Why the gross disparities in funding for education?

By Steven Halpern

Philadelphia is known as The City By The Rivers. One of those rivers is the Schuylkill. The Schuylkill River is the border between Philadelphia and the Lower Merion School District. Per student funding for education in Philadelphia is $10,796. Per student funding for education in Lower Merion is $25,725. 

The racial breakdown of the student population in Philadelphia is 48% Black, 22.9% Latino 9.6% Asian, and 14.5% white. The racial breakdown of the student population in Lower Merion is 8.1% Black, 5.7% Latino 11.4% Asian, and 67.2% white. These numbers tell a compelling story. Funding for education in the Delaware Valley reflects a system of institutionalized racist discrimination.

This gross disparity of educational funding is a problem all over the United States. Perhaps millions of people have moved out of the inner cities to suburban communities because of this gross disparity in funding for education. The musical group The Temptations sang about what has been happening in their song Ball of Confusion. These are the words to their song:

“People moving out. People moving in. Why? Because of the color of their skin.”  

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an editorial February 12, 2023 arguing for a more equitable way to fund education in the state. This editorial supported a 786-page decision by Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer. Jubelirer’s decision ruled that the funding for education in the state is illegal. This is what the Editorial Board had to say: “Pennsylvania students have already waited too long for state leaders to do what is right.” I believe it is useful to look at the history of what has actually happened with regard to this issue.

1865—During the Civil War about 350,000 Union soldiers died and many more were mutilated. 

1866—The government adopted the Civil Rights Act. This law outlined the framework for the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

President Johnson vetoed that law, but Congress overturned his veto. 

1868—The government adopted the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that argued for “equal protection under the law.” Literally all federal governments officials in the three branches of government take an oath to defend the constitution. 

1883—The Supreme Court ruled that the 1866 Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional. 

1896— The Supreme court made their Plessey v. Ferguson decision. This decision argued that racial segregation laws did not violate the Constitution. This decision made as much sense as the idea that two and two equals three. There were other Supreme Court decisions that supported the vicious system of Jim Crow racist discrimination.

1954—The Supreme Court made their Brown v. Board of Education decision. This decision argued that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. However, Jim Crow segregation continued to be the law in several states. 

1964—The federal government bowed to the civil rights movement and adopted another Civil Rights Act. That law effectively ended many aspects of Jim Crow segregation. 

1974—The Supreme Court made their Milliken v. Bradley decision. In this decision the Supreme Court allowed for segregation if it was not an explicit policy of each school district to deliberately engage in a policy of segregation. Well, school districts across the country were not eager to admit that they had a viciously racist and discriminatory history.   

2005—The historian James W. Loewen documented this history in his book Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. In his research, Loewen found 187 towns where there were signs prohibiting Black people from entering after sundown. Loewen estimated that there might have been a total of 10,000 sundown towns. Many of these towns advertised the fact that no Black people lived there. They also had racist legal covenants prohibiting Blacks from moving in. Clearly the Supreme Court didn’t account for this information in their Milliken v. Bradley decision. Loewen was also the author of the bestselling book Lies My Teacher Told Me.

1991—The Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled in their Abbott v. Burke decision. That decision ruled that the funding for education in New Jersey was grossly unequal. The court ordered the state government to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to equalize the funding for education in the state. 

Instead of taxing the most affluent families in New Jersey, the then Governor James J. Florio increased property taxes. Many of the taxpayers whose education was underfunded needed to pay to fix a system they didn’t create. As a result, Governor Florio was booted out of office. The recent decision by Judge Jubelirer echoes the Abbott v. Burke Supreme Court decision in New Jersey.

2021—Philadelphia City Councilmember Helen Gym was arrested in Harrisburg because she participated in a demonstration demanding equal funding for education in Pennsylvania. Now, the decision by Commonwealth Court Judge Jubelirer will go to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and might even go to the Supreme Court in Washington.

What are we to conclude from this swarded history of judicial flip-flops? Routine racist discrimination began with the crews on ships that kidnapped and transported Africans to this country making them chattel slaves. Vast quantities of wealth were created because of the horrendous conditions those slaves endured over a period of hundreds of years. Today we are living with the legacy of the barbarity of what happened on those slave ships. 

However, in June of 2020 I was one of 100,000 people who demonstrated in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum protesting the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others by the police. As a result of that demonstration and others that took place around the world, former Police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and now is in prison.

I believe that about 90% of those who demonstrated with me in front of the Art Museum were under 30 years of age. Those young people have excellent questions about what their future will be. They can go into astronomical debt to get a college education, a place to live, and a car. Or they can go to work at a job that has a pathetic rate of pay. 

The history that I outlined in this blog underscores the fact that the court system and the government in this country are unreliable when it comes to advancing the interests of people who work for a living. In order to have the kind of educational system students deserve, that has equal funding, we need a government that makes human needs the priority over profits.