Kids are back in school across Pennsylvania and the nation, but many of them are likely seeing the fallout from education funding cuts.
Pennsylvania ranked among the top 10 states to cut school funding this year, according to a recent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The Center found that 21 of 24 states for which data are available (including Pennsylvania) are providing less funding per student to elementary and high schools than last year (after adjusting for inflation). These states account for about two-thirds of the nation’s school-age population.
Pennsylvania ranked sixth among the 24 states, with an 8.8% cut in per-student, inflation adjusted spending. Only Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, California and Ohio cut school funding more.
Kids are back in school across Pennsylvania and the nation, but many of them are likely seeing the fallout from education funding cuts.
Pennsylvania ranked among the top 10 states to cut school funding this year, according to a recent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The Center found that 21 of 24 states for which data are available (including Pennsylvania) are providing less funding per student to elementary and high schools than last year (after adjusting for inflation). These states account for about two-thirds of the nation’s school-age population.
Pennsylvania ranked sixth among the 24 states, with an 8.8% cut in per-student, inflation adjusted spending. Only Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, California and Ohio cut school funding more.
Overall, Pennsylvania is doing better than many of the other states, where funding cuts this year come on top of other cuts in state K-12 funding since the recession hit. As the Center’s Phil Oliff wrote:
As a result, 17 of the 24 states studied are providing less funding per student than they did in 2008. (See second graph.) In ten of these states, funding is down more than 10 percent since 2008, and in South Carolina, Arizona, and California, it is down more than 20 percent.
These cuts have serious consequences for students and the broader economy. They slow the economic recovery, hurt education reform efforts, damage the nation’s long-term competitiveness and leave school districts with few choices for restoring the lost state aid.
It all comes down to a question of priorities, as Oliff wrote:
While the state funding cuts partly reflect the economic downturn, which has depressed state revenues and raised the demand for public services, they also reflect choices by state and federal policymakers. Most states took a cuts-only approach to closing their budget shortfalls for the current fiscal year, rather than using a more balanced mix of cuts and additional revenues. And the federal government has failed to extend the emergency education aid it gave states earlier in the downturn, which played a crucial role in limiting the funding cuts to schools across the country.