State officials recognize massive adequacy gap for public schools. Now they must fill it.

Statement from Education Law Center & Public Interest Law Center on state budget agreement

Commonwealth Court’s school funding decision requires something plain from state officials: a plan “to provide all students in every district throughout Pennsylvania with an adequately funded education."

Pennsylvania children still await such a plan.

But even though legislators artificially reduced the size of the state’s funding shortfall by undercounting students in poverty, at least now there is bipartisan agreement that adequately funded education requires, at minimum, an additional $4.5 billion, distributed to the communities that need it most.

The first step to fixing a problem is admitting it exists. While understating the problem, state officials of both parties now agree that there is a massive adequacy gap.

And the funds distributed this year through the new adequacy formula are critical, desperately needed, and will be used to hire the teachers, tutors, and counselors that students deserve.

But the second step to fixing a problem is actually fixing it.

Students need public schools that provide the support they need to reach meaningful opportunities today, not some day in the far future. And the same budget legislation that admits the scope of the Commonwealth’s constitutional shortfall still leaves nearly 90 percent of that hole to be filled by some undefined date in the future, or not at all.

The Pennsylvania Constitution requires more. The governor and General Assembly have acknowledged the wide scope of the problem. Now, they must identify the timeline by which the students of Pennsylvania will receive the funding the Constitution demands and do so with the urgency that children deserve and need.

What Is the Cost to Provide Adequate Education to Every Pa. Student? We Now Have an Answer

Now we have new information about how badly students in districts across the state are being shortchanged. Pennsylvania’s Basic Education Funding Commission heard a school funding expert’s report on that at its first hearing, held Sept. 12, 2023, in Harrisburg.

This new analysis of Pennsylvania’s public school funding system by school funding expert and Penn State College of Education professor Matthew Kelly provides us with a clear estimate of the cost in each school district in the state to provide an adequately funded education for all their students – the district’s adequacy target. The new study, based on current state standards and current costs, also calculates how far each district is from reaching that adequacy target – their adequacy gap or shortfall. The study found that:

• Altogether, districts statewide need a funding increase of more than $6.2 billion a year to give students a meaningful opportunity to succeed civically, academically, and socially.

• The lowest-wealth school districts account for 20% of the state’s students, but 51% of the statewide adequacy gap.

• Four out of five school districts lack the funding they need to support student success – 412 districts in all.

• In 157 school districts, serving more than 680,000 students, the shortfall is $4,000 or more per pupil. The districts with the largest per-pupil gaps include urban, suburban, and rural districts.

• Black and Latinx students are concentrated in these districts, with 43% of the state’s Black and Latinx students attending districts in the lowest-wealth 20%.

The $6.2 billion estimate is a comprehensive assessment. It factors in what districts would need to provide classroom instruction, special education, transportation, career and technology education, and student services. It also includes districts’ costs for charter school reimbursement and pension contributions. However, it does not include the costs of pre-K or of providing safe and adequate facilities.

A fully funded system is not out of reach. To fill the funding gap would require a 20% increase in overall education spending.

Read Dr. Kelly’s report in full.

Dr. Kelly’s study calculates adequacy targets for each district by first analyzing the spending levels in districts that are succeeding according to the state’s own academic standards, taking into account the needs of students who need more support, such as students who are learning English and students who receive special education. The resulting adequacy targets represent the funding levels necessary for each district to be able to provide the same level of resources as successful districts do, relative to the needs of their student body.

View a map of the shortfalls Kelly found in Pennsylvania public schools.

As this analysis demonstrates, and as the court found, our General Assembly has failed to live up to its constitutional duty to ensure that kids in every community can receive a quality education. Right now, the poorest school districts serve the students who need the most support, and have the fewest resources to meet those needs. Because of our two-tiered funding system, divided by local wealth, the poorest quintile of school districts spend $6,230 less per student than the wealthiest, relative to their students’ need.

And this underfunding isn’t some abstract principle. It is teachers and counselors. Nurses and librarians. Computers and STEM labs. Art and music. Smaller class sizes and remedial help for children who are struggling to learn. And more!

As the Commonwealth Court held, students in districts without these essentials are being denied their fundamental right to a comprehensive, contemporary, and effective education, guaranteed by the state constitution. We now have a court ruling in Pennsylvania that says this must change. It is time for state officials to take action to comply with the court’s ruling by fully, adequately, and equitably funding our public schools

Pennsylvania's School Funding System Declared Unconstitutional in Historic Victory for Students

February 7, 2023 - Today, Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer ruled that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional and must be reformed.

