Pennsylvania Schools Work’s School Funding Proposal for 2022-23 - A Bigger Step Towards Adequate and Equitable State Funding for Schools

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Sarah

Proposal text outlines why Pennsylvania’s school funding formula has historically failed to distribute state Basic Education Funding fairly, leaving many districts—especially those with higher shares of Black and Hispanic students—underfunded. It describes the Fair Funding Formula’s role in distributing new increases while noting existing base inequities. The Pennsylvania Schools Work (PaSW) campaign proposes expanding BEF for 2022-23 through increases to the formula, Level Up supplements, and additional targeted funding. The brief analyzes expected effects on state funding target shortfall and adequacy shortfall across statewide and demographic quartiles, emphasizing improved adequacy and equity.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages7

Reading Time18 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Background

Proposal

Defining Adequacy

Overview of the Rest of This Brief

State Funding Target Shortfall

Adequacy

January 2022 Pennsylvania Schools Work’s School Funding Proposal for 2022-23: A Bigger Step Towards Adequate and Equitable State Funding for Schools Introduction Background For 25 years, starting in the early 1990s, Pennsylvania had no fair funding formula for distributing state school funding based on the number of students in each district and other factors that research shows impact the cost of delivering a quality education that meets state standards. For three years, 2008 to 2010, Pennsylvania adopted a fair funding formula and increased funds to the most underfunded schools. But cuts in funding in 2011-12 undid the steps toward equity in the three previous years. Therefore—for practical purposes—as of 2015, Pennsylvania had not had a fair funding formula for a quarter-century. Since the 2014-15 school year, annual increases to the BEF have been distributed using the Fair Funding Formula, which calculates a fair way to distribute funding increases based on the needs of the students and the districts. The amounts of BEF funding received by each school district prior to 2015-2016, however, were frozen and now are now called the “base BEF.” Since the state had no fair funding formula for a quarter-century, the base BEF was poorly distributed. It underfunded many of the poorest school districts and the school districts with high shares of Black and Hispanic students. The Fair Funding Formula fairly distributes new funding but does not take into account the existing inequities in the base BEF. To accelerate progress towards adequate and equitable school funding beyond what increases in new BEF funding to all districts achieve, the PA Legislature added a $100 million “Level Up” supplement to the 2021-22 Basic Education Funding (BEF) appropriation. This increased the base BEF of the 100 Pennsylvania school districts most underfunded by the state by a collective $100 million. This was an important step towards equitable and adequate school funding in Pennsylvania. The BEF proposal of the Pennsylvania Schools Work (PaSW) campaign for 2022-23 seeks to build on the progress the Legislature and Governor Wolf achieved in 2021-22. Since Pennsylvania schools remain among the least well-funded by the state (state share is 45th in the nation), which leads to great inequity in total funding (including local funding), we urge the Legislature to take a bigger, bolder step towards adequacy and equity with its school funding for 2022-23. Proposal Basic education funding in Pennsylvania remains both inadequate and inequitable. The 2022-23 BEF must take even bigger, bolder steps to reduce inadequacy and inequity. The Pennsylvania Schools Work campaign (PaSW) proposes to expand on the improvements made in the 2021-22 BEF in two ways: 1) by increasing the amount of money flowing to all districts through the Fair Funding Formula by $1 billion; and 2) through a second and larger Level Up supplement of $300 million. PaSW also advocates for another $200 million for special education funding and $25 million for career and technical education for a total of $1.525 billion more funding than in 2021-22. This brief analyzes the potential effects of the proposed $1.3 billion increase to basic education funding for the 2022-23 school year. Defining Adequacy In part, we evaluate our proposal by how much it reduces inadequacy in school funding. To quantify inadequacy, we rely on a methodology defined by the state in 2008. In that year, the state amended the school code to include a method of calculating the amount of money needed for school districts to be adequately funded called the “adequacy target.” This was accompanied by a method to calculate how much more basic education funding each school district should receive from the state to be adequately funded, considering factors that impact the cost of achieving a quality education, such as number of students, share of poor students, and share of English language learners, etc. as we

FAQs

Why does the proposal argue Pennsylvania’s school funding has been inequitable for decades?

It explains that for about a quarter-century Pennsylvania lacked a fair funding formula, and the resulting “base BEF” distribution was poorly allocated, underfunding many of the poorest districts and districts with high shares of Black and Hispanic students.

How does the Fair Funding Formula differ from addressing inequities in the base BEF?

The brief states the Fair Funding Formula distributes new BEF increases fairly, but it does not correct existing inequities embedded in the base BEF distribution.

What funding changes does PaSW propose for the 2022-23 school year?

PaSW proposes a $1 billion increase through the Fair Funding Formula, a $300 million Level Up supplement, plus an additional $200 million for special education and $25 million for career and technical education, totaling $1.525 billion more than 2021-22.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Sarah