Commonwealth Court had an opportunity on Monday to hear from one of the many youth who are most directly impacted by Pennsylvania’s school funding problems. A recent high school graduate, 20-year-old P. Michael Horvath took the stand. Horvath was educated in the Wilkes-Barre Area School District, graduating in 2019, and he and his mother Tracey Hughes are Wilkes-Barre residents.
Horvath was in 8th grade in 2014 – the year that his school district joined with five others to file the lawsuit, when Hughes agreed to be part of the case as a parent petitioner.
Horvath told the court that he, like his mom, remained involved in the case, and he wanted to testify because “my education has been wronged, when I was going through the Wilkes-Barre School District.”
When he was in 8th grade, he said, “I remember coming into school and not feeling too great about where you're going to school.”
“You see the facade outside chipping away, and the ceiling in the schools chipping away,” he said. “Sitting in desks that I didn't fit in, sitting in desks that were broken, trying to read textbooks that you went from page 19 to page 27. Eating food with roaches, changing for gym with roaches, going to football practice with roaches. Pretty much going to school with roaches.”
The building in which he attended school from 7th to 12th grade had no air conditioning and could be uncomfortably hot in the winter as well.
“It's very hard to learn something if you're not in a comfortable environment,” he said.
His school’s academic shortcomings have had an even more lasting impact on Horvath. He said he was not adequately prepared for college, and after short stints at two colleges, he is out of school and in debt.
Horvath described himself as an average high school student. He had difficulty with math in high school, and his school didn’t offer professional tutoring. He got some help when his mother hired a private tutor to help him. He kept a B average, but on the statewide Keystone exams, he scored below basic in both math and science.
Horvath said he was determined to go to college, and colleges were interested in him; he was actively recruited to play college football. He decided to enroll at Utica College in upstate New York.
But he struggled at Utica and stayed there only for a year.
Horvath said his high school didn’t prepare him for working with computers, for using a library, for doing research papers, and for handling independent work.
In high school, he never had to write a paper of more than three pages, he said, and he didn’t have much homework because there weren’t enough materials for students to take home.
He also lacked basic library skills, because his high school closed its library when he was in 7th or 8th grade: “The books got taken out, no more librarian, no more library aide,” he said.
When he got to college, he said, “It hurt my pride a lot to have to ask just how to find a book, which is something you think is so simple, I think it's simple, but … I never had the opportunities to learn how to do that.”
After a year at Utica College, Horvath moved back home and enrolled at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre but lasted less than a semester. He was required to take a remedial math class and struggled with the material. He also felt unprepared for a chemistry class because in high school, he hadn’t had a functioning science lab.
He now works full-time as an aide in a school for severely autistic students and has a second job working for a hoagie chain. He has already earned a promotion at the school but can’t get a further promotion without earning a degree. And he is worried about having to start making payments of $200 per month on his college loans.
His friends have had similar struggles.
“There was seven of us from my football team that went on to go play college football,” Horvath said. “There is only one student playing college football, and the six of us are all back home.”
Horvath explained that he was testifying “because my education isn't the only education that's important here.”
“Being in the educational field that I am in, I believe every student … they deserve to have the same education as everybody else, as the kid whose parents make six figures or the kid whose parents makes $30,000,” he said.