In a 786-page decision, the court found that “All witnesses agree that every child can learn. It is now the obligation of the Legislature, Executive Branch, and educators, to make the constitutional promise a reality in this Commonwealth.”

The court order calls for the “respondents, comprised of the Executive and Legislative branches of government and administrative agencies with expertise in the field of education, the first opportunity, in conjunction with Petitioners, to devise a plan to address the constitutional deficiencies identified herein.”

The court rebuffed respondents’ argument that the current system is adequate, saying “In the 21st century, students need more than a desk, chair, pen, paper, and textbooks.”

The Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center issued the following joint statement earlier today:

“Today’s decision declaring Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional is a historic victory for Pennsylvania’s public school children. It will change the future for millions of families, so that children are no longer denied the education they deserve. The court recognized that our schools require adequate funding to meet our constitution's mandate.  

It’s time for our state legislature to fund public schools in every corner of Pennsylvania so all students, whether or not they live in a wealthy community, can receive the quality public education guaranteed in our state constitution.”

“The court’s decision recognizes what we showed during trial: Every year, hundreds of thousands of children in public schools in lower-wealth communities across Pennsylvania are being denied the basic resources needed for a quality education because the state is not adequately or equitably funding our schools,” said ELC legal director Maura McInerney. “The court’s order directs the state to change the way it funds our public schools from the current two-tiered system divided by local wealth to one that provides sufficient resources for all children.”

“This is a huge victory. Educators know that every child can learn, and they know the kinds of support that their students need to reach their potential,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center. “Our clients and others in low-wealth districts in Pennsylvania also know that for too long, they have had to triage their students’ needs, leaving some students behind because of the state’s failure to provide adequate funding for public education. Today’s decision makes it clear that this inequitable status quo cannot continue, and that every child in Pennsylvania has a fundamental right to receive a comprehensive, effective, and contemporary public education.”

“Education is the great equalizer --- the key that opens the door to life-changing opportunities and world-changing ideas,” said Katrina Robson, partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP. “No child should be left with their hand up, begging for but denied that opportunity. We are gratified by the judge’s ruling, which will help ensure that all children in Pennsylvania have equitable access to quality education. And we are proud of the legal team that worked tirelessly—for years—to help achieve this critically important result.”

Here is the language of the court order:

1. The Education Clause, article III, section 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, requires that every student receive a meaningful opportunity to succeed academically, socially, and civically, which requires that all students have access to a comprehensive, effective, and contemporary system of public education;

2. Respondents have not fulfilled their obligations to all children under the Education Clause in violation of the rights of Petitioners;

3. Education is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution to all school-age children residing in the Commonwealth;

4. Article III, section 32 of the Pennsylvania Constitution imposes upon Respondents an obligation to provide a system of public education that does not discriminate against students based on the level of income and value of taxable property in their school districts;

5. Students who reside in school districts with low property values and incomes are deprived of the same opportunities and resources as students who reside in school districts with high property values and incomes;

6. The disparity among school districts with high property values and incomes and school districts with low property values and incomes is not justified by any compelling government interest nor is it rationally related to any legitimate government objective; and

7. As a result of these disparities, Petitioners and students attending low-wealth districts are being deprived of equal protection of law.

The case William Penn School District et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Education et al. was filed in 2014 by six Pennsylvania school districts (William Penn, Greater Johnstown, Lancaster, Panther Valley, Shenandoah Valley, and Wilkes-Barre Area), the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, the NAACP-PA State Conference, and a group of public school parents. They filed suit in Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court against state legislative leaders, state education officials, and the governor for failing to uphold the General Assembly’s constitutional obligation to provide a “thorough and efficient” system of public education. Petitioners also assert that the massive inequality this system fuels between poor and wealthy school districts discriminates against students in low-wealth communities, violating their right to equal protection in the state Constitution.  

The school districts and other petitioners in the case are represented by the Education Law Center - PA, the Public Interest Law Center, and O’Melveny.  During a four-month trial before Judge Cohn Jubelirer that concluded in March, witnesses explained in detail the deficiencies of the current system and the extreme, egregious disparities between school districts in Pennsylvania.