How will Pa. fix its unconstitutional school funding system? Lawmakers are starting to look for answers

>>UPDATE: Lawmakers were told Pa. schools need an extra $6.2 billion, on the first day of school funding hearings

After a landmark trial led a Commonwealth Court judge in February to declare Pennsylvania’s school funding unconstitutional, lawmakers are confronting the next big question: how to fix it.

Starting Tuesday, a series of hearings will be held across the state, with educators, policy experts, teachers union leaders, and students sharing their perspectives on a system that has deprived school districts of needed resources and created wide gaps between the richest and poorest districts.

While some of the testimony may mirror the trial’s, the focus will be not just on problems, but the possible solutions — and the price tag, expected to be in the billions of dollars.

“I’ve described this as a big calculus problem, fed by a lot of small calculus problems,” said Rep. Mike Sturla (D., Lancaster), cochair of the Basic Education Funding Commission holding the hearings.

Lawmakers will also spend the next few months deciding what role, if any, private school vouchers should play in the creation of an equitable school funding system — a proposal pushed by Republicans, but opposed by many Democrats, and the plaintiffs, in the funding lawsuit.

Here’s what to know about the process, and the questions lawmakers will be trying to answer:

In order to determine whether Pennsylvania’s school funding passes constitutional muster, public education advocates say the commission needs to define how much money districts actually need.

While Pennsylvania has a funding formula that steers additional money to districts if they have students who require more resources — children living in poverty, for instance — the formula doesn’t actually calculate how much schools should be spending. Rather, it’s used to divide up a portion of the education funding appropriated by the state. (Most education funding in Pennsylvania comes from local taxes, which has contributed to the disparities between rich and poor districts.)

If the commission doesn’t set targets for how much money is needed, “it will be a failure,” said Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters PA.

Tuesday’s hearing, which takes place in Allentown, is expected to address that question. Matthew Kelly, a Penn State professor who testified in 2021 on behalf of the plaintiffs that schools were underfunded by $4.6 billion, will present a new analysis.

Kelly’s previous findings — which concluded that more than 80% of Pennsylvania’s 500 districts were underfunded — were based on calculations Pennsylvania adopted more than a decade earlier. At that time, the state had commissioned a study of how much it would cost to adequately educate students.

Lawmakers are projecting a bigger number now. “We need to put another six to eight billion in the education system,” Sturla said, a figure he said was based on the “cost of education today” as well as funding prekindergarten programs.

Other costs such as that, advocates like Spicka say, lawmakers should account for in any assessment of how much money is needed: special education, transportation, and school facilities.

While its school funding formula targeting aid to needier districts has been praised by advocates, Pennsylvania doesn’t actually use it to distribute most state aid to schools.

Instead, most of the more than $7 billion in basic education funding is still given out based on what districts received prior to the formula’s adoption in 2016 — allocations that were dated even then. As a result, most state funding is premised on school enrollment figures from the early 1990s — shortchanging growing districts.

But shrinking districts have benefited from the policy, known as “hold harmless.” Whether lawmakers will change that part of the funding system is an open question.

“At this point, everything is on the table,” said Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill (R., York), the commission’s other cochair. Phillips-Hill, who noted she had served on a school board in a district hurt by hold harmless, said she had “no preconceived notion about what’s going to come out of this process, other than a desire to assure that we meet the objective of ensuring that every child has that opportunity for a quality public education.”

Spicka said that some districts benefiting from the hold-harmless policy are still underfunded: Some rural districts, for instance, may have declining school enrollments, but their tax bases have decreased, too.

“Some people want to focus on taking money from one district to give to other districts … That really isn’t the solution,” she said.

Republicans have continued to push for the adoption of a school voucher program — an issue that held up the state budget for a month and led Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who continues to support vouchers, to his first misstep as governor. The proposal would give families money to send some students in Pennsylvania’s poorest districts to attend private schools.

Public education advocates and many Democrats have long opposed any voucher program, with concerns that they would drive money away from already-underfunded public schools. School choice advocates and many Republicans believe students at underperforming and underfunded schools should have the chance to succeed, no matter their family’s income level — and vouchers are part of the answer.

House Democratic leaders announced Monday that two House committees would begin analyzing the educational options available to students, including the state’s existing tax credit scholarship programs, as part of their considerations in drafting a new school funding system.

Lawyers for the funding plaintiffs have said vouchers do nothing to address the court’s ruling finding Pennsylvania’s education funding unconstitutional.

The funding commission is just at the starting point of considering changes. Sturla said the hearings starting Tuesday would serve as a guide, offering options for lawmakers to consider while calculating how certain changes would affect school districts.

Besides Kelly, others testifying Tuesday include Allentown-area superintendents and representatives of health groups discussing “school facilities’ environmental impact,” according to the commission.

Hearings continue Wednesday in Harrisburg, featuring the plaintiffs’ lawyers from Philadelphia-based Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center as well as superintendents from Panther Valley and Wilkes-Barre, two of the districts that sued the state. Also testifying will be researchers from the Learning Policy Institute and Education Law Center of New Jersey on other states’ approaches to school funding.

On Thursday, lawmakers come to Philadelphia, where they will hear from the district’s superintendent and Norristown’s; leaders of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and American Federation of Teachers-Pennsylvania; a Philadelphia school counselor and student; and other advocates.

Seven more hearings are scheduled for the fall. The commission is supposed to issue a report by the end of December, Sturla said.

The commission would like to have a recommendation in time for next spring’s budget hearings, he noted.

Spicka and Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, said the time frame for Pennsylvania to implement a new formula and pay what it owes districts should be no longer than three to five years.

The commission that produced the 2016 funding formula “didn’t quite finish the job,” Cooper said. “This one can do that.”

Staff writer Gillian McGoldrick contributed to this article.