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Some leaders of the state Senate Republican Caucus are questioning whether the adequacy formula designed to address funding inequities is truly fair to Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts.
Last year, lawmakers approved a historic increase in funding for K-12 public schools. It came, largely, in response to a Commonwealth Court ruling that found unconstitutional inequities between the state’s wealthiest and poorest school districts.
That budget, approved by the GOP-controlled Senate and the Democratic-controlled House, included more than $1 billion in new funding for K-12 schools. Roughly half was directed based on a funding formula that took into account factors like poverty rates and English language proficiency among each school district’s students. Gov. Josh Shapiro is proposing a continuation of that funding in next year’s budget.
“Frankly, I think the more we review this adequacy formula and the way it treats all the school districts, that there is inherent unfairness within this formula,” Sen. Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) said Wednesday.
Pittman was speaking at an appropriations committee hearing on the proposed 2025-2026 budget for the Department of Education. He pointed out 348 schools received 97% of the new education funding in last year’s budget.
Acting Secretary of Education Carrie Rowe, who was there to respond to senators’ questions, noted the formula was designed to address a longstanding problem.
“I think it requires us to look at the history of funding in this state,” Rowe said. “Over a period of time, there grew a gap between schools … There was an adequacy gap that was being addressed.”
Deborah Gordon Klehr, the executive director of the Education Law Center, a nonprofit group that led the lawsuit over Pennsylvania’s old funding formula, said Pittman’s comment needed context.
“As for the claim that 348 districts are receiving ‘97% of the proposed increase”’ in the budget, that figure applies to the relatively small portion of the overall budget that goes, as intended, to the districts the state has identified as underfunded,” she said. “This is in order to get the students in those districts more of the resources they need and have never received from the state.”
Pennsylvania school districts receive a combination of local, state and federal funding. Local property taxes can make up a significant portion of a school district’s funding, but that depends on the value of properties in the area and the rate they’re taxed at, which varies across the state. This can create inequity. Wealthier areas with more expensive homes will receive more taxes than others.
To address this, lawmakers included $32 million of state school funding a year ago to counties with the highest property tax burden, based on local tax rates and property values. The goal of the funding was to discourage those counties from further raising taxes.
However, Pittman alleged it may be having the opposite effect.
“It works as an incentive, frankly, for school districts to increase their property taxes so they can somehow get into this new magical formula,” he said.
Sen. Scott Martin (R-Lancaster), who chairs the committee that plays a key role in budget negotiations, appeared to agree with Pittman.
In his closing remarks, he noted some of the districts deemed to be inadequately funded are now receiving more state aid per child than others, even as their students on the whole show less proficiency in subjects like math and english.
“When you want to talk about equity in Pennsylvania, you can have a difference of a school district receiving $3,000 per child in their school district, while others may be collecting $15,000 per enrollee,” Martin said. “I’m sorry, does that sound really equitable?”
Martin was referring to the state share of money received by school districts. But, the adequacy formula generally provides more money to school districts with local governments incapable of meeting spending targets set by the state. Though per-student spending still varies by district, and Martin said lawmakers should look at what districts with better outcomes and lower spending are doing.
“If you have a school district that’s spending only $14,000 and their kids have 80% proficiency or reading at grade level; and you have schools that are spending close to $30,000 that have 30% of their kids that are proficient, it’s our duty to find out how do we fix that,” he said.
Democrats on the panel defended the adequacy funding. Sen. Patty Kim (D-Dauphin) said it allowed some schools to move from half-day to full-day kindergarten classes for the first time, which was a boon for working parents.
Rowe provided other examples like schools hiring mental health counselors and art teachers, funding structured literacy curriculums and increasing security measures, among others.
“A lot of the academic issues that are being brought up here are actually being funded through this adequacy funding,” Rowe said.
Sen. Vincent Hughes (D-Philadelphia) noted the importance of understanding the historical context.
“About 70% of all the school districts — educating 1.1 to 1.2 million students of the 1.67 million students getting an education in Pennsylvania — have for generations been unconstitutionally and inadequately funded,” Hughes said. “The context is important when we come to education, especially in Pennsylvania.”
However, Republicans pointed out the formula does not take into account student performance.
“I am tired of talking about formulas, and we’re not talking about outcomes,” Pittman said. “We keep going back to the taxpayer at the state level and the local level and we still get poor results on literacy, poor results on math, poor results everywhere. That tells me that something’s not working.”
Rowe cautioned the adequacy funding is new, and will take time to bring desired results.
“One year will not solve the generational inequities,” she said.
The adequacy funding formula is based on a finding that Pennsylvania’s poorest school districts required $4.5 billion over time to bring them in line with the school’s wealthier districts. After last year’s budget included roughly half a billion dollars in adequacy funding, the process would take nine years to complete at that rate.
But, advocacy groups like PA Schools Work, a coalition of nonprofits including those that led the lawsuit, have pushed for a faster distribution of the $4.5 billion
Ultimately, House Democrats, who were supportive of the adequacy formula, and Senate Republicans, who also voted for it but are now questioning its fairness, will have to agree on an education budget moving forward. The two chambers, and the governor, will have to agree on an education spending plan that’s due by July 1, along with budgets for each other state agency.