Right now, 86% of Pennsylvania students attend schools that don’t receive adequate resources for education, according to state law.
On September 9th, the trial for Pennsylvania’s school funding lawsuit will begin in Harrisburg. You can learn more about the school funding lawsuit at www.FundOurSchoolsPA.org. And in upcoming weeks we will be sharing additional information and updates on how you can support the lawsuit.
For now, we’d like to share nifty new tool that makes it easy for you to see (and share!) how underfunded your own school district is.
Here’s how to use it:
- Go to https://www.fundourschoolspa.org/findyourdistrict
- Tap on your district (or enter your zip).
- When it comes up, tap “See district details.”
- Voila!
- Hit the button below to download a shareable image on your computer or phone, AND/OR hit the Facebook, Twitter or Instagram button to share the tool itself!
How were these amounts determined?
As Fund our Schools PA explains–
Since 2008, Pennsylvania state law has set a benchmark for calculating the resources that schools need so that their students have a shot at reaching state academic standards. This target for adequate funding was in a bipartisan process and weighted to account for students with greater needs, such as students living in poverty. The law says that the state should calculate how much school districts need to reach this target each year—but they have not done so for years.
As part of the lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s school funding system, Penn State College of University professor Matthew Kelly ran the numbers. His report found that according to the state’s benchmark, 277 Pennsylvania districts need more than $2000 per student to adequately support their students’ learning needs and graduate them ready to compete in today’s economy Altogether, according to the benchmarks built into state law, districts statewide need $4.6 billion to adequately educate our children.
But I have heard that redistributing all of the current funding through the Basic Education/Fair Funding Formula will solve Pennsylvania’s school funding problem.
This is incorrect.
The Basic Education Funding Formula/Fair Funding Formula that was adopted in 2016 determines HOW funding is distributed and provides a fair way to distribute state funding that is based on districts’ needs.
However, the Basic Education Funding Formula/Fair Funding Formula does NOT address HOW MUCH funding each district needs in order to provide students with the resources they need to meet state standards.
And, as this study shows, the funding shortfalls are enormous; the School Funding Hunger Games approach of taking funding from some districts to give it to others does NOT fix Pennsylvania’s school funding problem.
In this op-ed, Michael Churchill, an attorney with the Public Interest Law Center who will be leading the case, states that the lawsuit does NOT seek to take any resources away from districts that need them. Instead–
The solution we are hoping for in our case is simple. Pennsylvania should determine what resources kids need — like reading specialists, safe buildings and up-to-date science labs — for a quality public education that prepares them for college and career. And the General Assembly should provide the state funding necessary so that every student can receive that quality public education, whether or not they live in a wealthy community that is able to raise the needed funds with local taxes.
Our case is not about simply changing the way state funding is distributed. If you’re having a party with 100 guests, one pizza is not going to be enough, no matter how fairly you slice it. The pie needs to be bigger.
I hope that you will enjoy using this tool. I also hope that you are getting a chance to recharge this summer—we’re planning lots of neat advocacy activities for the early fall.