Last week, I visited Penrose Elementary School as part of my weekly visits to Philadelphia public schools.

During that visit, a stack of handwritten letters from an eighth-grade class were presented to me. The students wrote about the struggles they face daily, just trying to get a good education.

“Being an eighth grader in the School District of Philadelphia, I am deprived of basic necessities,” wrote Cymberly. She explained her problems with outdated textbooks. “According to my science textbook, Pluto is still a planet. They discovered Pluto wasn’t a planet in 2006! Therefore, we are using books that are at least 10 years old. That is unacceptable!”

Sharon shared a story about her math teacher buying printer paper with his own money because they lacked school supplies.

Daniel wrote about his fear of losing more activities and staff due to budget cuts. “Because of budget cuts, there are no clubs like robotics,” wrote Daniel. “We lost our librarian years ago, and I am worried that art and computers may get cut next.”

Right now Philadelphia students are using outdated textbooks, lack basic supplies like paper, and live in fear of losing the few programs they already have. As Cymberly wrote to me, it is unacceptable.

Education is my number one priority. I will continue to work with Governor Wolf and our partners in Harrisburg. Philadelphia needs a fair funding formula, and we need Harrisburg to pass a budget that will give all of our kids a fair shot.

We need a budget for Cymberly, Daniel, and Sharon–and all Philadelphia public school students.