Check out an interactive map to see how the long-term plan for comprehensive public school funding would close the adequacy gaps across Pennsylvania. HB2370 would put this plan into law. For each district, the map shows the additional total annual state funding per student after a seven year investment to fully address unconstitutionally inadequate funding and provide property tax equity. Adequacy funding: State funding to fill each district’s adequacy gap—the difference between the resources students have currently and the median spending by successful Pennsylvania schools. Tax equity funding: Additional state funding for communities where taxpayers have paid the highest local property tax rates to make up for insufficient state funding. Under the plan, no district will ever receive less state funding than they do this year, updating the state’s “hold harmless” baseline and thereby ensuring stable and predictable resources. All districts are eligible for annual increases distributed through the fair funding formula.

Penn State professor and school funding expert Matthew Kelly has prepared a new analysis of Pennsylvania’s public school funding system for the Basic Education Funding Commission. His study sets out to estimate the combined cost of basic and special education for each district to provide an adequately funded education for all students, based on what successful school districts in Pennsylvania are currently spending, relative to their students’ needs. The study found a total statewide funding shortfall of $6.2 billion, concentrated in deep shortfalls faced by the state’s poorest districts. This is an amount equivalent to 20% of current educational expenditures. 51% of the total shortfall statewide is found in the state’s lowest-wealth districts serving 20% of the state’s students.