On Thursday, July 11th, after a flurry of activity, the state budget and school code were passed by the PA House and Senate and signed into law by the governor. We are so proud of advocates’ work in every corner of the commonwealth that has contributed to this substantial win for students. Together, we are building a movement to support and defend public education in Pennsylvania and our work is having a huge impact in Harrisburg and, ultimately, in students’ classrooms.

We will share a more detailed analysis of the budget in the coming days, but for now, here is an overview.

The Good

No new vouchers

Advocates’ hard work opposing a new, cash handout voucher program for discriminatory private and religious schools paid off. No new voucher program was included in the budget this year.

The first acknowledgment by the full legislature of a $4.5 billion adequacy gap that must be filled to meet constitutional compliance.

This marks a pivotal moment and is an admission by all parties that the state has an obligation to fill the $4.5 billion adequacy gap to meet the constitutional requirement laid out in the Commonwealth Court ruling to provide ALL students with access to a comprehensive, effective, and contemporary system of public education. A methodology for calculating this gap was enshrined into law and lawmakers took a first step toward filling it by funding $494 million, or 11%, of the gap in this budget.

An impressive investment in public schools that will make a real difference for students.

The 2024-2025 state budget includes the following increases in funding:

• Adequacy funding: $494 million
• Basic Education Funding: $225 million and $60 million in hold-harmless relief to districts furthest from adequacy
• Special Education Funding: $93.5 million
• School Safety and Security Grants: $80 million
• Cyber Charter Reimbursement: $100 million (see below)
• School Facilities $100 million
• Tax equity relief: $32 million to districts with 90% or above tax effort rate
• Career and Technical Education $30 million

Click HERE to learn how much your school district will receive.

A cyber charter special education tuition fix.

The cyber charter special education tuition calculation will be based on the actual percentage of students with disabilities in a district instead of being based on an artificial number in state law. This reform will begin in January of 2025 and will save districts approximately $34.5 million in 2024-2025. The funding reform is wonky, but important and a fix that Ed Voters has championed for many years.

Transparency and advertising reforms for cyber charters.

The very first section of the School Code requires all schools – including cyber charters – to report their total expenditures on media advertisements and sponsorships of public events for the 2024-2025 school year. The Department of Education will make these reports publicly available. (We can compare these to what we learn from Ed Voters’ annual Right to Know requests!) Cybers must also state in their advertisements that the cost of tuition, technology, and transportation are paid for by taxpayer dollars and are not free.

The legislation also includes ethics requirements for charter school boards and requires cyber charters to conduct certified audits and to post these and their budgets on a publicly available website. Cyber charters are also required to conduct a student wellness check, where they verify at least once a week that a student is able to be visibly seen and communicated with in real time by a teacher. The cyber charter must report any indication of abuse, neglect, or harm during the check.

The Bad

No timeline for constitutional compliance in the law.

The Senate majority leadership refused to consider House Bill 2370, legislation passed in the House that included a clear timeline for the investment necessary to close the adequacy gap and ensure school funding will meet constitutional compliance. This leaves students without a plan or a funding timeline.

The Ugly

$55 million in additional funding for Pennsylvania’s current Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) school voucher programs with no new reporting requirements. Pennsylvanians will now be spending a whopping $525 million on tax credit school vouchers for discriminatory private and religious schools every year, with no information about who benefits from the programs or students’ educational outcomes.

No plan to curb exploding cyber charter costs; instead there is a $100 million shift in the bloated payments from school districts to the state and an overall $65 million INCREASE in cyber charter costs to taxpayers in 2024-2025.

The Senate majority leadership rejected the bipartisan plan approved twice in the House to enact a flat rate for cyber charter regular education tuition to save taxpayer money by aligning tuition payments to cyber charters with their actual costs and to slow the growth of tuition rates in future years.

Instead, this budget includes a new $100 million line item in the state budget that will provide school districts with a partial reimbursement for the bloated overpayments the state mandates they make. This is a cynical calculation that temporarily relieving a little pressure on local districts to pay the total cost of cyber charter tuition will relieve pressure on state lawmakers to rein in the gross overpayments that state law mandates.

This new $100 million state expenditure for cyber charter schools increases the total amount of tax dollars spent on cybers by $65 million in 2024-2025 after the $35 million in savings from the special education tuition calculation is subtracted.

In addition, the funding districts receive as a reimbursement for their cyber charter costs will not be exempted from the cyber charter school tuition calculation, meaning that this funding will further increase tuition rates that school districts pay to cyber charters in future years.

Ed Voters remains committed to fighting for a system of funding cyber charter schools that will align the funding spent on cybers with their actual costs. Education tax dollars should be spent supporting students, not packed in cyber charter asset hoards or wasted on advertising.

While we have much to celebrate in this budget, we continue to have much work ahead of us. As the Public Interest Law Center and Education Law Center stated,

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.

We are honored to do this work with you and are deeply grateful for your continued commitment to public school students. Looking forward to continuing our advocacy together (after we take a break to enjoy the summer)!