Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West Virginia to its southwest, Ohio to its west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to its northwest, New York state to its north, and the Delaware River and New Jersey to its east.
School choice is a term for education options that allow students and families to select alternatives to public schools. It is the subject of fierce debate in various state legislatures across the United States.
Education in the United States is provided in public and private schools and by individuals through homeschooling. State governments set overall educational standards, often mandate standardized tests for K–12 public school systems and supervise, usually through a board of regents, state colleges, and universities. The bulk of the $1.3 trillion in funding comes from state and local governments, with federal funding accounting for about $260 billion in 2021 compared to around $200 billion in past years.
The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is among the most selective and oldest law schools in the United States, and it is currently ranked sixth overall by U.S. News & World Report. It offers the degrees of Juris Doctor (J.D.), Master of Laws (LL.M.), Master of Comparative Laws (LL.C.M.), Master in Law (M.L.), and Doctor of the Science of Law (S.J.D.).
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that applied the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to state law. Prior to this decision, the clause, which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", imposed limits only on the federal government, while many states continued to grant certain religious denominations legislative or effective privileges.
In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The relevant constitutional text is:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...
The Robin Hood plan was a media nickname given to legislation enacted by the U.S. state of Texas in 1993 to provide court-mandated equitable school financing for all school districts in the state, in response to the Texas Supreme Court's ruling in Edgewood Independent School District v. Kirby.
Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U.S. 70 (1995), is a case decided by the United States Supreme Court. On June 12, 1995 the Court, in a 5–4 decision, overturned a district court ruling that required the state of Missouri to correct intentional racial discrimination in Kansas City schools by funding salary increases and remedial education programs.
Massachusetts shares with the five other New England states a governmental structure known as the New England town. Only the southeastern third of the state has functioning county governments; in western, central, and northeastern Massachusetts, traditional county-level government was eliminated in the late 1990s. Generally speaking, there are four kinds of public school districts in Massachusetts: local schools, regional schools, vocational/technical schools, and charter schools.
San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that San Antonio Independent School District's financing system, which was based on local property taxes, was not a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause.
After the 2000 census, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was divided into 19 congressional districts, decreasing from 21 due to reapportionment. After the 2010 census, the number of districts decreased again to 18. In the 2022 midterms, per the 2020 United States census, Pennsylvania lost one congressional seat, bringing the delegation's number to 17 districts.
The Government of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is the governmental structure of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as established by the Pennsylvania Constitution. It is composed of three branches: executive, legislative and judicial. The capital of the Commonwealth is Harrisburg.
The Connecticut Supreme Court issued its ruling in Horton v. Meskill on April 19, 1977. It held that the right to education in Connecticut is so basic and fundamental that any intrusion on the right must be strictly scrutinized. The Court said that public school students are entitled to equal enjoyment of the right to education, and a system of school financing that relied on local property tax revenues without regard to disparities in town wealth and that lacked significant equalizing state support was unconstitutional. It could not pass the test of strict judicial scrutiny. The Court also held that the creation of a constitutional system for education financing is a job for the legislature and not the courts.
DeRolph v. State is a landmark case in Ohio constitutional law in which the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that the state's method for funding public education was unconstitutional. On March 24, 1997, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled in a 4–3 decision that the state funding system "fails to provide for a thorough and efficient system of common schools," as required by the Ohio Constitution, and directed the state to find a remedy. The court would look at the case several times over the next 12 years before it relinquished jurisdiction, but the underlying problems with the school funding system remain to this day.
Serrano v. Priest refers to three cases regarding the financing of public schools in California that were decided by the California Supreme Court: Serrano v. Priest, 5 Cal.3d 584 (1971) ; Serrano v. Priest, 18 Cal.3d 728 (1976) ; and Serrano v. Priest, 20 Cal.3d 25 (1977).
Board of Education v. Walter was a 1979 Ohio Supreme Court case relating to the funding of primary and secondary schools in Ohio. The Court ruled that the method of funding public schools at the time was constitutional despite disparities in per-pupil education spending between different districts. Article VI of the Ohio Constitution states that the state must provide an "adequate system of public schools." The ruling overturned a previous trial court ruling that the State's school-funding system violated the Constitution of Ohio's requirement of providing a thorough and efficient system of public education. Board of Education v. Walter is one of the cases that played a role leading to DeRolph v. State of Ohio in 1997, which found the model of funding for public schools in Ohio to be unconstitutional.
Public schools in the United States of America provide basic education from kindergarten until the twelfth grade. This is provided free of charge for the students and parents, but is paid for by taxes on property owners as well as general taxes collected by the federal government. This education is mandated by the states. With the completion of this basic schooling, one obtains a high school diploma as certification of basic skills for employers.
Maria Collett is a Greek-born American politician serving as a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania State Senate who represents the 12th District. Her district includes portions of eastern Montgomery County and southern Bucks County. Collett is the first Greek American woman to serve in the Pennsylvania State Senate.
Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a state-based scholarship program that provides public funds to allow students to attend private schools cannot discriminate against religious schools under the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution.
Carson v. Makin, 596 U.S. ___ (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Free Exercise Clause. It was a follow-up to Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue.
