Substantial Progress, a Large Remaining Adequacy Gap, and Slowing Growth in Core Education Funding
Executive Summary: Pennsylvania has made meaningful progress toward remedying its unconstitutional school-funding system, adding nearly $1.55 billion in recurring adequacy funding over three annual budgets and closing about 32 percent of the original $4.8 billion statewide adequacy gap. But roughly $3.25 billion of the original gap remains, and when the benchmark is updated for inflation, the estimated remaining shortfall rises to about $4.14 billion, which means that simply repeating the current annual adequacy investment will not be enough to keep Pennsylvania on its current path toward completing the remedy. At the same time, slowing growth in Basic Education Funding and Special Education Funding risks forcing districts to use some adequacy dollars simply to maintain existing services rather than expanding the staff, programs, resources, and opportunities the remedy is intended to provide.