A Discussion on Educational Equity in PA Schools

As part of the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship's Philadelphia Justice & Equity Fellowship (PJEF) program, members of the Haverford community gathered on 10/09/24 to hear from three leaders pursuing educational equity in Pennsylvania. After sharing how their career paths intersect with the event’s theme, “Public Policy, Advocacy, and Improving Educational Equity,” each panelist presented on the organizations they work within and the goals they work towards, followed by a Q&A session.

Deborah Gordon Klehr serves as the Executive Director of the Education Law Center (ELC), a nonprofit legal advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring access to a quality public education for all children in Pennsylvania. One of the ELC’s primary foci has been securing greater and more equitable funding for public schools throughout the state—a goal they have pursued through both the courts and the legislature. Klehr described the lawsuit represented by the ELC and partners that was filed against state officials in 2014 and finally decided upon in 2023, in which the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled that the current public educational funding system in PA is unconstitutional and thus needs to be reformed. The Court also ruled, for the first time in PA, that education is a fundamental right. While this was a clear and decisive victory for the ELC and for educational equity, Klehr noted that the fight is not over yet: for now the court has left it up to the PA legislature to develop a specific long-term plan to provide adequate and equitable state funding. Until they make such a commitment, fund allocation and distribution have to be redecided upon every year, a matter that she and the ELC remain heavily involved in.

Panelist Paul Socolar graduated from Haverford in 1977 with a degree in sociology; he now serves as a communications specialist at the ELC. Prior to his work at ELC, he was co-founder and longtime editor of the Philadelphia Public School Notebook (now Philadelphia Chalkbeat), a nonprofit news organization dedicated to improving community engagement with schools. He explained the particular importance that the role of communications plays in ELC’s work, saying that the case Klehr discussed was not just a legal battle: the 4-month trial was also an opportunity to build public support through storytelling. By “communicating again and again, every way we could, that this was a big deal,” he said, ELC was able to get the media and others to pay attention, spread the word, and grow invested in the outcome of the case. As he remarked upon his professional journey, he also talked about how attending Haverford set him up for the work he has since devoted his life to, mentioning that his senior thesis project was his first step in involving himself deeply in the Philadelphia community, where he has been active ever since.

Jude Husein, the event’s third panelist, is both the Deputy Executive Director of Philly BOLT (a nonprofit dedicated to cultivating and empowering community-driven and -oriented change) and the Chief of State Advocacy and Strategic Initiatives in the Pennsylvania State Senate. She too works largely to advance educational equity, and she attributed this commitment to her experience being born in Palestine and growing up attending Philly public schools, as well as to her motivating philosophy, a maxim shared with her once that continues to inspire her activism: “If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re on the menu.” Through her work specifically with Pennsylvania politicians, Husein explained the detail-oriented political work behind making platforms like the ELC’s into a reality—including the necessary difficulty of choosing to prioritize certain goals over others, which she said is decided upon based on the political weight that those goals hold for constituents. As Klehr made clear that equitable public school funding is still very much up for debate each year in the legislature, Husein emphasized that in order to ensure the prioritization of educational equity in the legislature, citizens need to communicate their support for it with their representatives—a course of action she advocates for as well as facilitates.

The event ended with a Q&A session, during which Gabriella Lipsitch ’28 asked the panelists, “How can young people or college students get involved?” The first answer, from Klehr, was to vote, not just in national elections but also in state and local ones. Husein also discussed the importance of familiarizing oneself with and contacting one’s representatives, as well as using social media platforms and other tools specifically utilized by younger generations to share stories and agitate. “Young people,” Husein explained, “are always at the forefront of change."