Seeking Justice in
Funding Public Education
A Pastoral Letter
of the Episcopal Bishops of Pennsylvania
Adopted during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, 2003
Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights
of all the destitute.
Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.
Proverbs 31:8-9
Over the past 30 years, Pennsylvania has allowed its funding of public education
to suggest that some children are worth more than others. We bishops of five
Episcopal dioceses invite you to consider reversing an escalating spiral
of inequity.
As public education has increased its reliance on local taxes, the
Commonwealth’s funding for our children’s education has
decreased from 55 to 35 percent. The practical result is an unforgiving
gap -- up to $8,500 difference per child -- in the amount wealthy
and poor districts provide for public education. The gap suggests
that we tolerate economic segregation, that a substandard education
is adequate for the poor and near poor.
Are some of our children worth $8,500 a year more than others? Should
the quality of their education be determined by their zip code?
More than 85 percent of Pennsylvania’s children attend public
schools. Most of those oppressed by inequity live in rural areas
and inner cities where family poverty is an overwhelming challenge
for teachers and administrators.
All kids are created equal; but their schools are not. What can
we do about this inequity? We know what makes public education work.
We see how it works in school districts that are adequately funded.
Whether we are business leaders, teachers, administrators or school
board members, labor or management, Republicans or Democrats, we
are united on this: every child deserves an equal opportunity to
have a quality education. To be satisfied with less would be irresponsible,
immoral, not very smart, and a waste.
During the most recent political campaigns in Pennsylvania, there
seems to have been bipartisan agreement that something must be done
about the inequity in how we pay for public schools. The consensus
on this matter is broad. Members of both parties introduced legislation
to correct the inequity. Both school boards and teachers’ groups
want this to happen. We understand that Governor Rendell will call
the Pennsylvania General Assembly into special session to address
the inequitable base that finances the education of our children.
We challenge you to support a system of taxation that decreases
reliance on local property or wage taxes and returns the state to
at least a 50 percent partnership in the funding of our public schools.
We challenge you to provide equal-opportunity resources so that
every child will have access to a high quality education, beginning
with pre-kindergarten and including full-day kindergarten, smaller
class size, improved and expanded staff development, and family and
social service linkages.
We challenge you to advocate for a statewide accountability system
that rewards schools that excel and supports schools that struggle.
We ask you not to subscribe to economic and social priorities that
allow children to languish in poorly funded schools while escalating
levels of public funds are spent for their incarceration later in
life.
We challenge you to participate in or create local groups that study
and advocate for a just system of funding public education. We encourage
you to take part in diocesan vigils and rallies locally and in Harrisburg.
Above all, we urge you to write as soon as possible your legislators
in the state House of Representatives and Senate from your district
and tell them you want results through a comprehensive public school
funding act.
We look to those without children or whose children are grown to
care for society’s children. We beg you to support changes
necessary to insure that all school districts receive adequate resources
to provide for our children, regardless of their creed, their race,
their economic status or their social status.
We encourage church leaders and all Pennsylvania Episcopalians to
hear St. Paul who tells us that if one part of the body suffers we
all suffer.
In our baptismal covenant, we Episcopalians promise to strive for
justice. By General Convention resolution we have committed ourselves
to support and improve public education, especially in urban and
rural areas. We are therefore challenged to advocate for justice
and systemic reform in our funding of public schools.
Our participation in the movement, Good Schools Pennsylvania, to
support, strengthen and reform our public schools is based on both
our religious belief that every person is created in God’s
own image and our civic responsibility to provide our children with
equal opportunity in public education.
For the love of God and for the sake of the children who have been
left behind, please join us in attempting to reverse this spiral
of inequity.
We remain your servants in the Lord,
The Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison Jr.
Bishop, Diocese of Pennsylvania
The Rt. Rev. Clarence N. Coleridge
Assisting Bishop, Diocese of Pennsylvania
The Rt. Rev. Michael W. Creighton
Bishop, Diocese of Central Pennsylvania
The Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan
Bishop, Diocese of Pittsburgh
The Rt. Rev. Paul V. Marshall
Bishop, Diocese of Bethlehem
The Rt. Rev. Robert D. Rowley, Jr.
Bishop, Diocese if Northwest Pennsylvania
The Rt. Rev. Henry Scriven
Assisting Bishop, Diocese of Pittsburgh
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