Common Sense Weekly

Welcome to Common Sense Weekly! This is the Commonwealth Foundation's weekly news roundup of policy issues being debated in Harrisburg and across Pennsylvania.



Pennsylvania’s Budgetary Déjà Vu

Pennsylvania’s budget battle feels oddly familiar – like we’ve been here before. Our sense of déjà vu is valid: The 2024–25 fiscal battle looks strikingly like last year’s.

Last year, Pennsylvania lawmakers finished the budget nearly six months after the fiscal year began July 1. Once again, they will likely miss this deadline.

And at center stage, yet again, is the Lifeline Scholarship initiative

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, or the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success (PASS) Scholarship Program. This program would offer scholarship accounts to low-income students attending Pennsylvania’s worst schools, giving families an option and ability to afford a better education at a private school.

Last year, Pennsylvania House Democrats’ refusal to adopt Lifeline Scholarships caused the budget stalemate.



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A Pennsylvania Pastor Leads His Community's Fight for Educational Freedom

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Pastor Joshua Robertson didn't set out to become a leader in the educational freedom movement, but when his community called, he answered.

It was several calls, in fact. In spring 2020, Robertson's phone wouldn't stop ringing. "I was receiving 40–50 calls from parents every single day," says Robertson, the senior pastor of The Rock Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

These were the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns. The move to remote learning gave parents a closer look at their children's schooling—and they didn't like what they saw.

"All these parents were venting about the school system," Robertson recalls. "They would say to me, 'My kid is smart. I can't understand why they're not doing well academically.' Then throw in the violence in our schools. You're talking about kids who are in fistfights every other day."

Feeling hopeless, the parents turned to a different kind of teacher.



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Pa. Dems Education Plans, Spending Explosion Nod to Teachers Unions, Special Interests

Jay-Z schooled Pennsylvania lawmakers on what’s wrong with education. Rather than call for another blank check for our state’s failing schools, the rapper and his charitable organization, Roc Nation, plan to drum up support for more options in the Keystone State.

To paraphrase Jay-Z, Pennsylvania schools have 99 problems, but funding ain’t one.

In the 2022-23 school year, Pennsylvania Department of Education data show public school funding reached $21,985 per pupil. On top of this record-level spending — seventh highest nationally — Pennsylvania school districts are flush with cash, collectively holding $6.8 billion in reserve funds.

Despite this influx of funds, academic achievement remains alarmingly poor. More than half of Pennsylvania’s fourth graders and nearly 75% of eighth graders cannot perform grade-level math. Test scores were already sliding before the COVID-19 pandemic and have yet to recover from that significant dip.



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Pennsylvania Budget Negotiations Need ‘a Kick in the Pants’ to Meet June 30 Deadline

Pennsylvania lawmakers will need to pick up the pace of budget negotiations to get an agreed-upon spending plan to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk by the June 30 deadline, state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) said Tuesday.

Shapiro gave the General Assembly a $48.3 billion budget proposal in March that includes historic increases in education spending, a plan to overhaul the state’s higher education system, $600 for million economic development, and more than $283 million in new public transportation funding.

Although the constitutional mandate to pass a budget by the end of the fiscal year has become increasingly fluid, Pittman said he doesn’t foresee a repeat of last June. Amid an impasse last summer with House Democrats over a private school tuition voucher proposal, the Senate passed its own version of the budget and left town until August.



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School choice is a hot-button issue in Harrisburg, especially this week during budget negotiations. If you're a passionate supporter of educational freedom, please check out our podcast School Choice Report, hosted by Commonwealth Foundation Distinguished Senior Fellow David Hardy. You can listen to the latest episode here

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