I just can’t drop the Philly issue, because of the complete absurdity of the reformy rhetoric about Philly schools and persistent willful ignorance regarding the role of equitable and adequate funding for Philly schools and the Commonwealth’s failure to provide any reasonable level of support.

For what it’s worth – and I’ve spent a great deal of time critiquing this and similar studies – the Commonwealth in the mid-2000s took on the task of determining the “costs” per pupil of what Pennsylvania school districts needed to get the job done. This cost analysis was then used to guide development of a new formula intended to drive appropriate levels of state aid to districts facing substantive gaps between current spending (2006-07) at the time, and cost estimates developed under state supervision, by independent consultants.

 [critique of these & related methods can be found here]

At the time, state officials found that districts including Philadelphia, Allentown and Reading faced funding (relative to cost) gaps between $4,000 and $6,000+ per pupil.  So, in rather bold style, they adopted a new school finance formula with the intent to phase districts toward their adequacy targets.  Then the economy tanked, and a new era of political attacks on state school finance formulas followed (as much a Cuomo/NY issue as a Corbett one!).

So, where are Pennsylvania school districts now, with 2013-14 (July estimates) funding (holding local effort constant), when compared to the 2006-07 funding gaps? That is, have Pennsylvania districts come any closer in the (7) following years to the targets that were estimated for them before it all came crumbling down?

Simple answer? No!

That is, Philly remains more than $4,000 per pupil (by this quick&dirty analysis) below the funding target that was estimated for it nearly a decade ago. [BEF = Basic Education Funding]

BEF 2013-14: http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/education_budget/8699/SAEBG/539259