Pa.’s school funding was supposed to be revamped. Will Gov. Shapiro’s budget get the job done?

Gov. Shapiro on Tuesday unveiled a budget plan with a more than a $1 billion increase in basic education funding, the main pot of money for K-12 public schools. But perhaps more impactful than the amount of money is how the governor proposes to distribute it.

Rather than distributing all that money through the state’s school funding formula, Shapiro called for putting $872 million of it through an “adequacy formula” — steering more money to struggling school districts, in direct response to a Commonwealth Court ruling last year that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional.

The proposal appeared to satisfy lawyers who sued the state on behalf of some of those school districts, who praised Shapiro’s plan as a “bold, historic first step toward a system that honors the limitless potential of our students and delivers the future our communities and our children deserve.”

But better-funded districts with high property tax rates would also see benefits under the plan, which had other notable proposals — including calls to reduce how much school districts have to pay cyber charter schools, and to provide “sustainable” funding to fix aging school facilities.

And the Democratic governor said he considers a previous proposal to institute a voucher program that would give families money to send their children to private schools — a policy embraced by Republicans and maligned by public education advocates in his party — “unfinished business.”

Here’s a breakdown of the governor’s education proposal and what it could mean for schools if it passes the legislature and then gets signed by Shapiro:

Tuesday’s budget address was closely watched for how Shapiro would address last year’s court ruling, which said Pennsylvania had been depriving students of needed resources — particularly in poorer districts that don’t have as much ability to generate property tax revenue as wealthier ones.

In order to ensure that schools have enough money, advocates have pressed the state to adopt “adequacy” targets for each district, based on a measure of what academically successful districts in Pennsylvania are spending.

The legislature’s Basic Education Funding Commission endorsed that approach last month — and Shapiro embraced the commission’s recommendations in his plan Tuesday, with proposed spending figures mirroring what lawmakers included in their report.

That means distributing an additional $200 million through the state’s funding formula, and $872 million more through what Shapiro called an “adequacy formula,” designed to “ensure every school has the appropriate level of resources they need to serve their students,” the governor said.

Philadelphia Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. said the budget proposal, which would give the district an estimated $247 million more in funding, was “an important step toward equitably and adequately funding public education in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,”

Like many districts, Philadelphia has said it will be hit hard by the end of federal COVID relief funds; absent more money from its city and state funders, it had projected a deficit of nearly $400 million next year.

Shapiro’s proposal won’t solve Pennsylvania’s school funding problem. In total, the legislative commission found schools need an additional $5.4 billion, which it proposed be phased in over seven years.

The governor didn’t describe future plans for school funding Tuesday, though he noted that lawmakers had committed to fully fix the issue by not appealing the court’s ruling.

“No one here, I don’t care what party you’re in, should be OK with an unconstitutional education system for our kids,” Shapiro said.

The new $872 million wouldn’t just go to ensure that districts have enough money, however. In some cases, school districts already deemed to have “adequate” levels of spending that have high local tax rates would get additional money, as part of what the legislative commission described as “tax equity supplements.”

Shapiro didn’t address that aspect of the plan Tuesday, though his administration said the proposed spending includes the tax equity payments proposed by the commission.

For instance, local districts that wouldn’t get state money for “adequacy” but would qualify for the tax equity payments include Wallingford-Swarthmore, Cheltenham, and Perkiomen Valley, under the plan.

Shapiro also called for $300 million in “sustainable” funding for school facilities — adopting another recommendation of the commission.

The amount is relatively small compared with the scope of district needs; Shapiro noted how “the Scranton School District alone has identified more than $300 million in necessary repairs — everything from installing a new fire sprinkler to removing lead paint.” In Philadelphia, facilities needs have been estimated at more than $7 billion.

In his speech, Shapiro noted the city’s facilities crisis, describing how Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler (D., Philadelphia) had brought her children to the Capitol one day because their school was closed due to asbestos.

“There are a lot of other families out there who would have had to miss part of a paycheck — miss a day’s work — because we didn’t do our part to make our schools safer,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro also proposed what previously has been a nonstarter in Harrisburg: reducing the payments that cyber charter schools get from school districts.

Rather than districts paying cyber charters a rate per student based on what the districts spend — an amount Shapiro’s administration said ranges from $8,639 to $26,564, given how widely district spending differs — the governor called for districts to pay the cyber schools a flat $8,000 rate per pupil.

“Logic would dictate that two students going to the same school, getting the same education,” should warrant the same payment rate, Shapiro said — adding that cyber charter schools also shouldn’t be getting paid as much as brick-and-mortar schools, as they currently do.

The plan would save districts $262 million, according to Shapiro.

School superintendents and public education advocates have long described cyber charters as a drain on district budgets. The cyber schools have scored poorly on standardized tests but have continued to draw students, seeing enrollment surge during the pandemic. School-choice advocates have defended them as a needed option.

The proposed cut “will reduce educational options for families across Pennsylvania,” said Anne Clark, CEO of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, who pledged to “vigorously fight for the rights of families who have chosen to educate their children in cyber charter schools.”

In rare bipartisan consensus, Democrats and Republicans on the education funding commission recently agreed that districts should be reimbursed for some costs they incur from sending students to cyber charters. But it remains to be seen whether Republican leaders would agree to cuts for the charters.

As a final budget gets hashed out between now and June, Shapiro indicated that a proposal for funding private school vouchers that stalled amid intense controversy last year is again on the table.

“It’s something I support and consider to be unfinished business,” Shapiro said, referring to “scholarships that let poor families in struggling school districts put their kids in the best position for them to succeed.”

The comments met with pushback from the Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center, the nonprofit legal groups representing plaintiffs in the school funding case.

“Funds spent on vouchers for private schools sanction discrimination against students, lead to worse outcomes by any measure, and don’t bring us a dollar closer to compliance with the court’s ruling,” the groups said in a statement.

But the mention also drew anger from Republican leaders, who pointed out that while Shapiro had spoken favorably of vouchers, his budget didn’t include any money for them.

“I appreciate that he wants to talk the talk, but he needs to walk the walk,” said Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana). “There’s not one penny in there for empowering parents. And that is a glaring, glaring absence.”

Staff writers Kristen A. Graham and Gillian McGoldrick contributed to this article.