Cuts are a luxury we can’t afford

“Education is an investment and not a luxury.”

When Mawa Lewis addressed state legislators on a video conference call, she spoke with candor and clarity, fighting for students at Morrisville High School in Bucks County. Dismissing helplessness for hopefulness, Mawa seized the moment, demanding that the half-dozen lawmakers acknowledge her undeniable truth: if the looming threat of COVID-19-blamed cuts to PA school districts materialize, students at already under resourced schools  will be the most devastated.

Mawa would know—she’s one of them.   

“70% of our students are on free and reduced lunch,” Mawa, a senior at Morrisville, said, adding that even though online learning is mandated, there are still more than a dozen families at her school without internet access or even basic computer access. Lacking connectivity and computers is endemic among students in poorer communities across the Commonwealth.

With estimated cuts due to pandemic-related revenue shortfalls hovering between $1.5-2 billion, Mawa made clear her concern that such cuts would write off already disadvantaged students. She asked the legislators attending PCCY’s first Teen Town Hall to put themselves in the shoes of rising seniors in September.

There are students in her town, she explained, who attend schools where the everyday concerns of Morrisville High students over the availability of athletic programs, electives, and arts and music education opportunities wouldn’t even cross their minds. (Pennsylvania has one of the widest gaps between the highest and lowest spending school districts in America.)

Those opportunities make the difference for students at under resourced schools when applying for college because their experience in arts, music, or athletics helps put them on a level playing field with students from better resourced schools while excelling in those pursuits would set them apart. Lawmakers pushing for cuts, she said, would be “taking a lot of opportunities from students, setting them back even further.”

“You’re taking away $1.5 billion when there’s nothing there for you guys to cut,” she said. “We’re already struggling!”

While there is so much we don’t know about the nature of the ongoing pandemic, what little we do know is fueling shortsighted, facile “solutions,” such as draconian cuts that would dwarf those that followed the Great Recession. Mawa and her classmates serve as a stark example of which students will suffer the most and her message certainly hit the mark.

A lifelong educator, State Representative Wendy Ullman responded unexpectedly, acknowledging the difficult challenge ahead and the necessity of meeting it, while admitting she didn’t yet have a solution in hand.

“I do want to open up the topic which I don’t have the answer to,” Rep. Ullman began. “We know the disparity between what education some students have.” The difference between opportunities afforded to students at more affluent schools and students at under resourced schools like Morrisville High and schools a few short miles away in Philadelphia “is night and day.” 

This disparity “is part of our responsibility, to represent every child,” Rep. Ullman said. “We have our work set out for us.”

Two weeks ago, we shared with you the alarming news we were hearing from Harrisburg, regarding massive COVID-19 cuts and a bill to freeze property taxes that would lead to a catastrophic decline in education quality. In PCCY’s commentary, published by The Inquirer this week, we recommended three guiding principles to protect students from undue harm. (LINK) While not solutions in and of themselves, they will certainly inform the hard decisions ahead and answer, at least, the biggest  question on our minds: In the midst of uncertainty and confusion, should legislators take an axe to public education funding?

No, they have a responsibility to students like Mawa and her classmates, and to every student attending a public school in Pennsylvania. Easy answers, like shortsighted cuts, are a luxury these students certainly can’t afford now, and which they could very well pay for the rest of their lives.  

Watch Montgomery County’s Teen Town Hall that took place earlier today HERE!

Don’t miss Delaware County’s Teen Town Hall on Friday, May 22, 2020!