Join the fight for fair funding in Pennsylvania
To the Editor:
Join us for state budget hearings about public education funding and other activities Tuesday, March 8, as part of our effort to ensure fair funding for every student, no matter where that student lives.
Unless a significant new investment is made and distributed through a fair funding formula, public schools will be forced to cut or reduce more programs and make local tax increases that hurt our students, schools, communities, and economy.
Pennsylvania has the widest funding gap between wealthy and poor school districts of any state in the country. That means that the amount of money available to educate a child varies widely; all depending on where each child happens to live. The lack of a formula also means that state funding is so unpredictable from year to year that school districts cannot effectively budget or plan for the future.
That is why the bipartisan state Basic Education Funding Commission (BEFC), made up of representatives from the Governor’s Office, Department of Education, and both parties in the state House and Senate, was convened a year and a half ago: to examine school funding in Pennsylvania, determine any inequities, and offer recommendations on how to correct any disparities across school districts.
Last June, the BEFC unanimously approved recommendations for an equitable new school funding formula to help Pennsylvania begin the transition to fair and predictable funding.
In a year of political gridlock and increasing polarization, and even before the budget deadline came and went, all sides came together to find a solution to benefit all students.
However, failure to enact the BEFC funding formula will mean funds will continue to be distributed based on legislative whim, with no predictability and continued inequities. Failure to put enough dollars behind the formula, now and in future years, will further stall progress toward education opportunity for every child.
Pennsylvania has no formula for how to fairly distribute dollars to public schools across the state.
The BEFC — after months of hearings, analysis, and negotiations — developed a funding formula to address the concerns of schools across the state, whether urban or rural, large or small, experiencing changing student populations or holding steady.
This balanced formula removes politics from the equation, directing money to school districts based on objective factors, such as student enrollment, the needs of the student population, and school district wealth and capacity to raise local revenues.
How the BEFC formula would work:
Student count. The BEFC formula starts with the number of students in each school district. Since it is difficult to predict how many students may be in a district throughout any given year, this is based on the average daily membership of students over the last three years.
Student-based factors. Because research shows that children facing certain challenges require greater support, the BEFC formula would apply extra funding weights based on certain student factors, to account for the degree to which each factor drives up the cost of educating a student:
Poverty, based on three measures: (1) students living in poverty (at 100-184 percent of the federal poverty level); (2) students living in acute poverty (0-99 percent of the federal poverty level); (3) students living in concentrated poverty [those in districts with 30 percent or more living in acute poverty)
English language learners, based on the number of limited English proficient students
A weight is also applied for students enrolled in charter schools because school districts must pass on funding to charter schools for each child enrolled, but are unable to reduce their costs by an equal amount (e.g., schools may have the same costs of heating a building even when some students transfer to charter schools). This charter school factor is based on the average daily membership of students attending charter schools in that district.
School district-based factors. The formula also includes three school district-based factors that reflect student and community differences throughout Pennsylvania’s school districts.
Sparsity-size adjustment, which accounts for the unique cost differences incurred by small rural school districts.
Median Household Income Index, which is based on a school district’s median household income compared to the statewide median household income.
Local Effort Capacity Index, which calculates a school district’s ability to generate local tax-related revenue compared to the statewide median. This is measured by the Local Effort (the extent to which a district is carrying its burden by raising local revenues) and by the Local Capacity (the ability of a school district to generate local revenue, as estimated by personal income and property market value in the district).
All these factors are applied to the student count to determine how much funding should be allocated to each school district.
The Campaign for Fair Education Funding
www.fairfunding.pa