As state budget negotiations in Harrisburg begin to take shape this month, lawmakers are debating how much they should set aside to close resource gaps at Pennsylvania’s historically underfunded K-12 schools.
Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed another $565 million in direct funding for the commonwealth’s poorest school districts in his 2026-2027 budget proposal last month. It would be the third consecutive installment of “adequacy funds,” meant to right past wrongs of the state’s education funding system — a system deemed unconstitutional in a 2023 landmark court ruling.
“ We’re seeing class sizes reduce across the state so teachers can give more personalized, professional, highly-qualified attention to kids,” Pennsylvania Department of Education Secretary Carrie Rowe told WESA during a visit to Carnegie last week. “We’re seeing libraries bounce back in schools where previously they had been cut due to a lack of funding.”
Initial data on how districts spent the first installment — allocated last school year — was released by the state’s Department of Education last month. Schools designated the funds to everything from boosting student academic performance and career readiness programs to expanding full-day kindergarten offerings and reducing class sizes.
“Without a doubt, it’s a lifeline,” said Baldwin-Whitehall School District superintendent Randy Lutz. “We are able to not only maintain programs, but in some ways, we are able to expand some programs for kids from K to 12.”
More than half of Baldwin-Whitehall’s 4,484 students are considered economically disadvantaged, and about one in 10 are English language learners. The Allegheny County school district received $2.6 million in the first adequacy installment and used nearly two-thirds of that money to expand the mental health and support services for students.
Lutz said that included hiring a new counselor, social worker and school psychologist. Additional dollars were used to expand the district’s elective American Sign Language program, as well as to provide teachers with small grants for purchasing classroom materials.
But while Lutz said he would love to dedicate all of the funding to new and creative opportunities for students, some of those dollars must also be used to fill holes in Baldwin-Whitehall’s budget. About $800,000 of the district’s 2024-2025 adequacy allocation went toward maintaining its existing full-day kindergarten program.
“Sometimes those dollars have to fill in some budget deficits or some gaps where we thought some other dollars from the state may have come,” Lutz said.
Nearly 84% of the adequacy dollars spent by commonwealth schools last school year went toward maintaining existing programs and staff, according to initial data released by the state. Just 6.6% of the funds were used to establish new programs.
“This is adequacy funding, it is not ‘innovative fun things for school’ funding,” said Susan Spicka, who directs the public education advocacy group Education Voters of Pennsylvania.
“It is funding that is intended to ensure that school districts that have been severely underfunded are able to start to have adequate resources for students — and in an environment where inflation is off the charts for school districts,” she added.
Tucked inside the $50.1 billion budget passed this week are also provisions that will reshape how reading is taught in schools statewide, as well as long-awaited stipends for student teachers.
In some districts with smaller allocations, leaders have carefully applied funds to avoid passing the burden on to local taxpayers. John Zahorchak, director of finance and operations for Plum Borough School District, said school officials would have been forced to raise property taxes to the maximum rate allowable under state law if they hadn’t received their roughly $575,600 adequacy allotment each of the past two years.
“We’re trying to mitigate having to raise our taxes to the [Act 1] index every year. That is the reality of the situation,” he said.
While Plum has used its adequacy funds to maintain science and technology programming at schools, Zahorchak said the “extra money is really doing nothing more for us than helping us mitigate our tax raises.”
California Area School District in Washington County received $360,000 in adequacy funds each of the past two school years. Superintendent Laura Jacob said that’s more revenue than the rural district could ever generate through a single tax hike.
Jacob said the district has used its adequacy dollars to launch its first three career and technical education programs in teaching, veterinary science and security. This school year, 41% of students are enrolled in one of these programs, according to Jacob.
“And so the kids clearly want those opportunities. We just need a little bit more funding to help make that happen,” she said. “We really made sure that we were strategic in how we used [the adequacy funding] so that it became a true, direct benefit to kids.”
Improvements rely on consistency
Some school leaders are also attributing increases in student test scores to the boost in funding. Butler Area School District used much of its $1.4 million allocation last school year to update its elementary-level math curriculum and purchase Chromebooks for student use.
Butler superintendent Brian White said this year’s allocation is being used to revamp the district’s elementary reading materials to ensure they’re aligned to the science of reading.
“And we have good data to start to show some improvement, particularly around our elementary math program,” White said. “We have great results for year one across most of our classrooms.”
But some conservative lawmakers and allies have questioned whether additional state spending is translating to higher student test scores and graduation rates.
During a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday, state Rep. Marla Brown (R-New Castle) asked education officials whether schools receiving these funds would be penalized if they do not show academic improvement.
“When we identify schools that aren’t meeting the criteria that we’ve set forth, then we’re going to need to provide additional support,” Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Carrie Rowe responded.
She added that support isn’t necessarily monetary and could instead come in the form of district coaching.
But district leaders say one of the most important factors in safeguarding better results is consistent funding. White said last year’s budget impasse, which extended several months into this school year, made it difficult for districts to reap the full benefit of adequacy funds.
“So instead of having a full-year benefit, some of the students get a half-year benefit of things and it’s just a lost opportunity,” White said.
At Canon-McMillan School District, south of Pittsburgh, district leaders used some of their initial adequacy installment to hire additional teachers and reduce class sizes. But by the time lawmakers finally reached a budget deal last November, assistant superintendent Scott Chambers said it was too late for the district to make similar changes without disrupting student learning.
“You’re not going to split a classroom in the middle of the year,” Chambers said. “If you’re going to introduce new programming and hire staff, that’s difficult to do in the middle of the year.”
Chambers said he’s hopeful state legislators will reach a 2026-2027 budget deal on time so that schools can start the next school year with additional funds in hand.