Why Pennsylvania needs to level education funding

Kudos to the editorial board for its bold editorial on the hard reality of education funding in Pennsylvania.

The board was so bold as to call for applying the state’s fair funding formula to all education funding, not just new money.

This commonsense suggestion is simple, fair and politically achievable.

It is also essential in order to eliminate the systemic racial bias that for decades has favored whiter districts over comparable districts with more students of color.

Here in the Delaware Valley, the vast majority of school districts currently get less than their fair share of funding. Five local districts (Pottstown, Philadelphia, Norristown, Upper Darby and Southeast Delco) are shortchanged more than $1,200 per student this year.

All five serve mostly students of color, and this pattern of racial inequity exists across the state.

Critics of 100 percent fair funding, like Education Voters of PA’s Susan Spicka in her recently published letter, like to count up the number of districts that would get less funding if all the funds were distributed fairly.

They regularly fail to mention that a shift to fair funding would increase funding for the majority of students and the majority of state legislators.

It is a false choice to frame funding policy as a choice between increased funding and fair distribution.

Pennsylvania sorely needs both.

These two objectives support each other in achieving adequate and equitable funding, and in garnering political support.

When we have both equitable distribution and increases in funding, fewer districts will face a decrease and more districts will receive truly adequate funding.

While reasonable people can disagree over what the total education budget should be, do we really need to argue whether to distribute funding using a proven discriminatory way instead of a universally acclaimed fair formula?

In the absence of a large in- crease in overall funding, it is true that a transition to fair state funding will be challenging for some struggling districts. But others are wallowing in undeserved windfalls from the state.

Consider South Side district in Beaver County. It receives more than six times its formula share of state funding, a staggering $9,500 per student, compared to its formula-computed share of $1,500.

Should this moderately wealthy district, which enjoys a property tax rate below the state’s average, continue to receive nearly the same total funding from the state as Pottstown, a district with three times the number of students, and nine times the poverty rate?

South Side is not a lone example.

There are 33 districts with above-average household income that currently receive more than $2,000 per student above their formula share of this year’s funding.

All of these districts’ student bodies are overwhelmingly white.

Should our struggling districts be required to subsidize these lucky beneficiaries with our local taxes, so that they continue to enjoy excellent schools while paying lower local taxes? That doesn’t seem fair.

Thank you to the editorial board for its courage to stand up for moral funding that directs dollars to districts according to their need rather than historic privilege.