Pennsylvania’s K-12 Schools - Funding Inequity and Reform Proposal (April 6, 2021)

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Sarah

Pennsylvania’s K-12 education system suffers from deep, persistent funding inadequacy and inequity that remains poorly understood in scope. Using new data and methods, the paper quantifies how unfair, and morally unsustainable, elementary and secondary education financing is across the Commonwealth. It traces long-term declines in state support, local tax constraints, district-level spending disparities, and inequities tied to race. It also evaluates the 2021-2022 Executive Budget proposal as an initial reform step.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Causes of Inadequacy and Inequity in School Funding

Declining State Share of Funding

Local Funding Dependence and Tax Constraints

District Spending Disparities by Community Wealth

Racial Dimension of Funding Inequity

Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center • 412 N. 3rd St, Harrisburg, PA 17101 • [www.pennbpc.org](www.pennbpc.org) • 717-255-7156 Marc Stier, Eugene Henninger-Voss, Stephen Herzenberg, and Diana Polson April 6, 2021 Introduction It is well known that Pennsylvania’s K-12 schools are inadequately and inequitably funded. But the extent of the problem is not fully understood. This paper uses new data and methods to demonstrate just how unfair—and in fact, morally unsustainable—the funding of elementary and secondary education is in the Commonwealth. And it shows that the proposal put forward in Governor Wolf’s 2021-2022 Executive Budget, or something much like it, is a necessary first step toward reforming the shameful way K-12 schools in Pennsylvania are funded. The origins of the deep inadequacy and inequity in school funding go back decades.1 For the purposes of this paper we can divide the source of the problem into two parts. First, the state share of funding of K-12 schools has been declining since the early 1970s under Democratic and Republican governors—but it is mostly a result of Republican control of the General Assembly. As Figure 1 shows, in the early 1970s the state covered 54% of the actual instructional expenses ofour schools—that share has declined to 33% . Declining state funding contributes to inadequate spending in a few ways. First, because in almost all districts, the members of local school boards are elected by taxpayers, in all but the wealthiest communities they are reluctant to raise local taxes. This unwillingness to raise taxes is compounded by the impact of increasing school taxes on local economies. We have long argued that tax rates play a far smaller role than is usually imagined in businesses’ decisions to invest in one community or another. Businesses typically are far more concerned with whether the communities can supply the educated and trained workers they need and whether the region has the transportation and communication infrastructure to deliver their products and to secure the materials and services they need to produce their own goods and services. But tax considerations become more important when businesses choose between a few nearby communities. And most schools in the 500 school districts in Pennsylvania are geographically small, thus offering businesses a choice to locate in low tax rate school districts without losing the benefits of locating in a certain geographic area.2 1 An overview of the state support for K-12 education can be found in Janice Bissett and Arnold Hillman, The History of School Funding in Pennsylvania, 1782-2013, The Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, 2013. 2 Two works that emphasize that tax rates become far more important to businesses’ location decisions, the smaller the municipal jurisdictions are: Paul Peterson, City Limits, University of Chicago Press, 1981 and James O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State, St. Martin’s Press, 1973. For these reasons, Pennsylvania’s over-reliance on local school districts to fund schools also leads to great disparities between school districts, based on the income and wealth of the community in which those school districts are found. Pennsylvania has a greater disparity in school spending than any other state. Affluent districts spend 33% more per pupil than the state’s poorest districts.3 Assuming a class size of 33 students, the data we present below suggest that the wealthiest school districts are spending $94,427 more per classroom than the lowest-spending districts.4 As we shall see, these inequities also have a racial dimension, as schools primarily attended by Black children are funded at lower levels than those attended by white children. Figure 1 State Share of K-12 Education Funding (%) 60% ~~ ~~ 55% 50% 45% 40% 35% 30% ~~ ~~ 25% ~~ ~~ 1971-72 1973-74 1975-76 1977-78 1979-80 1981-82 1983-84 1985-86 1987-88 1989-90 1991-92 1993-94

FAQs

What is the main problem addressed in the paper?

Pennsylvania’s K-12 schools are inadequately and inequitably funded, and the paper demonstrates the scale of the unfairness and its moral unsustainability.

How does declining state funding contribute to inequity?

State support for K-12 education has declined since the early 1970s, reducing the share of instructional expenses covered by the state and worsening inadequate spending.

Why do school funding disparities vary across districts?

Because Pennsylvania relies heavily on local school districts and local tax decisions, spending differs sharply by community income and wealth, and affluent districts spend more per pupil than the poorest districts.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Sarah