Why is Anna Thomas Focused on Public Schools?

Republicans in Pennsylvania have a long history of cutting the state’s education budget and that is exactly why Anna Thomas is running to represent her district in Harrisburg. Anna started fighting for better public school funding in high school when she saw her favorite teachers getting furloughed due to budget cuts in 2010. She was selected to be a student rep on her school district’s board and used her platform to speak out against these staffing shortages that so severely affected her education. What had happened was that Republicans, with a 10 member majority in the state house, oversaw those cuts–cuts that reverberate across the state to this day. Today, Pennsylvania’s state house is narrowly divided with Democrats having only a one person majority: increasing that majority means a higher chance of increasing the state budget. It’s up to us to make sure Anna grows that majority by one more person to safely protect and expand education funding.

Why would a high school student fight for better school funding anyway? The truth is that Republican governments in Pennsylvania have routinely deprioritized its public education system. The state shares funding of public schools with local governments, which increasingly saw a lower tax base in the 2010s. Starting in 2011, Pennsylvania’s then-governor Tom Corbett signed a bill that cut $1 billion from the state’s education fund. He also eliminated an important formula that fairly distributed the school budget across the state, according to Children First PA. To quote this organization, “the funding formula adopted in 2008 provided extra funds on top of the base to help districts meet the added cost factors such as the number of students in poverty, or those who don’t speak English, district size, and cost of living differences across the state.” Suddenly, without the formula, students and school districts had no way to access to the extra help they needed. 

The spending cuts managed to balance the budget without raising taxes, but Pennsylvania is now only one of three states that does not have a funding formula for schools.  The consequences have been enormous. After more than a decade of grueling budget cuts, the Penn State Center for Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis found that 9,587 teachers  in Pennsylvania left their jobs between 2022-2023, the largest spike in teacher shortages in thirty years. This puts the attrition rate at 7.7%, compared with the post pandemic attrition rate of 6.2% in 2021-2022. Teachers are leaving the field in greater numbers even after the disruptive effects of the pandemic have died down. The staffing shortage has at times closed schools and enrichment programs and created longer commutes for hundreds of students. Students have also lost small class sizes, extra tutoring, and various after school programs. Pennsylvania is 45th in the nation for state share of funding for K-12 education. The effect of this decreased share of funding means that communities who simply can’t tax enough to meet their budget needs suffer. Indeed, Pennsylvania has one of the most inequitable school funding systems in America. The wealthiest school districts spend, on average, $4,800 more per student than the poorest, and that gap has grown steadily wider. Even in relatively well-off districts like the one Anna would represent, there are budget issues. The Bethlehem Area School Board has reported an $11 million budget gap for the 2024-2025 school year and has few tools to increase its income thanks to Pennsylvania’s broken funding system.

There is one ray of hope: the state’s Level Up fund, established in 2021 by Democratic state reps, provides extra funding for the state’s 100 poorest school districts. Yet, as we reported in our article about Anna’s opponent, Republicans have no problem raiding this fund to avoid raising taxes. This past year, for the first time since the Level Up fund was created, the money meant for the fund instead got diverted to other projects. Some of the money went to much-needed school capital projects around the state, rather than having the states raise taxes to fund all of these urgent educational needs. Republicans also found enough loose change to approve $150 million to two related state tax credits for businesses that fund private school scholarships. The scholarships in and of themselves are not an issue but when we remember that Anna’s opponent supports the growth of private religious schools, it does seem that Republicans secured this money specifically to deal a blow to the failing public school education system. Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro had no choice but to approve this budget, the only one both sides could agree on after five and a half months of delays.

If elected, Anna could have an ace up her sleeve to improve school funding: the courts have forced the state legislature to deal with the funding inequities. Commonwealth Court President Renée Cohn Jubelirer wrote that the state had not adequately funded schools in poor communities, citing the incredible funding discrepancies between districts, thus failing its constitutional obligation to educate the state’s young people. After eight years of this particular case winding its way through the courts, it’s now up to the state legislature to figure out how to comply with this ruling. Anna is at the right place at the right time. She is committed to equitable school funding and, if elected, she could round out a new Democratic majority and make sure that all students have their needs met.

Starting when Anna was in high school all the way until now, Republican lawmakers have failed to provide generations of Pennsylvania public school students with an adequate education. Anna Thomas has seen the damage caused by school funding cuts and knows how to work within the system for school equity. Please donate or sign up to make calls for Anna today.