PA House Democrats promise to double down on public education support following election victory

PA House Democrats are looking forward to continuing to make investments in public education following their electoral wins last week. Last year, they helped Gov. Josh Shapiro secure a historic $1.1 billion education funding boost and are looking to build on that going forward.

Members of the Pennsylvania House Democratic Caucus, along with their leadership, stood alongside each other on the Pennsylvania capitol steps on Tuesday and took a victory lap to celebrate their second consecutive term in power.

Democrats held onto their one-seat majority coming out of last week’s election, and they are looking forward to doubling down on their support for public education in the upcoming 2024-25 legislative session. 

“We were humbled by the faith that Pennsylvanians have put into all 102 House Democrats. We recognize that divided government is not just a thing of the last session. It will be a thing of the next session, and we will recognize that compromise is necessary and we will do the hard work of compromise and we will meet any person of goodwill halfway,” House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D-Montgomery) said during Tuesday’s press conference.

“That is what we did when we passed historic investments in public education after decades of being told that an unconstitutional school funding formula was somehow okay, it wasn’t. Then we made real progress last session and we’re going to double down on that next session. We’ve got more work to do.”

Last year, Gov. Josh Shapiro and House Democrats were able to secure a $1.1 billion education funding increase that helped chip away at the commonwealth’s $6.2 billion public education funding deficit. 

Education advocates called those increases “step one” in a process to fairly fund education after the Commonwealth Court found that the state is failing to meet its constitutional obligations to properly fund education. 

Shapiro, who spoke at a press conference in York County on Wednesday, told reporters that he is looking forward to bringing the Democratic-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate together to continue making those funding increases. 

“I want to continue to do this work and continue to build on our success, bringing Republicans and Democrats together to get stuff done in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said. 

“I mean, think about it. We’ve come together to invest in public education, fix our formulas, so now every child of God gets an opportunity for quality education regardless of their zip code.”