Pa. House took a step to change the school funding system — and now must convince the Senate to sign on

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania could have a new public school funding system for the next academic year — one that Democratic lawmakers hope will meet their constitutional duty to offer all students in the state a fair and equitable education.

The Pennsylvania House passed the sweeping education funding changes Monday in a bipartisan, 107-94 vote. The bill sets up the state to increase state funding of public schools by $864 million in the next academic year, and a broader proposal calls for more than $5 billion over seven years.

Public school advocates say the changes are conservative but would be transformative. The bill is certain to face scrutiny in the GOP-controlled Senate, where lawmakers have expressed concerns about the plan.

Here’s what you need to know about the proposal, its future, and why lawmakers are trying to change the system now.

House Democrats want to push $5.4 billion into public education over the next seven years, $5.1 billion of which would be funded by the state. Low-tax districts that could contribute more by raising their local taxes would be responsible for making up the remaining $291 million. The legislation advanced Monday would cover only one year of spending; new spending during the seven-year plan would need to be reapproved by lawmakers each year as part of the state’s annual budget.

The proposal creates new “adequacy targets,” which would calculate how much each school district needs to spend to adequately educate students.

Under this proposal, Philadelphia would be eligible to receive $1.4 billion over the next seven years, or $242 million in the upcoming fiscal year.

The proposal also includes nearly $1 billion more over seven years for “tax equity” supplements for particularly high-taxing school districts.

The bill outlines how school districts can spend the additional money, and the potential uses include raising teachers’ salaries to $60,000 a year. Pennsylvania needs 15,000 more teachers to meet its needs, and advocates have long sought higher salaries in hopes of enticing more people to become educators.

The bill must pass both the House and Senate and be signed by Gov. Josh Shapiro to become law. It now goes to the Senate, where Republican leaders have noted that lawmakers can’t predict the state’s economic future. They said it’s therefore difficult to commit to a seven-year plan to fully fund the new system, and they have also long been resistant to cyber charter school funding changes included in the legislation.

Shapiro and the legislature will work to agree to a funding plan ahead of the July 1 deadline to pass a budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

As negotiations continue, an unusual group of 15 charter, public school, and union leaders — led by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and City Council President Kenyatta Johnson — have called for support of the House bill passed Monday.

“Our organizations represent different sectors, have different missions, and have policy differences on a range of issues, but we have come together with one voice to urge you to take action to support the needs of all Philadelphia students,” the coalition officials wrote in a letter sent Sunday to Shapiro and legislative leaders.

Shapiro and lawmakers were tasked by a Commonwealth Court judge last year with creating a new public education funding system.

The February 2023 landmark ruling found that Pennsylvania has been violating students’ constitutional rights to an education, leaving schools with inadequate resources. School districts rely heavily on local property taxes to fund public education, which creates an inequitable system across the state in which poor school districts can’t raise as much as their wealthier peers.

Although Pennsylvania has a school funding formula that directs additional money to needier districts, it’s been applied only to a portion of state education funding, so that districts with declining enrollment aren’t penalized. As a result, the formula’s impact has been limited.

A bipartisan commission of lawmakers worked for six months on a new system — which culminated Monday with the passage of the 87-page bill.

“Today, we tell every young learner, no matter where they live, we tell them that they matter and that their educational opportunities will not be limited by the tax base of their neighborhood,” State Rep. Mary Isaacson (D., Philadelphia), who helped draft the bill, said on the House floor Monday.

Several Republican House members said that they didn’t believe another “blank check” to school districts would actually address the issues, and that the bill does not do enough to hold individual school districts accountable for providing Pennsylvania students with a good-quality education.

“We need to be looking forward for public policy that is going to involve more than just money. We have to be able to measure success,” said State Rep. Jesse Topper (R., Bedford), the minority chair of the House Education committee. “Our students deserve that. I know we can do better, and I believe we will do better.”

The legislation would also cut the tuition rates that school districts pay cyber charters — setting a flat per pupil rate of $8,000 for most students. Currently, districts pay cyber charters $8,639 to $26,564, depending on the district’s own per pupil spending.

The proposed new rates are the same as what brick-and-mortar charter schools receive. The current difference between the two has been a complaint from public school advocates, who say the virtual schools don’t cost as much to run.

The cyber charter tuition changes — which would also adjust payments for special education students at the charters, with rates ranging from $13,120 to $50,720 depending on the severity of the disability — would save districts $530 million next year alone, according to House Democrats.