On Thursday, legislative leaders called David Donley, the Republican staff executive director for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Appropriations Committee. In his testimony, Donley discussed the Pennsylvania budget process and the various appropriations that the state makes to fund public education, responding to questioning by attorneys for Speaker Cutler.
Donley reviewed data showing that petitioner districts received increases in state funding between the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school year, and that overall state funding for public education has increased since 2014.
During cross-examination, Donley agreed that in its “fair funding formula” for the distribution of basic education funding, the state legislature’s Basic Education Funding Commission recognized that students in poverty and students who are learning English need more resources in order to access the same educational opportunities as their peers who are not in poverty and are not learning English.
Donley recognized that disparities exist between school districts in the amount of funding they have the capacity to raise with local taxes, and the resources that they have available for students’ education—with some districts spending twice as much as others. He acknowledged that residents of low-wealth districts pay substantially higher local tax rates than those in high-wealth districts.
Donley also agreed that when evaluating the effect of increases in state funding, it is important to consider increases in costs for pensions and special education during the same time-frame.
During cross-examination, Donley was shown data produced by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to allow the legislature to allocate the Level Up supplement. Level Up, a new funding stream of $100 million passed by the legislature in last year’s budget, distributes funds to the 100 districts that spend the least relative to their students’ needs, as determined by the state’s basic education and special education funding formulas.
This data showed that all six petitioner districts, along with Philadelphia, are ranked near the bottom among 499 districts statewide in spending relative to need. Shenandoah Valley, Greater Johnstown, Panther Valley, Philadelphia, and Wilkes-Barre are all ranked in the bottom 20. The highest-spending of the petitioner districts, Lancaster and William Penn, ranked 28th and 63rd from the bottom, respectively.
On direct and cross examination, Donley discussed the Ready to Learn block grant, an allocation of state funding to school districts that is meant to support programs that increase student achievement and academic success. This funding stream, $288 million in the most recent budget, accounts for less than 1% of total state, local, and federal funding for public education in Pennsylvania.
Donley reviewed the state law authorizing the Ready to Learn block grant program, which lists more than a dozen strategies that the state legislature has identified as helping school districts to increase student achievement. These include quality pre-K, class size reductions in early grades, additional tutoring for struggling students, school libraries, and teacher professional development.
Donley testified that he does not know whether school districts can afford to provide these identified strategies to their students at sufficient levels based on their local needs. Many low-wealth districts, he agreed, are unable to raise substantially more money locally, even if they believe more funding is necessary.
“I know there are capacity limits in terms of what can be raised locally,” he said.
Following Donley’s testimony, the court heard from Christine Rossell, a professor of political science at Boston University, who focuses on education policy. Legislative respondents called her to testify about English learners and their performance on standardized tests. We will have more to share about her testimony when it concludes.