Statement on Penn’s Announcement of a $100M Gift to the Philadelphia Public Schools

The University of Pennsylvania’s announcement of a gift to the Philadelphia public schools is a welcome first step toward resolving the debt that the university owes our city's public school system. Above all, it testifies to the power of mobilization by public school students, teachers, city leaders, and members of the Penn community. We are committed to continuing that mobilization to ensure that Penn pays its full fair share on an ongoing basis.

The chronic underfunding of the Philadelphia Public Schools cannot be resolved with a limited commitment of ten annual payments; it requires a system of public finance that ensures that the city's wealthiest institutions pay their fair share every year in perpetuity. The University of Pennsylvania is Philadelphia’s largest private property owner, and in the city of Philadelphia, property taxes are the principal source of local revenue for public education.  Year in and year out, Penn’s property tax exemption deprives the public school system of funds that students, teachers, and staff need and deserve.  Year in and year out, the poorest big city in the United States subsidizes one of the richest universities in the country by forfeiting a portion of its property tax revenues.  A time-limited gift will not make up for Penn’s accumulated debt to the public schools, nor will it ensure that Penn contributes what it owes in the future.

Furthermore, Penn’s commitment to pay $10 million per year falls short of the standard that our community has set.  Over 1,000 faculty and staff members, speaking in harmony with parents, teachers, students, community organizations, and members of the City Council, have called on Penn to pay 40% of what it would owe in property taxes every year.  By our calculations, that would come to approximately $40 million per year—four times what the university has offered.

Public schools are not charities, and public education is not a gift or a privilege whose provision can rightly depend on occasional acts of beneficence.  The provision of public education has long been one of the most firmly and universally established responsibilities of government in the United States.  Generations of Americans have held to the idea that every child is entitled to an education that is freely available to all, financed by all, and governed by all through legitimate democratic procedures.  Private charity cannot sustain such a system.  To suggest as much degrades the egalitarian, democratic promise of public education.

For these reasons, we remain resolved that Penn must make annual payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) to the public schools—40% of what it would owe in property taxes, paid into an Educational Equity Fund governed by the School District and City of Philadelphia.  No gift will substitute, and no gift will quiet our calls for Penn to fulfill this basic civic responsibility.