The Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools (PARSS) this week officially joined PA Schools Work as a member organization, adding the voice of Pennsylvania’s rural and small school districts to the statewide coalition of education, civil rights, faith, labor, parent, and community organizations advocating for adequate and equitable funding for the commonwealth’s public schools.
Founded more than 40 years ago, PARSS has been one of Pennsylvania’s most persistent voices for fiscal and instructional equity, pressing legislators, state administrators, and the courts to deliver a fair shot for students in the commonwealth’s small and rural school districts. PARSS membership formally aligns that decades-long advocacy with the PA Schools Work coalition at a pivotal moment for school funding in Pennsylvania.
PARSS joins the coalition as the Pennsylvania Senate weighs HB 2400, Governor Shapiro’s FY 2026–2027 budget, passed by the state house on a bipartisan vote, which includes nearly $700 million new investments for Pennsylvania public schools, including the third installment of $565 million in adequacy and tax equity payments, $50 million for basic education funding, and $50 million for special education funding.
More than three years after the commonwealth court ruled Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional, 363 of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts qualify for adequacy funding — the majority of them rural. Two installments of adequacy funding have closed roughly 22% of the state’s adequacy gap; approximately $3.8 billion remains.
Dr. Ed Albert, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, said:
“For more than 40 years, PARSS has fought to make sure the students in Pennsylvania’s rural and small school districts get the same shot at a great education as any other child in this commonwealth. Joining PA Schools Work is a natural next step in that fight. The majority of the 360 districts that qualify for adequacy funding are rural — these are the districts that have been shortchanged the longest. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the parents, students, educators, and advocates of PA Schools Work, we will keep pushing until every child in Pennsylvania, no matter their zip code, has access to the thorough and efficient education the constitution promises them.”
Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters of Pennsylvania and a leader within the PA Schools Work coalition, said:
“PARSS has been a tireless champion for Pennsylvania’s rural and small schools for four decades. Their voice, and the voices of the rural communities they represent, make our coalition stronger.Right now our message to the senate is clear: finish the job, fund our schools, and pass an on-time, bipartisan budget that continues the progress already delivering real results in classrooms across the Commonwealth.”
The bipartisan progress on adequacy funding is already producing measurable results in school districts across Pennsylvania — from full-day kindergarten and smaller k–3 class sizes, to structured literacy and high-dosage math tutoring, to expanded career and technical education and more counselors, social workers, and school psychologists in school buildings in rural, suburban, and urban communities. Every district in the commonwealth also benefits from increases in basic education and special education funding, as well as from cyber charter reforms enacted last year that are returning roughly $250 million annually to local school districts and taxpayers.
District-by-district fact sheets showing how every Pennsylvania school district will benefit from Governor Shapiro’s proposed FY 2026–2027 budget are available online.
