“Education is not a right”

“Does that mean the court has no standing to weigh in on issues of educational equality?” PA Supreme Court Justice David N. Wecht asked, responding to the assertion that fair education funding is none of his business.

The rather terse retort came after lawyers defending the State in the potentially game-changing fair education funding lawsuit said funding was an issue for the Legislature to figure out. 

As they said in the Commonwealth Court two years ago, the defense argued that children had no right to any education at all and that all the State had to provide was a school and an open door.

The Court’s chamber was packed with pro-fair funding forces, as was the relatively raucous overflow room where they cheered and jeered the proceedings.

Objections were loudest when the defense argued education was not a fundamental right.

Leaving the Legislature to their own devices has created shameful inequalities across the state, the worst such disparities in the country. “This is unconscionable,” declared Brad Elias, representing five school districts and parents in the suit. 

“They are arguing in court that your child does not have the same rights as other children,” said Councilwoman Helen Gym to education supporters afterward, alluding to the state’s equal-protection provision.

The Court provided no timeline for their decision. Should the justices rule in favor of students, the case will be tried in Commonwealth Court. PCCY will be there.

Empty calories and rhetoric

As expected, the American Beverage Association filed suit to block Philadelphia’s new corporate tax that will fund 6,500 high quality pre-k seats, the repair and renewal of recreation centers, libraries and parks and 13 new community schools.

The so-called ‘Soda Tax’ was a huge win for Philly kids as well as the healthcare community and concerned citizens who hailed the 13-4 Council vote as a victory against predatory practices of corporations that peddle sugar to children. In Philadelphia, where the beverage industry targets the city’s poorest, rates of diabetes and obesity are catastrophic, exceeding rates in Mexico. Multiple cities and states across the country are now actively pursuing a similar tax.

The suit was filed the same week that a bombshell report revealed the sugar industry in the 1960s paid Harvard scientists to downplay the link between sugar and heart disease and blame saturated fat instead.

While the Soda Tax is directed at distributers, the ABA insists it’s a sales tax because the distributers will foist higher prices upon consumers to pay for it.

“While it is repugnant that the multi-billion-dollar soda industry would try to take away these educational and community programs from the hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians who need them, we were not surprised by their lawsuit given the ten million dollars they have already spent opposing the tax,” Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement.

“I have no doubt we’ll be successful in defeating the lawsuit.”