Coalition, which said in a statement that “it was not high quality, not user-friendly, and not fully aligned with either the letter or spirit of the law.”

Hours later, the Department of Education removed the list of recommended curriculum from its website. It has not shared an updated timeline of when a new list will be available. The Department of Education did not respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment.

Garnick said she and others involved in the Pennsylvania Literacy Coalition, which includes dozens of local education groups, have been pushing the Department of Education to publish a recommended curriculum list that aligns with state standards on evidence-based reading instruction.

But she said even without the updated list, the new requirements are a major step forward for improving literacy instruction in the state.

The language in the budget bill largely mirrors previous legislation that had bipartisan support in the state legislature but hadn’t passed.

What Pennsylvania’s budget deal means for education

2025-11-12T20:52:34+00:00

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Pennsylvania’s new $50.1 billion state budget — four months overdue — includes a $193 million increase for Philadelphia schools, and several accountability reforms for cyber charter schools and districts’ literacy programs.

The budget and accompanying school code bills reduce the amount that school districts pay cyber charters, while also adding stricter reporting requirements for those schools regarding student absenteeism and academic performance. School districts statewide will also have to adopt “evidence-based” reading curriculum by the 2027-28 school year and do more to support struggling readers.

The budget package also includes $25 million for child care teacher recruitment and retention bonuses; a $7.5 million increase for Grow PA, which gives scholarships to aspiring educators; $30 million for student-teacher stipends; a non-punitive push for students to complete their college financial aid forms prior to graduation; and a $50 cap on teacher certification fees.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the budget package Wednesday afternoon, flanked by Rep. Jordan Harris and House Speaker Joanna McClinton, both Democrats who represent Philadelphia.

“This budget builds on the progress we’ve made to be able to deliver better schools and more opportunity for our kids,” Shapiro said.

In an increasingly polarized and combative political environment, Pennsylvania officials cast their budget agreement Wednesday as a moment of unity for a divided legislature. It also gives badly needed financial relief to the state’s school districts, which resorted to various unappealing tactics like short-term borrowing to keep things running while they waited for state education funding — a situation that one observer likened to setting money on fire.

“We are voting on a budget today that continues to make historic investments in education,” said Harris, the House appropriations committee chair, before the vote in Harrisburg Wednesday. “It’s taken us a long time to get here, but the truth of the matter is we’re here and we’re here together.”

Education spending had been a central sticking point in budget negotiations. But in the shadow of a federal government shutdown and decisive election wins by Democrats this month in many races, Pennsylvania lawmakers said this budget will send a clear political message: We’re capable of compromising.

“I don’t agree with everything in this budget — that’s part of a divided government,” said Republican Rep. Jesse Topper on the House floor Wednesday. But he said he thinks the “robust” increases in education spending with the added requirements that districts adopt “evidence-based” literacy programs “will make a difference” for Pennsylvania students.

While the budget deal does not create a new private school voucher program that Republicans sought, Topper praised the $50 million increase in funding the budget allocates for the state’s existing school choice program that relies on tax credits.

In the absence of a state budget, the Philadelphia district borrowed $585.5 million to allow it to continue to function and will need to pay that money back, in addition to finding funding for the interest payments. A bill pending in the legislature would require the state to pay districts back for “interest payments and fees” stemming from lawmakers’ inability to pass a budget on time.

However, the Teach Plus advocacy group expressed concern that districts will not ultimately get reimbursed for interest they paid on any such borrowing. “That money will never reach classrooms and students, and local taxpayers will shoulder this unnecessary expense,” Teach Plus said in a Wednesday statement.

Philly district officials are also undergoing a complex facilities planning process that will result in school closures and require millions for renovations and building maintenance. The new budget includes $125 million for school facilities funding.

Budget addresses Pennsylvania’s school funding ‘adequacy gap’

This marks the second state budget since a state court ruled in 2023 that Pennsylvania’s previous school funding formula was unconstitutional because it left poor districts underfunded.

Following that ruling, a bipartisan commission crafted a new funding formula to consider districts’ tax bases and students’ needs to distribute funds. The new budget largely follows that formula and boosts funding for the state’s poorest districts.

