Philly’s mayor and superintendent are asking Harrisburg to come through on state education budget. Three takeaways.

Flanked by a broad — and unusual — coalition of traditional public and charter supporters, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Tuesday called for Harrisburg leaders to pass a state budget that would change the way schools are funded in Pennsylvania.

Legislation passed with bipartisan support Monday by the Pennsylvania House would increase education funding by $864 million statewide in an effort to meet its legal charge to adequately and equitably fund schools. Of that sum, the Philadelphia School District would get an additional $242 million for the 2024-24 term. The education bill now goes to the Senate, where Republican leaders have expressed concerns about the plan.

A Commonwealth Court judge ruled last year that the state’s current education funding system was unconstitutional and ordered the legislature to remedy it. The proposed budget, lawmakers have said, is a down payment on bridging the so-called adequacy gap, the amount estimated it would take to adequately educate all students, factoring in student needs. House Democrats want $5.4 billion more put into public education over the next seven years.

Parker and the group, which also included City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, sent Gov. Josh Shapiro a letter Monday emphasizing both their unity and their demand that Philadelphia’s funding gap — which amounts to $1.4 billion over the seven years — be closed.

The school district has already passed a $4.5 billion budget that banks on the additional $242 million in state funding, and Watlington said the system would use it well — hiring teachers, investing in social and emotional supports, and restarting Parent University, an education program for families.

Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s City Hall news conference:

Parker, who has emphasized the need for “one Philadelphia” from the beginning of her administration, assembled a group of 15 leaders that included Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr., representatives of Philadelphia Charters for Excellence and the African American Charter School Coalition, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and the district principals’ union — organizations that have not always been on the same side of issues — to show a united front.

A pumped-up Parker said she felt “warm and fuzzy” about the assemblage.

“I told Philadelphia that I wouldn’t whisper about it,” Parker said. “I would not engage in the type of politics, especially when it comes to public education, that traditionally puts what we refer to traditional public schools versus public charter schools, and work to pit the two against each other. The fact of the matter is none of our schools have the resources that they need to provide the 21st-century quality education that students need, that the students in our great city deserve. We have waited too long. We are looking to Harrisburg.”

Joel Boyd, CEO of Mastery Charter Schools, said the point was to “stop fighting, and start fighting together on behalf of children, to not look into the past, but look to the future. What we know is that a funding gap leads to an opportunity and access gap.”

Parker refused to say where she stood on a Republican-led campaign to set aside millions in the budget for vouchers to send children from economically disadvantaged families to private schools. The controversial campaign was recently endorsed by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation. Shapiro supports vouchers if they are tied to the education funding increases he wants; most Democrats are anti-voucher.

Asked about her position on the plan, Parker refused to engage, repeating that she was “super excited” about the prospect of $242 million more for Philadelphia schools.

“We are not at the table negotiating the state budget,” said Parker, herself a former state representative. “It doesn’t behoove us” to muddy the waters with positions on things that may or may not ever come to pass, the mayor said; Harrisburg lawmakers “need to go to the table with everything they need to hammer out the best compromise they can on behalf of our students.”

Lawmakers have a July 1 deadline to pass a budget, and often debate right up to the wire.

Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg of the Public Interest Law Center, one of the lawyers who successfully argued the landmark education funding lawsuit, said the proposed budget could be “a watershed for the commonwealth” for school spending.

“Children don’t have R’s or D’s next to their name,” Urevick-Ackelsberg said at City Hall of political designations. “They have potential, and it is time to begin fulfilling it. It is time for this to become law.”