From the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia (http://www.pilcop.org):
On April 25, Chalkbeat reported on a newly revised study from the Urban Institute, a national think tank, on school funding in the United States. The study found that, in Pennsylvania, poor students received less funding than their peers for their education—despite a consensus among educators and researchers that low-income students need more support to access the same educational opportunities. Pennsylvania is one of just a handful of states where poor students receive less funding for their education than wealthier students. Urban Institute also found that Black and Latino students in Pennsylvania received 7% less funding than their white peers.
A previous version of the Urban Institute study, cited by legislative leaders during the school funding trial, found that Pennsylvania’s school funding was slightly progressive, providing more resources to low-income students. But that previous version of the study, as our attorneys discussed during trial, failed to properly account for funding that school districts receive and pass on to charter schools, inflating spending numbers for districts with large charter school populations. Urban Institute revised their methodology nationwide, significantly affecting results in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The Urban Institute study focused on low-income students, rather than poor school districts, and included low-income students who attend wealthy school districts. An analysis conducted by Penn State Professor Matt Kelly during the Pennsylvania school funding trial found a $4,800 per student funding gap between Pennsylvania’s poorest 20% of districts with the least local wealth and its wealthiest 20%.
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