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NEITHER THOROUGH NOR EFFICIENT: SCHOOL FUNDING INEQUITY IN PENNSYLVANIA

NEITHER THOROUGH NOR EFFICIENT: SCHOOL FUNDING INEQUITY IN PENNSYLVANIA. David Sciarra Education Law Center. Pa. State Conference of NAACP Conference on Education, May 25, 2012 . The Right to Education .

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NEITHER THOROUGH NOR EFFICIENT: SCHOOL FUNDING INEQUITY IN PENNSYLVANIA

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  1. NEITHER THOROUGH NOR EFFICIENT: SCHOOL FUNDING INEQUITY IN PENNSYLVANIA David Sciarra Education Law Center Pa. State Conference of NAACP Conference on Education, May 25, 2012

  2. The Right to Education • The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.” Pa. Const. art. 3, § 14.

  3. What is “Fair” School Funding? “Fair” school funding is defined as a state finance system that provides a sufficient level of funding to ensure equality of educational opportunity, with funding distributed to districts within the state to account for additional needs generated by student poverty.

  4. Fair School Funding: Core Principles • States should provide varying levels of funding to ensure equal educational opportunities to children with different needs. • A “progressive” finance system allocates more funding to districts with high levels of student poverty; a “regressive” system allocates less to those districts; and a “flat” system allocates roughly the same across districts with varying needs.

  5. State C (Avg. implicit base rev., progressive) State B (Avg. implicit base rev., highly regressive) State & Local Revenue per Pupil State A (Low revenue, poverty “flat”) Low Poverty High Poverty

  6. Midwest

  7. Mid-Atlantic

  8. North Central

  9. Gulf Coast

  10. State Funding Distribution: Top 10

  11. State Funding Distribution: Bottom 10

  12. Does Federal Funding Matter? • Less than 10% of school funding is federal funds • Too small to have any effect on Fairness • Title 1, RTT, etc.: “Subsidizing Inequity” • New direction: drive states to make underlying finance systems fair

  13. Does Fair Funding Mean Better Student Outcomes?

  14. Gov. Corbett’s Cuts

  15. Inequity Philly Style

  16. Takeaways • Fair School Funding: Essential precondition to reform efforts to close achievement gaps • Key to Effective Teaching, Closing Gaps • Urgent need for state school finance reform • “Resistance is Deep” • New Federal Policies: Title I and Federal Grants to leverage states to improve funding fairness

  17. And While We’re At It.... • Access to high quality Pre-K for every low income child, and every child in a low income community • State Pre-K Systems: unify Head Start, Child Care and Public School Pre-K • Right to attend school in safe and educationally adequate facilities • State capital program – assess need, ensure financing

  18. David Sciarra, Esq. Executive Director dsciarra@edlawcenter.org For MoreInformation: Education Law Center Standing Up for Public School Children www.edlawcenter.org 60 Park Place, Suite 300 Newark, NJ 07102 Phone: 973.624.1815 Fax: 973.624.7339

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