One key issue in our school funding case is the meaning of the phrase “thorough and efficient” in the education clause of Pennsylvania’s Constitution.
Thursday morning, under cross-examination, law professor Derek Black, an expert on the education clauses in state constitutions who began his testimony Wednesday, reiterated his view that the issue of education was of the utmost importance to the delegates at Pennsylvania’s 1872-73 constitutional convention when they drafted the language mandating a “thorough and efficient system of public education” in Pennsylvania.
At that time, an estimated 75,000 Pennsylvania children had no access to school at all. But Black said the convention delegates were concerned not just with creating a system of education to serve all students, but also with the quality of the system.
Law professor and constitutional scholar Derek W. Black
The analysis that Black provided to the court was based on a review of an extensive historical record of the debates that occurred during the constitutional convention and on other contemporaneous accounts.
Black said he learned from these documents that the stated goal of delegates was ensuring that the statewide system they were creating was effective. By specifying that the school system must be “thorough and efficient,” the drafters of the education clause were mandating a baseline standard of quality education that must be met.
The stated purpose of the delegates to that convention was to ensure that education prepared citizens to fulfill their duties in a democracy and to lead productive lives, Black said.
Asked on cross examination about how the legislature is to address competing responsibilities of state government besides education, Black said that the constitutional mandate in the education clause elevates its importance above many other functions of government, meaning that the state is obligated to spend the funds necessary to meet that mandate before it allocates money on non-mandated functions.
Thursday afternoon the court heard from Matthew Kelly, a professor at Penn State’s College of Education and an expert in the field of education finance. We will share more details on his testimony tomorrow.
Kelly is testifying as an expert witness on the state’s school funding system, how funds are allocated among districts, and whether the funding is equitable and adequate.
His testimony included the results of calculations he performed, based on the state’s own definition of an adequate level of funding for each school district. These calculations allowed him to compare “adequacy targets” with actual funding levels to determine the “adequacy shortfalls” for each district. His determination that Pennsylvania schools in the aggregate are underfunded by $4.6 billion has been widely reported.
Kelly testified for about three hours, followed by cross examination by an attorney for House Speaker Bryan Cutler. That will continue Friday morning (livestream here).
On deck as the next witness for the petitioners is Karen Molchanow, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Board of Education.