Some people are fired up about a one-dollar tax on ride-share trips in Philadelphia. Uber and Lyft are counting on that outrage. They are flooding inboxes and apps with messages warning riders that politicians are out to get them, hoping folks will not look too closely at who actually benefits when new revenue for public schools gets blocked.
At the same time, many others understand what is at stake and are willing to do what is necessary to equitably fund our schools as a matter of common sense and common good. There are parents, students, teachers, labor allies, education advocates, and community members who understand that this is about students and the people who serve them directly. A broad coalition that includes the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and other education advocates has publicly supported the proposed one-dollar rideshare tax while continuing to fight for full and equitable state funding.
Some people are saying they take Uber every day and this tax will hurt them. That concern is real. I do not love taxes. I hate cuts to our children’s schools vastly more. But there also has to be honesty about what is already happening. Uber and Lyft already raise prices whenever their algorithms sense they can get away with it. Bad weather. Rush hour. A concert letting out. A delayed train. People trying to get home safely. That is the game. Their technology is built to detect demand and turn it into more profit.
Those algorithms do not send extra money to our schools. They send extra money to the company. A small, predictable fee in the public’s interest is not the same thing as the profit-hunting price spikes these tech giants impose every day. When the city proposes a one-dollar fee to help keep teachers in classrooms and counselors in schools, Uber and Lyft suddenly want to pose as defenders of working people. Please. They are not protecting riders. They are playing games with people’s emotions to protect their profits.
Philadelphia is hardly alone here. Cities like New York,Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. already levy taxes or fees on these types of trips. Philadelphia should also require the kind of public rideshare data that cities like Chicago and New York already make available, so debates about equity, access, and impact are driven by evidence rather than by corporate talking points.
The myths about “finding” money
Some people are also shouting, “audit the district.” That sounds tough, but ignores what is already true: the School District of Philadelphia is audited every year, the district’s own audit policy requires an annual financial audit, and the City Controller publishes yearly single-audit reports reviewing federal funds and compliance. These documents are public.
Then there is the claim that the city should just use Parking Authority money. The Philadelphia Parking Authority’s governance page makes clear that this is a state-controlled authority, not a simple city department. State law shifted governance to a state-appointed board, so this is not a local revenue pot that Philadelphia can redirect at will.
People also keep asking where the soda tax is and why it is not going to K-12 schools. That revenue is already designated for other purposes, including pre-K seats, community schools, and projects like parks, recreation centers, and libraries. The sweetened beverage tax testimony and other docuements on how beverage tax revenue supports ‘PHLpreK‘ make that plain.
There is no secret stash here. There are tradeoffs. The beverage tax supports the ecosystem that supports children and communities: pre-K, community schools, libraries, parks, rec centers, and neighborhood spaces. Things that help young people learn, grow, and stay connected through investments such as PHLpreK and Rebuild. The ride-share tax was aimed more directly at classrooms and school-based staff. It is not one or the other. It is about the whole child.
People cannot say they want more pre-K, stronger community schools, better libraries, rebuilt parks and recreation centers, and healthier neighborhood spaces, then turn around and act like those dollars can be shifted to K-12 without naming what they are willing to cut. Money already committed to children and neighborhoods cannot simply be moved around without consequence.
A state that has not paid its bill
A state court ruling in 2023 found that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional and fails to provide students in low-wealth districts with the education the state constitution requires.
That ruling did not emerge from guesswork. It came after years of evidence showing that districts like Philadelphia were being shortchanged by billions of dollars. Analysis of how the school funding ruling may cost Pennsylvania billions, explains the scale of the statewide adequacy gap that decision laid bare.
It is fair to say the state still owes Philadelphia an enormous amount of money. Depending on the methodology, recent analyses estimate that Pennsylvania underfunds its public schools by roughly $4.5 to $6.2 billion every year, while Philadelphia alone is identified as having an adequacy gap of roughly $1.25 billion under the 2024-25 Basic Education Funding Commission framework.
Since the ruling, state budgets have added some new dollars for public education. But “some” is not the same as “sufficient.” Recent analysis shows the 2024-25 budget’s first installment filled only a small share of the statewide adequacy gap.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania continues to rank among the worst in the nation for how little the state contributes relative to local taxpayers. A widely used education funding fact sheet notes that only about 36 percent of K-12 funding in Pennsylvania comes from state sources, while roughly 53 percent comes from local taxes. The Education Law Center’s “Making the Grade” 2025 also identifies Pennsylvania as a weak performer on school funding fairness and adequacy.
Philadelphia is already stretching hard within the limits it has. The state is the one lagging behind. So when people say the city should demand the state pay, the response is simple: that is exactly what advocates, local leaders, and families have been doing for years, in courtrooms and in budget negotiations. The long-running School Funding Lawsuit makes that plain.
And here is the part too often left out of this conversation. We — parents, educators, organizers, clergy, and ordinary Philadelphians — demanded that the state end its takeover of our school district. We demanded the dissolution of the School Reform Commission because we believed local control was not just a governance preference, it was a moral one. That was our demand, and it was the right one.
But with local control comes local responsibility. We cannot demand the right to lead and then act surprised when leading costs something. Yes, the state owes Philadelphia billions, and yes, we should keep pressing in court, in Harrisburg, and at every budget hearing until they pay their fair share. But our children cannot wait for the Commonwealth to develop a conscience.
Think of it like a parent in a child support battle. The court orders the other parent to pay. The other parent does not pay. The court does not enforce. The custodial parent still has to feed the child, clothe the child, get the child to school. You do not let your child go hungry because the deadbeat refuses to do right. You do what you have to do, and you keep the case open.