“This budget responds to the mandates of our constitutional court to address the issues of inadequacy and equity,” said Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Democrat who represents Philadelphia, on the Senate floor Wednesday.

Still, advocates say the additional funding does not fully address Pennsylvania schools’ needs.

“Lawmakers’ five-month delay in passing this year’s budget left schools, educators, and families in unnecessary limbo and resulted in avoidable harm,” said Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center-PA, in a statement. “This is another step forward – one that must be followed by continued commitment and sustained investment until every student, in every community, has the resources they need to learn and thrive.”

Cyber charter reforms will save Philadelphia district millions

Pennsylvania school districts previously have paid cyber charter schools the same amount per student as they provided to brick-and-mortar charters. But the new budget changes that, lowering the amount of money districts owe charters per student. Those changes are estimated to save the Philadelphia school district nearly $50 million this school year, according to an analysis from the House Appropriations Committee.

This year’s reforms replace last year’s $100 million payment to reimburse school districts for the cost of tuition paid to cyber charter schools.

Cyber charter schools will also be required to create policies that monitor whether students are present during synchronous parts of instruction. To be marked present, students “must be visible to the teacher on camera,” the budget bill states. For asynchronous instruction, when teachers are not live on camera, cyber charters will be required to monitor how students are progressing on certain “benchmarks” and report that information to the state.

In addition, cyber charters will have to create wellness check policies to “ensure the well-being” of enrolled students. These changes come after the death of a student enrolled in a cyber charter following her alleged torture and starvation by her guardians.

The budget legislation also prohibits students who are habitually truant from transferring during the school year to a cyber charter school, unless a judge determines that the transfer is in the child’s best interest.

Cyber charter operators said in a joint statement Wednesday the reforms would amount to a significant budget cut and could force up to seven cyber charter schools to close within two years. And they estimate the budget deal would lead to layoffs of 2,000 cyber charter teachers and staff.

Jon Marsh, CEO of Esperanza Cyber Charter School based in North Philly, said in a Wednesday statement that the budget represented “an attack on some of the most chronically disenfranchised and disadvantaged students in our Commonwealth.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

‘We have set money on fire’: Pennsylvania budget impasse costs Philadelphia school district millions

2025-11-11T19:02:24+00:00

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Pennsylvania lawmakers say a state budget could be near — potentially with more funding for districts like Philadelphia’s.

But the budget is already over four months late. And that’s caused significant financial harm to districts across the state.

In Philadelphia, the state’s largest district, the school board authorized the district to borrow $1.55 billion in September to make up for missed state payments that would have come through if lawmakers had adopted a budget by the July 1 deadline.

If the district ends up drawing down the entire loan, interest payments will cost the cash-strapped district around $30 million, according to district officials. That’s equivalent to roughly 200 teacher salaries in a district with ongoing teacher shortages.

Some smaller districts are delaying payments to charter schools and pausing after school programming. Others have said they will have to shut down if there is no budget deal soon.

At a Philadelphia Board of Education hearing last week, Board President Reginald Streater said the district had to continue to borrow funds to “keep the lights on and continue making the payments we have to make under the law.”

So far, it has drawn down $585.5 million of the loan to make up for the missing state funding, according to district spokesperson Naima DeBrest. The loan agreement requires the district to pay that money back within the same fiscal year.

The strain on districts’ budgets comes as lawmakers argue over what the future of education funding should look like in the state. How the state divides money between districts is one of the key issues in this year’s budget negotiations, following a 2023 court ruling that found the state’s school funding formula to be unconstitutional because it left poor districts underfunded.

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal, backed by Democratic lawmakers, would include $200 million more for Philadelphia schools as part of a boost to school funding for districts with lower tax bases and higher costs per student.

But some Senate Republicans, who are in the majority, have opposed that proposal. Republican Majority Leader Sen. Joe Pittman has previously indicated that he opposes the funding formula Shapiro is using to determine how much money districts get. (Pittman’s office declined to respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment.)

Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Democrat who represents part of Philadelphia, said he and other Democratic senators are “holding firm” on supporting Shapiro’s education funding proposal.

“It has been a lot of lifting to make sure that we protect that,” said Hughes. “And it’s not done, so we’ve got to keep fighting for it.”

Lawmakers say Pennsylvania budget deal could be close

Hughes said he could not estimate when a budget deal may be finalized, but that there had been “an increased level” of negotiations over the last several weeks. He said he hoped that recent election results, in which Democrats made gains in several states, “would have sent a message to our Republican colleagues that their way of governing … the people don’t like it.”

Sen. Lynda Culver, a Republican who chairs the Senate education committee, said she is not part of the negotiation team, but she is hopeful a budget deal could be reached this week. The House plans to return to a voting session on Wednesday, and Culver said the Senate also expected to return to session later this week, though no date has been publicized.

Culver said she wants Shapiro’s education spending proposal to be “tweaked” so that rural districts get more funding.

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing,” said Culver of Shapiro’s budget blueprint. “I’m just saying it needs consideration for rural Pennsylvania.” She added that education spending is one of many issues she would consider in any budget proposal.

It’s encouraging that lawmakers have fought for more education funding for poor districts, said Dan Urevick-Ackelsber, a senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center, a legal advocacy group. Still, he said, Shapiro’s proposal still does not adequately fund higher-needs districts.

“Our schools need every dollar that we give them,” said Urevick-Ackelsber, who was involved in the legal case challenging the state’s funding formula that culminated in the 2023 court ruling. “And we have set money on fire.”

Philadelphia district officials have urged lawmakers to pass a budget that follows the governor’s proposal.

Without adequate funding, students ultimately suffer, Streater said at the recent Philadelphia board hearing.

“We have been put into a situation where … our children have yet to get the fundamental rights that they have been granted under our state constitution.”

How bad are Pennsylvania’s school building problems? State officials say they don’t know.

2025-09-22T19:52:29+00:00

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As Philadelphia school officials move closer to closing schools in part to address urgent facilities needs, not even state officials know the depth of the state’s school building problem.

Now, several state Democratic lawmakers are pushing to pass a bill that would require the state to create an inventory of school facilities data to document building conditions.

“We need to identify the problem,” said Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler at a hearing about the proposed legislation Monday in South Philadelphia. “The current state of school facilities presents both a crisis of education and a public health crisis.”

Though individual districts, including Philadelphia, have gathered some data about their schools’ facilities needs, statewide information about which schools are in greatest need of repairs because of broken infrastructure, environmental hazards, and outdated technology remains severely lacking.

Jessica Sites, director of the bureau of financial operations at the Pennsylvania Department of Education, said it’s obvious to the department that there are severe building problems in districts across Pennsylvania.

During several hearings over the state’s school funding formula, which a judge ruled in 2023 was unconstitutional, Pennsylvanians raised grave concerns about schools with mold, asbestos, and crumbling walls. Concerns about asbestos exposure have closed several Philly schools in recent years, and the district’s approach to the issue recently drew the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice.

But the state does not have information on each school’s square footage, let alone comprehensive information on the costs of maintenance or repairs.

“We can’t quantify it well enough — I think that’s the problem,” said Sites. “What we are being is reactive to some of these issues. We are not being proactive.”

Small and inexpensive building issues, like a small leak, can transform into a severe and expensive problem without proactive maintenance, said Jerry Roseman, director of environmental science at the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

He urged officials at Monday’s hearing to support districts in collecting better building data so they can make small repairs before they become costly, full-building issues.

The legislation would require school districts to submit detailed information about their facilities to the department every three years, including building square footage, age, and brief descriptions of any major renovations. It would also require districts to provide plans on how they would modernize school buildings.

The legislation states the department would provide technical assistance to districts to repair infrastructure when funding is available. It would also support schools in securing additional federal, state, and local funding for repairs.

LeShawna Coleman, chief of staff at the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said the union supports the legislation as long as it’s accompanied by state funding.

“Without a dedicated and recurring appropriation in the state budget, this initiative will result in an unfunded mandate,” said Coleman.

Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that impact students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.