Fairness of Pa. school funding deserves hearing

First the good news. It has not exactly been a secret for some time now that the system Pennsylvania uses to fund public education has been a mess.

It’s pretty simple. The state was shortchanging education by failing to adequately fund public schools, and the money it did pony up was being unfairly doled out.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, those most in need were the ones getting the short end of the stick. The state had created an uneven playing field, where students were accorded a lesser education for no other reason than their zip code. It was Pennsylvania’s very own version of the haves and have-nots. Districts in areas with struggling economies, unable to raise revenue through tax hikes as their more well-to-do neighbors did, lagged.

To the surprise of just about everyone, the Legislature finally got around to doing something about it. Last spring it signed off on a fair funding formula and made it a permanent part of the Pennsylvania School Code. The funding formula takes into account a number of crucial factors in deciding what districts get how much in state aid, important factors such as the economy, the number of special needs students in a district, the number of students for whom English is a second language, and the effect of charter schools siphoning off funds from the public school districts. In short, those most in need stood to receive more in state education funding under the new plan.

Gov. Tom Wolf won the governor’s mansion largely on the issue of education funding. He has battled the Legislature since Day 1 of his administration and in his most recent budget won an additional $350 million in basic education funding. It’s a start, but the finish line remains in the distance, with the goal of getting every student in Pennsylvania on a level playing field when it comes to the money put into their education.

That was the impetus behind a lawsuit filed against the state in 2014 by several families and school districts who for years have been on the receiving end of that uneven playing field, whose kids have every day faced an uphill battle to get the same education as kids in more well-to-do districts just a few miles away.

Last week that lawsuit made its way to the state’s highest court. Plaintiffs branded the state system for funding education as “unconscionable,” offering a sub-standard style of education to children who happen to reside in poorer districts.

Their goal is simple. They want the chance to go to trial, where they hope to get the court to declare the state education funding system unconstitutional.

The question that now seems at the heart of the argument in front of the Supreme Court is who is best suited to fix the problem.

Plaintiffs want the court to rule; Wolf and legislators maintain this is solely the purview of the executive branch and the Legislature.

The court, not surprisingly, did not seem especially eager to wander into the morass that has long plagued school districts and the state.

In fact, Commonwealth Court has already begged off on the issue, dismissing the suit while finding it raises political issues that cannot be addressed by the court.

Groups pushing the suit such as the Education Law Center and the Public Interest Law Center appealed, which dropped the matter in the laps of the Supreme Court this week. The high court gave no indication when they might rule.

The case boils down to a legal interpretation of what the state’s mandate is when it comes to the goal of providing an “adequate education.”

All of that leads us back to the elephant in the room, the state’s reliance on property taxes to fund public education. As anyone from a poor district can attest, that puts their children at an immediate disadvantage simply because their tax rates don’t rase the same revenue as property taxes in wealthier districts.

The results are not exactly surprising. Pennsylvania has the largest funding gap between rich and poor districts in the nation.

The funding formula is a step in the right direction, but it’s not yet a cure.

Right now the plaintiffs are simply asking for the opportunity to make their case at trial.

We believe they deserve that chance.