How schools are funded in Pennsylvania: A primer

by Justin DiBerardinis and Michael Churchill

The Philadelphia School District will spend this summer grappling with its ongoing budget crisis. Schools face cuts of teachers, counselors, librarians, and nurses. The central administration, still reeling from last winter's round of pink slips, braces for the next – and likely more brutal – wave of cuts.

Administrators in each of Pennsylvania's 501 school districts will also be laboring to balance the books for next year. As this juggling act swings into high gear, the public is left to wonder: How do we fund schools in Pennsylvania? Is there a better way?

Sources of revenue

As in most states, school districts in Pennsylvania receive their money from three separate sources: locally raised and distributed monies (usually collected through property taxes), a state appropriation, and federal funds – a relatively small share. These three streams form the pool of money school districts work with each year when they craft their budgets.

Nationwide, state appropriations are the largest source of funding, providing more than 50 percent of the cost of public education.

However, Pennsylvania districts rely heavily on local sources. In total, only 36 percent of K-12 revenue comes from the state. In this respect, Pennsylvania ranks 49th among the 50 states, with only Nebraska making a stingier state contribution.

The consequence of this dependence on local funding is plain. Many poor rural and urban communities struggle to raise sufficient funds to pay for adequate schools. Ironically, these poor communities are often home to the highest property tax rates in Pennsylvania.

This point was highlighted by Ed Rendell during his 2002 gubernatorial campaign. “School districts across Pennsylvania are chronically underfunded, forcing them to choose between cutting important programs and raising local taxes,” he said. “The state's funding inequities – among the worst in the nation – mean that where you live determines the quality of education your child receives.”

The City of Reading provides a clear example of this point. An old industrial town with a population of 80,000, Reading is home to a large Latino and African American population and a high rate of poverty. The Reading property tax rate is 29 mills ($29 in tax is levied per thousand dollars of property value). This rate is significantly higher than the state average of 20 mills. Despite this high rate of taxation, Reading raises a scant $2,245 per pupil locally for its schools. The state contributes $4,914 per pupil, or 69 percent of Reading's school budget. Reading's total per pupil funding is only $8,430, ranking 487th in the state out of 501 districts.

By contrast, suburban Chester County's nearby Tredyffrin-Easttown School District is able to raise $12,680 per pupil locally with a tax rate of only 14.5 mills – generating almost six times as much money per pupil as Reading from taxes set at half the rate. Although the state gives significantly more per-pupil funding to Reading than it does to Tredyffrin, there remains a $6,500 per-pupil spending gap between the two districts. Multiplied over a classroom of 25 students, the difference in spending between these neighboring districts grows to $162,500 per classroom per year.

Lack of taxable property wealth explains why Philadelphia has $2,100 less per student than the average of its 61 neighboring school districts. In six of those suburban districts, per pupil spending is greater than Philadelphia's by $5,000 or more per student. The Philadelphia School District is struggling to replace crumbling infrastructure and meet academic performance targets set by the No Child Left Behind Act with significantly fewer resources than its property-rich neighboring districts.

Pennsylvania's reliance on local funding for public schools has exacerbated the wide disparity in wealth between city and suburbs.

Increasing the state's share

The only apparent way to overcome the problems of large differences in wealth among local school districts is to increase the proportion of spending that comes from the state, thus decreasing the reliance on local taxes.