We don’t pretend that it’s not a big number. But it’s also an urgent problem.”

Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, Public Interest Law Center

PENNSYLVANIA — Pandemic-era funds have allowed Pennsylvania schools to offer better mental health support, higher teacher salaries, and more extra-curricular activities. Those funds are about to run out -- unless Governor Josh Shapiro and lawmakers account for them in the 2024-25 budget.

“Districts across the commonwealth will be making cuts because they will not be able to sustain the improvements that were made possible with COVID funds,” said Donna Cooper, the executive director of Children First (formerly Public Citizens For Children and Youth), which advocates for public education and families.

This funding drop-off coincides with a court mandate to spend more money on schools. In a historic decision last year, a commonwealth court judge ruled that Pennsylvania’s school funding system was so broken, it violated students’ “fundamental right” to an education.

Educational reform advocates from the PA Schools Work Coalition are calling on Governor Josh Shapiro and state legislators to heed that ruling and provide equitable public education for all students, not just those in wealthy districts.

In September 2023, Penn State education and policy analyst Matthew Kelly testified to the Basic Education Funding Commission (BEFC), the group charged with reviewing how the state distributes funds basic education. Weighing factors like instruction, special education, student services, charter school reimbursement and pensions, Pennsylvania’s adequacy gap across schools adds up to a whopping $6.2 billion, he said.

Ahead of this year’s BEFC report, due on January 11, education reform advocates held a press conference to announce how to that steep gap should be filled.

“We cannot accept a plan that is politically convenient but fails our students,” said Deborah Gordan Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center. “Governor Shapiro has been a strong defender of public education and as attorney general made a compelling case that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is both unconstitutional and wrong. We are confident that the govenor will back up his words with action.”

Why is PA’s funding system broken?

State aid only covers so much, so the onus falls on residents to make up any differences in their property taxes.

More-affluent school districts collect higher property taxes and so can afford better programs, extracurricular activities, and teacher salaries. Less-affluent districts lose teachers to other districts and are often forced to cut basic programs, like pre-K or the school library, just to stay afloat.

Kelly, of BEFC, said Pennsylvania spends an average of $4,800 less per year, per student, in its poorer districts than it does in its richer ones. He also testified in the commonwealth court trial that Black and Hispanic communities are the most deeply affected by these disparities. Around 80 percent of Black and Hispanic students live in underfunded districts.

The coalition’s plan to fix it

These disparities have real-world consequences too, said senior attorney Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg from the Public Interest Law Center.

“Things like standardized tests, high school graduation rates, college admission rates — anything you use to measure the system, the system is failing,” he said. Redistributing BEFC funds, pitting districts against each other, or placing a greater burden on taxpayers in impoverished districts were not sustainable solutions, he said.

Urevick-Ackelsberg said the coalition’s first step was to identify which districts were meeting state standards and goals. The second step was finding out how much those districts are spending on teachers, counselors, sports and other activities. In applying those numbers to the number of students per district, the coalition can get  “a baseline number for what every district in the commonwealth should have,” Urevick-Ackelsberg said.

The coalition is calling on the state to fill in this $6.2 billion funding gap within five years, with a two-billion dollar investment in the first year and about a billion dollars after that.

“It’s a big number,” Urevick-Ackelsberg said. “We don’t pretend that it’s not a big number. But it’s also an urgent problem.”

Each district would be allocated a yearly amount based on these calculations. For example, the Wilkes-Barre Area School District’s “adequacy shortfall” per student is estimated to be more than $10,000, or nearly $89 million in total. The coalition proposes investing more than $28 million in Wilkes-Barre in the first year, and more than $15 million in the following four years.

“We want the state to actually enact a five-year schedule of payment so that school districts can plan,” Urevick-Ackelsberg said. He added that districts need some time to scale up. “We also need to give them certainty, predictability,” he said.

Tax the wealthiest

According to the commission’s polling, 67 percent of Pennsylvania voters say the state government should be “doing more to ensure public schools are sufficiently funded.” That sentiment is stronger among Democrats—86 percent—but a majority Republicans also agreed.

“This is not only a viable plan to close these funding gaps,” said Susan Spicka, executive director of the Education Voters of Pennsylvania. “We know from our work all over the state that this is supported in rural, urban and suburban communities and that everyone, everywhere, our children in all of our communities would benefit if the state legislature and Governor Shapiro can come together and really make this a reality for children.”

Cooper of Children First said the polling also found that across every voting district across the commonwealth, an “overwhelming” percentage of voters — 70 percent or higher — support directing additional money into public schools.

When asked about tax increases to help fill the funding gap, most respondents favored a plan that raised taxes on the wealthiest Pennsylvanians. Cooper said that tactic was used in Massachussets, “where a special tax was put in place on those of great wealth to pay for a school funding solution there.”

She also alluded to the “robust” $6.1 billion in Pennsylvania’s “rainy day fund,” 

“It’s raining on our students now,” she said.