Philadelphia public schools are chronically underfunded, and this directly impacts Philly’s students, teachers, staff and administration. This is most dramatically seen in toxic and unsafe conditions in 80% of school buildings. For example, general disrepair, unclean water, and the district-wide presence of high levels of asbestos and lead has resulted in not only disrupting the quality of education, but in illness and in some cases, death. Additionally, chronic school underfunding disproportionately impacts BIPOC, who made up 85% of the city’s school population in 2019-2020, and poor and working class Philadelphians. Chronic school underfunding is an education justice, economic justice and racial justice issue that we should all be concerned with for the health and well-being of our city. This is not acceptable!

But why are Philly’s public schools so underfunded? The school district relies on mostly local revenue from property taxes for its funding, and Philadelphia loses out on more revenue due to corporate tax breaks than any other school district in the country. Additionally, Philadelphia has a huge amount of tax-exempted land, most of which is owned by multi-million dollar nonprofits, who use the privilege of tax exemption to generate massive amounts of revenue that does not trickle down to everyday Philadelphians. Drexel is a wealthy nonprofit, owning approximately $3.2 billion in largely untaxed property, which means that Drexel directly benefits from the same citywide context that disenfranchises Philly’s public schools. As an institution of higher learning, we believe that Drexel must take a dramatic, structural, step to address this inequity.

We are calling on Drexel to pay 40% of what it would be paying in property taxes to Philly’s public schools in the form of PILOTs (Payments in Lieu of Taxes). As a civically engaged university, it is time for Drexel to be real about the disparity betweenthe benefits it receives from the city and the benefits it creates for Philly’s long-term residents, and invest some of its revenue in Philly’s public schools. Across the city, #PhillySchoolsDeserve healthy, supportive and non-toxic conditions to learn and grow. We ask that Drexel pay PILOTs now to invest in education justice for Philly's public schools!