school funding

From Baltimore to Philadelphia, those in power are trying to cut funding from our schools and expand prisons. But youth from across the country are coming together to fight back and demand our human right to education.

The crowd began forming at Juniper and Filbert streets around 3:30 pm as set-up was still underway.  As school let out, high school students from over 25 schools across the city began making their way downtown.  Each new group made the size of the gathering swell until the crowd spilled into Filbert street and it had to be closed to traffic.  Dozens of students from Sayre, Bok, Furness, South Philadelphia, Kensington, Paul Robeson, CAPA, West, Bodine, Edison, Sankofa Freedom Academy, and other schools began to converge from all directions. 

Members of PSU recently traveled to Harrisburg PA to meet with students from Harrisburg's William Penn High School and engage them in our Campaign for Nonviolent Schools and our Campaign for Equitable School Funding. We led a participatory workshop that explored the root causes of violence in our schools and communities. We also talked about conditions inside our schools, and students from both Philly and Harrisburg agreed that underfunding of schools is a root cause of many of the problems we face.

By sharing our experiences, students came to the realization that the problems we see in our schools are not isolated to our own districts; that the struggle for a high quality education is a statewide struggle. In this radio piece, we hear from Harrisburg students about conditions in their school, their views on violence, and how PSU's Nonviolence workshop affected their perceptions.

By Gregory Jordan-Detamore & Dylan Washington

In late 2007, a Costing Out Study was released. It was commissioned by the state to find out how much money is needed to give all students in Pennsylvania an adequate education, broken down by school district. It took into account factors such as poverty, English language learners, and cost of living. The results were not surprising, but nonetheless were very important.