You totally missed it.

You marched. You petitioned. You rallied. You succeeded!

You missed it.

After two arduous years campaigning for a fair funding formula for Pennsylvania schools the revolution was not televised. It didn’t even make a sound.

Last weekend, the fiscal code for last year’s budget passed by both chambers of the legislature, officially closing the chapter on Pennsylvania’s worst budget crisis in history, silently, without fanfare, became law. The silence was due to the code passing without the signature of the Governor.

Within that fiscal code was a long overdue bipartisan formula that followed the recommendations of the Campaign for Fair Education Funding. The recommendations included that distributions of new state funding be based on the number of students in each district and also take into consideration such factors as the number of students living in poverty, English Language Learners, or newly enrolled in charter schools, as well local taxation concerns.

A full explanation of the formula can be found here.

On Wednesday, leading education organizations from the Campaign, including PCCY, addressed reporters and television cameras to declare victory for the hard fought campaign. And then announced a new one.

“Yet our work is not done,” said Deborah Gordon Klehr of the Education Law Center. “We must also address the needs of poor school districts that were disproportionately impacted by previous budget cuts and avoid locking in those cuts in the state budget.”

After all, what good is a formula if you don’t have the main ingredient to make anything out of it.

“Our powerful statewide coalition has a demonstrated track record of success, and we agree that we must now get the legislature to fund the formula so that we finally end the curse of a child’s zip code determining the public education quality in Pennsylvania. We succeeded once and we will succeed again.” said Donna Cooper, PCCY Executive Director.

On Monday, May 2nd, hundreds of parents and education advocates will gather in Harrisburg for the Rally for Public Education to call for $400 million in new funding for Pennsylvania schools. We hope to see you there.

This year’s Smile Day event saw 600 kids receive appointments for free dental care. Thanks so much to everyone who helped spread the word, especially donors like Dr. Deborah Backiel whose kind donation helped make this year’s event possible.

So we’ve got a funding formula—but will you demand we have the funding to make it meaningful? Join us THIS MONDAY, May 2nd, for the Rally for Public Education. Find out more

PCCY’s fabulous silent auction is now LIVE and ONLINE. Check out some amazing opportunities and items HERE and make your bid. Don’t forget to join us May 10 at our 35th birthday party at VIE. Tickets are still available—don’t miss out! GET YOUR TICKETS!

“Nothing is more stunning than having ‘serial child molester’ and ‘speaker of the House’ in the same sentence.” Judge Thomas M. Durkin of Federal District Court, sentencing former speaker of the House Dennis Hastert to 15 months for illegal bank transactions meant to cover up his sexual abuses. READ IT

“The most junior member of City Council has more of a say on this issue than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, and there’s really nothing that they said in those statements that either the voters or City Council has not heard from either side of this issue.” Larry Ceisler, who opposes the soda tax, puts the primary patter in perspective. READ MORE