Pennridge State Education Association president Aaron Chapin speaks at a PSEA press conference Wednesday, August 20 in Montgomeryville. (John Worthington – MediaNews Group)
With the beginning of the new school year just days away, Pennsylvania State Education Association leaders are demanding the passage of Pennsylvania’s overdue 2025-2026 budget.
During a brief press conference Wednesday, Aug. 20 at the PSEA Mideastern Region Office in Montgomeryville, PSEA leaders called on local Republican state senators to approve a budget with “critical investments” in Pennsylvania’s public schools.
“We need you to stand up for public school students in your districts and across the state and do everything you can to get a real state budget across the finish line,” said PSEA president Aaron Chapin.
Pennsylvania’s 2025-2026 budget is nearly two months overdue, with lawmakers divided over key issues, including mass transit funding and school vouchers. As a result, Pennsylvania’s public schools are facing $1.75 billion in missed payments, with local school districts accounting for nearly $600 million, including $76.2 million in state Sen. Pennycuick’s district, $56.5 million in state Sen. Frank Farry’s district and $463.5 million in state Sen. Joe Picozzi’s district.
“Our educators and support professionals are setting up their classrooms, cafeterias, school buildings without knowing whether students will have the resources they need,” said Chapin. “They are in a state of limbo.”
Dueling budget bills
During the impasse, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and Republican-controlled Senate have passed dueling budget bills. The House’s bill includes Governor Josh Shapiro’s proposal for an additional $115 million in basic and education funding and $526 million in adequacy funding for the state’s neediest schools, while the Senate’s bill includes flat funding for the state’s public schools.
At Wednesday’s press conference, PSEA leaders urged local Republican state senators to pass the House bill, while denouncing the Senate bill as inadequate.
“The budget the Senate passed is not a realistic or serious plan,” said educator Bill McGill, president-elect of PSEA’s Mideastern Region and a member of the Perkiomen Valley Education Association. “It ignores the obligation legislatures have to fix our unconstitutional school funding system, and it leaves students without the resources they need to start the school year.”
Bill McGill, president-elect of PSEA’s Mideastern Region and a member of the Perkiomen Valley Education Association, speaks at the press conference. (John Worthington – MediaNews Group)School vouchers
Speakers also rejected Republican efforts to tie a budget passage to private school vouchers, referencing recent remarks made by Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, a Republican of Westmoreland County, in which she described school vouchers as a “big sticking point” and that Republicans will “need to get something.”
“Our kids are not bargaining chips,” said Chapin. “Our kids are not pawns in some grand scheme to enact a tuition voucher scheme that will shift taxpayer dollars away from our public schools and send them to private and religious schools.”
“Hundreds of millions of dollars that should be flowing to school districts across this region [are] not because of a Senate leader from western Pennsylvania who wants to use our kids as bargaining chips for a private school voucher plan,” added McGill.
Enacted by several states, school vouchers provide students with taxpayer-funded scholarships to attend private and religious schools. Studies have indicated that vouchers lower academic achievement while raising costs for taxpayers, said McGill, with research by Michigan State researcher Josh Cowen finding that learning losses from voucher programs in other states are akin to those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Katrina.
“Why on earth would we want to introduce a program like that in Pennsylvania?” asked McGill. “Our students deserve so much better than this and so do the Pennsylvania taxpayers.”
Budget passage
The PSEA leaders closed by reiterating their call for Pennycuick, Farry and Picozzi to support the House Democrats’ budget bill and provide “critical” funding for Pennsylvania’s public schools.
“The time has come for our Senate leaders to give all 50 senators a chance to vote on that bill,” said McGill. “We need these senators to call on the leaders to do just that.”
“Are you going to represent the public schools in your districts where 90% of our students learn, or are you gonna do the bidding of a politician on the other side of this great Commonwealth?” asked Chapin.
