Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Report backs education funding overhaul
Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed drastically changing the way public school districts in Pennsylvania are funded.
Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed drastically changing the way public school districts in Pennsylvania are funded.
As part of his annual budget proposal, he is calling for pumping more than $1.8 billion of new money into education, and altering how money is handed out to shrink long-existing funding gaps between wealthy and poor districts.
A report released Tuesday says such an overhaul is desperately needed.
The report by the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center reiterates what other reports on education funding in the state have previously shown — the way Pennsylvania funds schools is inadequate and inequitable. It’s the reason why five years ago the state instituted a new “fair funding formula” aimed at addressing the problem.
But that formula hasn’t fixed the problem, the report says. Because it only applies to new state funding, it will take decades to level the playing field.
Instead, the authors of the report call for something big. Something like Wolf’s plan.
“We are not wedded to Gov. Wolf’s proposal, we’re open to other ideas,” Marc Stier, director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, said during a virtual press conference Tuesday. “But I think some proposal along those lines is a necessary first step.
“The time to act is now. The distribution of school funding in this state right now is a moral failure.”
The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center describes itself as a nonpartisan, statewide policy research project of the Keystone Research Center that provides independent, credible analysis on state tax, budget, and related policy matters with attention to the impact of policy proposals on working individuals and families.
History of inequity, inadequacy
The problems with education funding in Pennsylvania aren’t new, Stier said, but they have gotten worse.
Back in the 1970s, the state provided about half of the funding for public school districts, he said. Now, it’s around 33%.
That ranks the state in the bottom five in the nation, Stier said.
Those numbers are important, he said, because when the state doesn’t contribute an adequate share it leads to a separation of districts with means and those without.
“If you happen to have a King of Prussia mall in in your district, you can raise a lot of money with fairly low tax rates,” he said.
But if a district is made up of mostly low-income housing and people struggling with poverty who can’t afford to pay hefty tax bills, school districts can’t raise the funds they need.
The report shows that is, indeed, what’s happening.
While lack of funding is a problem for most districts — 84% have inadequate levels of funding, Stier said — the situation is more dire for poor districts and those that serve students of color.
School districts with the highest levels of poverty have the biggest gaps between what they spend per student and what they should be spending to provide a quality education, Stier said. Those with the lowest levels of poverty have the smallest gap.
The same is true for districts with the highest levels of black and Latino students, with those districts having large funding gaps.
“I think what this research shows, and it shows it once again, is that Pennsylvania funds education with a system that is separate and unequal,” said state Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Democrat who represents parts of Montgomery and Philadelphia counties and took part in Tuesday’s press conference. “And, clearly, it it inadequate.”
Governor’s plan
The governor’s proposed changes to education funding would do a lot to address the shortfalls of the state’s system, Stier said.
Wolf is calling to run all of the state’s basic education subsidies — the largest stream of state money provided to local schools districts — through the fair funding formula enacted in 2016. That formula takes into consideration things like the number of economically disadvantaged students in a district and a district’s tax base in calculating who should get what.
The result would be a dramatic increase in funding for traditionally underfunded districts. Like, for example, the Reading School District, which would see its annual allotment increase by nearly $100 million.
Overall, Berks County school districts would see $140 million in additional funding, with all 18 districts receiving an increase.
The governor would also like to add an extra $1.5 billion to what the state sends to local districts to make sure that the new funding plan doesn’t result in any district getting less than they’re currently receiving.
According to Stier, Wolf’s plan would cut the funding gap for districts with high poverty rates in half. It would have a similar impact on districts that serve high numbers of students of color.
“Wolf’s proposal radically reduces the gap,” he said. “It does not eliminate it, however.”
Time to act
Hughes didn’t pull any punches when describing the current state of education funding in the state.
“It further allows for those who have to get more, and for those who don’t have to receive less,” he said.
The senator, who is the Democratic chair of the Senate’s Appropriations Committee, said that policies and processes based on such inequalities aren’t supposed to be part of the American system anymore. They were supposed to be rooted out and fixed years ago.
“Unfortunately, it still lives,” he said. “And it flourishes in Pennsylvania.”
Stier said it is unacceptable that the future provided for children in the state varies so much based on the ZIP code where they live. He called the situation a moral failure that is undermining the future of Pennsylvania.
Hughes called it an injustice, saying now is the moment for change.
“It is a moral responsibility that we achieve justice,” he said.