According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Pennsylvania schools are the most inequitably funded in the entire country, with poorer school districts receiving 33.5 percent less in education funding than more affluent school districts across the state. The Commonwealth Foundation’s School Spending Database, which breaks down education expenditures per student by school district, and School Tax Database, which breaks down local education revenue by county, support this data. These discrepancies have not only garnered negative attention nationally, embarrassing legislators in Harrisburg, but also have spurred members of the General Assembly and policymakers in the governor’s office to address these egregious variations across the state. For the most part, their efforts have focused on changing the way Pennsylvania finances education, with the intention of increasing funding for schools. Unfortunately, the current proposals do not appear to go far enough to redress the current problem. They seem only to increase funding for education without fully resolving the spending inequalities.

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Source: WHYY Newsworks Commentary, By Andrea C. Anastasi, May 29, 2015, Essayworks.