Boost in funding for Pennsylvania schools brings hope to educators

Pennsylvania lawmakers increased education funding statewide by a historic $1.1 billion in the 2024-2025 state budget, and while educators are beginning to feel the effects, some schools continue to struggle with funding.

Many educators and their allies say that, while they are grateful for the funding boost, much more is needed after years of cuts — and especially after the Commonwealth Court’s ruling last year declaring Pennsylvania’s current education funding system unconstitutional.

That ruling stemmed from a 2014 lawsuit filed by six Pennsylvania school districts that alleged the state’s school funding system, with its heavy reliance on local property tax dollars, had caused years of harm to Pennsylvania students. School funding was in especially dire straits at the time the lawsuit was filed, just a few years after Republican Gov. Tom Corbett cut about $1 billion in school funding from the state budget in 2011.

“Respondents have adopted an irrational and inequitable school financing arrangement that drastically underfunds school districts across the Commonwealth and discriminates against children on the basis of the taxable property and household incomes in their districts,” the plaintiff districts wrote in their original lawsuit.

The case didn’t go to trial until 2021, and an appeal didn’t make its way to the Commonwealth Court the year after, with the court’s decision handed down in 2023.

In January 2024, the Pennsylvania Basic Education Funding Commission, a bipartisan body of state legislators and governor’s office representatives, released a report calling on the state to increase school funding by $5.4 billion over the next seven years. The report argued that the state should even out inequities in education funding by allocating more funds to districts with smaller tax bases.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office said $900 million, the vast majority of this year’s increase, is the first round of the multiyear investment in public education recommended by the Basic Education Funding Commission. The other $200 million of the increase comes through the existing schools funding formula.

The $1.1 billion education funding increase is the largest such increase in Pennsylvania history.

“We were so far in the hole, it’s taken a while to kind of begin to really see that progress being made, and now we also have this report from the Basic Education Funding Commission that laid out a road map for us to be able to get to that level of fair and equitable funding that would be constitutional, that would make sure every kid in the state is on a level playing field regardless of their zip code,” Pennsylvania State Education Association spokesperson Chris Lilienthal told the Pennsylvania Independent.

Lilienthal said while there were consistent funding increases during the administration of former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who governed with a Republican-controlled Legislature during both of his two terms, the increases under Shapiro represent a more distinct change.

“I think during the Wolf years, we were playing catch-up from being set back so far, from those cuts back in [2011], and now we’re at a level where we’re not just playing catch up,” he said. “We’re actually trying to close those gaps.”

This year’s boost in school funding is a good thing, but it’s just a start, said Arthur Steinberg, the president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

“They need much more money than this each year. So it’s a start. But it’s not really going to improve the day-to-day lives of teachers in the classroom right now,” Steinberg said. “It will buy some more services, but it is only really partially taking care of the years of chronic disinvestment.”

The lack of funding means open positions go unfilled, forcing schools to increase class sizes and leaving the remaining staff to fill in the gaps.

“I want to come in and teach my math classes — I don’t want to be guidance counselor or nurse or social worker,” said Julie Alesantrino, an elementary school teacher and former president of the Connellsville Area Education Association. “We’re doing so many other things, and the actual teaching part of it almost takes a back seat to everything else that’s going on.”

The staffing issues have a clear impact on the quality of education students receive. Tony Bartolotta, president of the Franklin Regional Education Association, said teachers don’t have enough time to give every student the attention they need when class sizes keep going up.

“Obviously, when you’re spread so thin, you’re not able to give the kids that need it the most that extra help,” said Tony Bartolotta, the president of the Franklin Regional Education Association. “And at the same time, every student matters equally, of course. So how can one person really give that many kids at one time the attention they all deserve? That is the biggest struggle. You know, grading, one person can only do so much if you have 160 or so kids.”

There are other issues, too. Steinberg pointed out that many districts with aging buildings are going to require years of funding to get them updated and safe for students to use.

“I’d like to see more money in facilities repair. We have aging infrastructure across the commonwealth,” Steinberg said. “Just to keep the conditions safe and stable requires a lot of money, and that does not take into account the toxins that are present, like asbestos, mold and lead, which really have to be removed from the building.”

Still, teachers recognize that things seem to finally be getting better, Alesantrino said.

“I do feel like now that we kind of have a little bit of a sense of normalcy, that morale is a little bit on the rise,” she said.