That is where Philadelphia is. We demanded that the SRC end and that we lead. Leading means funding. Leading means recurring revenue, not one-time cushions that vanish before the next budget cycle.
A structural deficit and a shared responsibility
The district’s structural deficit did not appear overnight. It is the result of a system that denied Philadelphia the same revenue flexibility most other Pennsylvania districts have while depending on the city and state to keep the district afloat.
If the school board could raise taxes on its own like boards across Pennsylvania, it likely would have done so already. In most Pennsylvania districts, school boards have the authority to levy taxes, but in Philadelphia the board is dependent on city and state officials for major revenue decisions. That unique constraint is laid out in explanations of how Philly schools are funded and in reporting showing that the Board of Education cannot raise tax revenue on its own.
The district’s current challenge is laid out in reporting on its roughly $300 million budget gap.
Superintendent Tony Watlington used federal pandemic relief and district reserves to delay cuts and try to prove what real investment in classrooms could do. An overview of the district’s budget cuts and deficit plan explains how temporary federal funds and surplus dollars were used to buy time and avoid immediate harm while preserving gains.
Those gains matter. They represent students who stayed in school, students who passed, and students who walked across a stage, even as leaders warned that one-time money would eventually run out.
Watlington has also said that the goal is to eliminate the structural deficit by the end of the decade, and a summary of the district’s five-year plan details how leaders are trying to close that gap through a mix of cuts and new recurring revenue.
That means recurring revenue. Not one-time patches. Not magical thinking. Recurring revenue.
As a former principal, I know what it means to lead a school under the constant threat of cuts. My school communities lived through that pain more than once. It was not just worrisome. It was disruptive, dismaying, and deeply disrespectful to students, families, teachers, and staff. When budgets are slashed, schools lose more than line items. They lose stability, trust, momentum, and the ability to stay focused on the academic and developmental outcomes children deserve.
A one-dollar ride-share tax is not the whole answer. But it is one piece of a larger answer, and it asks multibillion-dollar tech giants to contribute to the public good in a city whose children have been shortchanged for generations. Mayor Cherelle Parker has said the revised proposal would generate about $48 million a year for the School District of Philadelphia and help prevent cuts to 340 school-based positions.
These platform’s algorithms work overtime to support their own profits. They can work just a little for our students too. The proposed rideshare tax and would help close the school budget gap.
Every year Philadelphia fails to solve this decades-long problem, the hole gets deeper and the cure gets harsher. A structural deficit means the math is broken every year, so every time leaders cover it with one-time money instead of recurring revenue, the imbalance comes back with more pressure and fewer options. That is like paying a long-term bill with a short-term credit card while a leak keeps spreading through the house. The relief feels real in the moment, but the balance comes back, the damage worsens, and the eventual repair gets costlier. Without recurring revenue, we are guaranteed larger deficits and cuts in years to come. Instability will become the norm while we are collectively working to expand and improve the educator workforce and make Philly the premier educators’ destination city and district.
Our city council understands that avoiding disruption this year is not the same as solving the problem. Schools have to plan long term, and families do too. As a parent, it is harder to plan for children when the people in charge keep patching over the crisis and falling further behind. In this case, taxes not being raised may win a headline, but if that choice blows up kids’ progress next year, it is not prudence. We would be punting the problem and enlarging the harm.
Philadelphia needs recurring and predictable local revenue that helps resolve the structural deficit while the fight for full state funding continues. City leaders and budget makers have stepped up before in the face of a deadbeat state apparatus. And, we need them to do it again, not with a temporary patch, but with a durable commitment that lets schools plan for strong outcomes the same way educators are asked to deliver them: consistently, responsibly, and over time. If people want to reject this approach, then they should offer another one that is real, sustainable, and equal to the scale of the problem.
Our students. Our educators. Our obligation.
Our students deserve fully funded schools, strong teachers, counselors, safe buildings, arts, and the basic opportunities that too many wealthier districts treat as ordinary. The people who serve them every day deserve support, honesty, and a public willing to fight for the conditions they need to do the work well.
Our city and the school district need an information campaign that is clear, relentless, and impossible to ignore. People need to know and understand who controls the Parking Authority, where the soda tax goes, what the audits already show, how much the state still owes, and why recurring local strategies are being discussed at all. The misinformation pervasive on social media is killing us. Clicks and likes too often don’t inform the public of nuance, strategy, or facts.
Accountability is not one-sided. The state must be held accountable for its constitutional duty. The district and city must be held accountable for how they spend, communicate, and govern. And the public must be given real information, over and over again, so misinformation does not harden into contempt for the very strategies meant to protect children and the educators who serve them.
Uber and Lyft do not get to hide behind consumers while they fight any attempt to make them contribute. They are more than willing to add fees when it benefits them, more than willing to let algorithms punish riders when demand and needs are high, and more than willing to call all of that normal. But ask them to help support schools, and suddenly every extra dollar is a moral crisis. That is not principle. That is profit. Philadelphia’s children are worthy of more than this manufactured outrage and more than another round of delay.
This fight is not really about one dollar. It is about whether multibillion-dollar companies get to wrap themselves in the language of working people while using fear, lobbying, and saturation marketing to undermine a modest public investment in children and pretend their opposition is about fairness. Philadelphia’s students should not keep paying the price for state neglect, local instability, and another round of corporate resistance to the smallest possible shared obligation.
