Shapiro’s budget would give another $500 million to underfunded schools. But other increases don’t keep pace with inflation, advocates say

Gov. Shapiro’s budget plan continues to ramp up investment in Pennsylvania’s underfunded K-12 schools, adding more than $500 million to a formula unveiled last year that gives big boosts to poorer communities.

If ultimately adopted by the Legislature, the proposal announced by Shapiro Tuesday would mark the second installment of the state’s $4.5 billion plan to fix its school funding system, ruled unconstitutional last year by a Commonwealth Court judge.

While Shapiro touted his commitment to that plan — noting that the Pennsylvania Constitution promises all students access to a “thorough and efficient system of education” — his budget wouldn’t deliver the same level of increases that all public schools saw last year, which drew objections from some public education advocates.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the Democratic governor’s proposed K-12 education spending, and what advocates are saying about it:

Shapiro’s plan includes another $526 million to be distributed through a formula developed last year that targets money to the poorest districts. The formula calculates how much money districts need to “adequately” educate students, based on factors including wealth in the community and the demographics of students — like how many are living in poverty, have special needs, or are English language learners.

The formula — which also accounts for how much effort school districts are making to raise money in property taxes, and awards “tax equity” supplements to the highest-taxing districts — is the state’s response to a February 2023 ruling that found Pennsylvania was unconstitutionally depriving students in low-wealth districts of their right to education. The formula calculated the amount owed by the state as $4.5 billion.

“There’s still work to do before we can say we’ve met our constitutional obligation,” Shapiro said Tuesday, though he said “what we’re doing for education is working.”

While lawyers who brought the school funding lawsuit commended Shapiro for sticking with the formula, they noted that even if the governor’s plan is implemented, it will take years — another seven, at this rate — to fill the funding hole.

“Today’s kindergartners will be nearing high school before schools have the funds the state admits they need to succeed,” the Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center said in a statement Tuesday.

Despite the increase in adequacy funding, Shapiro’s budget contains lesser increases for funding streams that are distributed to all schools than what lawmakers approved last year.

In basic education funding — the main form of state aid to K-12 schools — Shapiro proposed a $75 million increase. Last year, schools got a $285 million increase in that funding.

Similarly, with special education, Shapiro proposed a $40 million increase, compared to last year’s $100 million increases.

In their statement, the law centers said those increases fell short of inflation. “Underfunding other line items will prevent many school districts from ever reaching adequacy, as they use that funding to fill budget holes, rather than investing in new school staff and programs,” the law centers said.

School districts would gain an additional $378 million, however, if lawmakers sign off on Shapiro’s plan to cut payments to cyber charter schools — a big if.

As he did last year, the governor proposed that school districts pay cyber charters $8,000 per enrolled student. Currently, districts pay cyber charters a rate tied to what the districts spend per student, which varies widely — from about $7,600 to $28,000 per regular education student. Before Shapiro, former Gov. Tom Wolf also tried to institute a flat rate.

Democrats and public education advocates have accused cyber charters of collecting more money than they need, to the detriment of school districts. But slashing the payments has previously been a nonstarter with Republican lawmakers, who favor school choice. (Lawmakers did agree to spend $100 million last year to partially reimburse school districts for cyber charter payments.)

Given that other proposed funding increases don’t keep pace with inflation, cyber charter tuition changes “must be nonnegotiable,” PA Schools Work, a coalition of pro-public-education advocacy groups, said Tuesday.

Noting that 94% of school boards had called for cyber charter reform, the CEO of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, Nathan Mains, called on lawmakers to “put aside the rhetoric that has plagued past reform efforts and come together to find sensible solutions” for students, families and taxpayers.

Amid an ongoing teacher shortage, Shapiro proposed to double the state’s new student-teacher stipend program, to make $40 million available to pay student teachers $10,000 during their required full-time placements.

“We identified the teacher shortage issue as a looming crisis, and we did something together to address it,” Shapiro said. He talked about a former student-teacher in the Centennial School District, Melanie Williams, who Shapiro said was the sole provider for her family and wouldn’t have been able to complete her teaching placement last fall without the new stipend.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, praised Shapiro’s proposal, but called on lawmakers to increase funding to at least $50 million.

“In the current school year, more than 4,000 student teachers applied for stipends, but there was only enough funding for 2,144,” said PSEA president Aaron Chapin. “We need at least $50 million to ensure that every eligible student can receive a stipend as they complete their student teaching.”

One area where Shapiro didn’t propose targeted investments was for literacy reforms. Proponents of the “science of reading” have been calling for schools to take a more structured approach to teaching reading, with changes that can require overhauling curriculum and teacher training programs. While Pennsylvania passed a law last year that requires the state to produce a list of “evidence-based” reading curricula and approved structured literacy training for teachers, lawmakers haven’t specifically designated money for schools to carry out changes.

The Pennsylvania Literacy Coalition, a new coalition of groups led by Teach Plus, had called on the state to invest $100 million in literacy efforts.

“Pennsylvania is in the midst of a literacy crisis, and we cannot afford to wait any longer,” said Rachael Garnick, coalition manager, noting that 33% of Pennsylvania fourth graders are reading proficiently. She said that states that have invested significantly in comprehensive literacy policies, including Mississippi, Indiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee, “are seeing real progress.”

Maybe most conspicuously absent from Shapiro’s speech: any mention of school choice. The governor had previously called for a private-school voucher program — which would give families money to send their children to private schools — then referred to vouchers in his budget address last year as “unfinished business” after failing to overcome resistance from Democratic lawmakers who control the House. But Shapiro didn’t address the topic Tuesday.

The Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg think tank that supports vouchers, accused Shapiro Tuesday of abandoning “bipartisan campaign promises like educational choice.”