HARRISBURG — Top Republican lawmakers who can make or break a budget deal appear skeptical about sending roughly half a million dollars to some Pennsylvania school districts this year as part of an effort to close the “adequacy gap.”
In his latest budget proposal, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed sending an additional $494 million to schools deemed chronically underfunded and another $32 million to districts with high property tax burdens.
Those numbers match what the Democratic-controlled state House and GOP-controlled Senate appropriated for those purposes as part of last year’s budget.
Despite that previous agreement, state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) recently questioned the fairness of giving additional funding to 348 of Pennsylvania’s 500 districts.
“Fairness is in the eye of the beholder,” Pittman said during a February budget hearing with the state Department of Education. “And frankly, I think the more we review this adequacy funding formula and the way it treats all the school districts, that there is inherent unfairness within this formula.”
In 2023, Commonwealth Court ruled that Pennsylvania’s spending on public education was inequitable — so much so that it violated the state constitution. Specifically, the judge found that schools in poorer districts, which don’t have the resources to raise as much money through property taxes, weren’t serving students well enough.
That suit was brought against the state by a group of parents, administrators, and advocacy groups.
For much of 2023 and 2024, lawmakers held hearings and negotiated on how exactly to quantify the funding shortfall.
A commission convened to study the issue eventually came up with the concept of an “adequacy target” — the bar at which a district can serve students at an acceptable level.
This measure sets a baseline of per-student spending, then adds in additional spending based on a district’s student body and factors like poverty and level of English proficiency. If a district spends less than the resulting number, it is missing its adequacy target and has an “adequacy gap,” the report said.
Republicans did not vote in favor of the report that created the adequacy target, Pittman noted during the budget hearing last month. He added that the Commonwealth Court ruling didn’t direct the governor and legislature to set aside an amount of money or prescribe a specific remedy.
“We’re not talking about outcomes,” Pittman said. “We're putting more dollars into an educational system that's educating fewer students.”
Carrie Rowe, acting secretary of education, emphasized at the hearing that the adequacy formula was “determined by the legislature” and is “doing exactly what it was designed to do.
“I think that to drive money to schools that need it the most, based on the adequacy funding formula, does not mean that schools that aren't receiving it don't need funding and wouldn't benefit from increased funding,” Rowe said. “It simply means that those that are receiving the adequacy supplement are doing so because they are deemed to have been underfunded … for a long period of time.”
Rowe said recipients of adequacy funding have used it to provide full-day kindergarten, add security features, improve curriculums, and hire counselors. She also noted that 115 of the state’s 168 rural districts have received some of this money.
Public education advocates viewed last year’s investment of nearly $500 million as a down payment on closing a $4.5 billion gap. But even annual investment at that level will address the disparity too slowly, they say, and those involved in the funding lawsuit have warned that additional legal action is possible.
Shapiro and the legislature must agree to a budget deal before the June 30 deadline.
