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With Enemies Like These, Who Needs Friends?
 Pennsylvania is having its own Brown v Board of Education moment. It’s no surprise to us that the crack team of lawyers led by the Public Interest Law Center and Education Law Center have mounted a persuasive case before the Commonwealth Court, proving that the state’s method of funding schools is blatantly in violation of the state’s constitution.
Of course, the facts are on our side when the school districts that have the most resources to educate their students are primarily White and well-off while the sweeping majority of low-income White, Black, and Hispanic students are relegated to schools that barely have working plumbing and where even Kindergarten classes are jammed with 25 kiddos.
What is a welcome surprise is that the defense team, with powerful PA lawmakers helping design their legal strategy, seem to be arguing our case. The thing is, they don’t really have a choice. Just like our under-resourced schools, they have to make do with what they have, and that’s not much.
Early on, the defense tried to rationalize unfair funding by suggesting that only some students need classes like biology and Algebra because that is the heart of the state’s argument. You can only argue the case you’re given.
When they could finally call their witnesses, defense counsel started off with a small, private Christian school that touted small classroom sizes and selective admissions as the secret to its success. Did they realize they were making our case that smaller classes and student supports are fundamental? Maybe, but what else do they have to work with?
While on the stand, their second witness was forced to admit he was lying about his own data intended to discount the correlation between funding and performance.
Rounding out the week, the defense called the largest cyber charter school to demonstrate that education can be done on the cheap. Unfortunately, their lawyers had to sit red-faced when, on cross examination, the facts were revealed to the judge that this boasting cyber charter is actually among the lowest performing cyber charters in the state.
The defense is reduced to arguing that we’re needlessly over-educating our children or glossing over the fact that private schools subsidized by taxpayers can cherry-pick their students. Their witnesses, so accustomed to misleading the public about performance and funding, are shaky when they have to tell the truth in court.
If the defense continues to call witnesses like they did this week, they will continue to defeat their own argument. But what other choice to they have?
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