PA’s increase in basic school funding to be distributed to districts based on adequacy formula
As reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania’s Gov. Ed Rendell has signed a state budget that includes an increase in basic education funding, which represents the largest dollar increase in the program since 1991. Overall, the basic education subsidy will increase by $275 million statewide, or 5.5%. The subsidy formula represents the largest single item in K-12 funding. Spending on other K-12 programs will bring the total education increase to $347.4 million, or 3.3%. Education is the largest single spending category - $9.7 billion - in the state's $28.3 billion budget. Gov. Rendell did not get everything he asked for. His proposed increases for several programs were trimmed by 1.3%. Additionally, his Classrooms for the Future program to put laptop computers in every high school core-subject classroom was cut from $90 million to $45 million, delaying the complete rollout of the program by a year. Just as important as increased basic funding for school districts, Rendell administration and school-reform advocates said, is the way that funding will be distributed. The $275 million increase will be handed out according to a funding formula based on a 2007 study of the cost of an adequate education for children in each school district. The use of the new funding formula, said Janis Risch, of Good Schools Pennsylvania, a reform group that has campaigned for increased funding, “is a tremendous step forward - it . . . begins to really address the education funding inequities experienced by students and communities.” But the legislature, shying away from committing itself to similarly large increases in future years, included only a vague commitment to meet new “state funding targets” by the 2013-14 school year. The Rendell administration had wanted lawmakers to commit to increasing basic education funding by a total of $2.6 billion during six years, including the coming school year. Senate Majority leader Dominic Pileggi pointed out that the only other thing the new legislation commits the legislature to doing is examining the funding formula and the study on which it was based to determine how best to provide money to the districts most in need. Timothy Allwein, the legislative liaison for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA), which supports the Rendell funding formula, said that at the very least, the “target” funding language provides a framework for further discussion.
Rendell suffered at least a partial defeat on one other initiative that he had strongly backed when the legislature delayed implementation of a plan for mandatory state subject tests for at least a year. The legislature and many school boards had strongly opposed the tests, which some students would have to pass to demonstrate mastery in basic subjects before they could graduate from high school. Some larger school districts, including Philadelphia, have supported the testing requirement. The state Board of Education had proposed new regulations, saying that the tests would be offered to students starting in 2010, with seniors having to pass them or show their mastery of basic skills in other ways by 2014. The school bill that was passed this year forbids those regulations from being “further promulgated, approved or proposed” before next July.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, 7/8/08, By Dan Hardy
[Editor’s Note: PSBA’s news release characterized the education bill as a mixed bag. It “had high praise for the governor and the General Assembly for not making wholesale changes to the distribution formula proposed by the governor in February.” However, PSBA’s Executive Director Thomas J. Gentzel criticized the bill’s” language prohibiting school districts from setting caps on charter school enrollment” because it “removed an effective tool that protects students attending those schools.” To the entire statement, see below.]
PSBA press release