Pennsylvania Distributes Emergency K-12 School Funding Backwards - The Fewest Dollars Go to School Districts With the Greatest Need

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Sarah

Executive summary and findings analyze how Pennsylvania allocated emergency K-12 school funding during earlier federal relief rounds tied to the CARES Act. Rather than using the 2015 Basic Education Funding (BEF) formula meant to reflect student need such as poverty and racial composition, the state used a fixed per-district amount plus remaining funds based on student counts. The report finds funding was effectively reversed: districts with the greatest need received less per student, reinforcing existing inequities.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages24

Reading Time1 h 0 min

AccessFree to download

Executive Summary

Introduction

412 N. Third St, Harrisburg, [PA 17101 | ](PA 17101 | www.krc-pbpc.org | 717.255.7181)[www.krc-pbpc.org](PA 17101 | www.krc-pbpc.org | 717.255.7181)[ | 717.255.7181](PA 17101 | www.krc-pbpc.org | 717.255.7181) By Diana Polson and Eugene Henninger-Voss December 2020 Pennsylvania Distributes Emergency K-12 School Funding Backwards—The Fewest Dollars Go to School Districts With the Greatest Need Executive Summary The United States and Pennsylvania economies remain deeply depressed compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic. While the unemployment rate has come back down to around 7%(7 . 3% in Pennsylvania, 6.9% in the U.S. ), Pennsylvania had 488,000 fewer jobs in October than February and the U.S., 10 million fewer. 1 With COVID case rates higher than ever and death rates rising again, many people worry about a “double dip” recession. Reflecting this worry, the U.S. Congress continues to debate the need for more emergency funding for American families, businesses, states, and localities. If Congress acts soon, local K-12 schools are considered the state and local government entities most likely to receive additional federal relief. Therefore, this briefing paper looks at how Pennsylvania distributed the K-12 funding within earlier rounds of federal relief. We focus on the portion of funding from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) that the federal government left up to states to allocate among school districts. This state-allocated funding equaled $174 million if we set aside about $25 million distributed to charter schools and intermediate districts. One would have expected these funds to be distributed using the state’s Basic Education Funding (BEF) formula, enacted in 2015 to ensure that future additions to school funding in Pennsylvania get distributed fairly. However, the legislature and the Wolf administration agreed on an alternative approach: a fixed amount per district plus distribution of the remaining funds based on districts’numbers of students (average daily membership or ADM), not taking into account the variables (like poverty) that the BEF formula recognizes, based on research, makes some students more expensive to educate. What was the impact of not using the BEF to fairly distribute these federal school funds? We find that Pennsylvania got the distribution of these funds backwards in the sense that the districts with the greatest need received the least funding per student. We measure need in the same way the legislature does through the BEF formula. The formula includes poverty as one indicator of need because research indicates that districts that have higher shares of students living in poverty require additional funding to meet state educational standards. Racial composition of students—i. e., the share who are Black and 1 Source: Keystone Research Center based on Economic Policy Institute analysis of Current Establishment Survey data, Table 5, [http://www.bls.gov/news. release/laus.t05.htm](http://www.bls.gov/news. release/laus.t05.htm). Hispanic—is also associated with need, with more students of color being English Language Learners and having higher poverty rates. Our findings in brief: • The poorest quartile of Pennsylvania districts (that together educate one quarter of K-12 students) received $36 million dollars, less than any of the other three groups of districts that educate fewer poor students. Had the state used the BEF formula to distribute this funding these poor districts would have received two-and-a-half times as much money, $90 million. • The districts with the highest share of Black students (again, educating one quarter of state K-12 students in all 500 school districts) received $34 million dollars, substantially less than the $55 million dollars received by districts with the lowest concentration of Black students. If we had used the BEF to distribute the $174 million, the districts with the highest share of Black students would

FAQs

为什么本报告认为宾夕法尼亚州在分配K-12紧急资金时“反向”？

报告指出，州没有按BEF公式依据贫困等需求因素分配，而是改用固定金额加按学生人数分配，导致最需要的学区人均获得的资金更少。

资金分配中没有使用BEF公式的主要原因是什么？

报告称立法机关和沃尔夫政府达成替代方案：对每个学区先给定固定额度，剩余部分按学区学生人数（ADM）分配，而未纳入BEF公式所识别的变量（如贫困）。

报告的关键发现有哪些？

报告显示，贫困程度最高的学区获得资金更少；黑人学生占比最高的学区同样拿到更少；西班牙裔学生占比最高的学区也低于按BEF应得水平，整体结果强化既有不平等。

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Sarah