Democrats declared a sweep in Harrisburg on Tuesday night, and school funding advocates in Philadelphia hope it means more money is finally on the way. Gov. Josh Shapiro won reelection, and Democrats said they won both chambers of the General Assembly for the first time in more than three decades.
The sweep is declared, not yet fully confirmed. As of midnight on election night, the Associated Press had called only one of the contested Senate races and had not called dozens of House races. Democrats said they flipped four Republican held Senate seats, which would give them a narrow majority in a chamber Republicans have led since 1994. The new session starts Jan 5, and until then, nothing has changed in law.
What has changed is the roadblock. For years, the Republican led Senate stopped House passed bills on transit funding and other Democratic priorities. That brake is now gone, at least on paper. Shapiro said the Senate flip means the state can “deliver even more results for our communities,” and his stated priorities include raising the minimum wage and lowering costs.
For Philadelphia schools, the hope is specific. Advocates want the new majority to move faster on adequacy funding, the money a 2023 court ruling said the state owes its poorest districts. The state has raised K-12 spending every year since that ruling, but advocates say districts are still owed an estimated $3.3 billion. Laura Boyce of Teach Plus Pennsylvania said the top issues next session will likely be more school funding, more money for literacy programs, and school construction and renovation. “The divided government excuse for not doing things to help to improve student opportunity in Pennsylvania has been eliminated,” she said.
City Council Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson said the shift “will help us move our priorities forward and deliver on the issues that matter most to Philadelphians, including education.”
But no bill has been filed, and no dollar figure has been promised to Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers is blunt about that. “Achieving our policy priorities … is by no means guaranteed,” President Arthur Steinberg said in a statement Wednesday, naming fast tracked adequacy funding for the district as one of those priorities.
It carries about a $300 million structural deficit inside a $5.4 billion operating budget, and Board President Reginald Streater estimates it is about $1.2 billion underfunded every year. The Inquirer reported the gap is projected to reach about $466 million in the next fiscal year without state action, with the district drawing down 40 percent of its rainy day fund this year and cutting about $225 million in operating costs.
In April, the board voted 6 to 3 to approve a $3 billion facilities plan that closes 17 schools starting in the 2027-28 school year and modernizes 169 others. The plan has drawn opposition from City Council and several Democratic state lawmakers, and students, teachers, and parents rallied outside district headquarters last week asking the board to reconsider.
Northeast families now face two questions. Which schools close, and whether new state money arrives in time to change the plan. The district has not published a school by school breakdown of the closure list that could be verified for this story, and the board has not said it will revisit the plan. More state funding could ease the pressure, but the closures are a district decision, and Harrisburg money alone does not undo a vote the board already took.
Shapiro has said he is “very open” to opting Pennsylvania into the federal education tax credit program, which would send public money to private school scholarships. Governors have until Jan 1, 2027, to decide. School choice supporters see his reelection as an opening, which means the new majority may spend as much time arguing about vouchers as about adequacy funding.
New members are sworn in Jan 5. The first test will be whether the new majority puts a school funding bill on the table early, and whether it carries real dollars for Philadelphia or just the promise of them. Until then, the district’s deficit and its closure plan both stand as they were on Election Day.
