Special Education Funding
Fair School Funding
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Education Law Center executive director Deborah Gordon Klehr presented testimony on Pennsylvania school funding policy to the Pennsylvania House Democratic Policy Committee on September 1, 2021.
Klehr’s testimony on behalf of ELC emphasized that “to serve all children, our system must achieve both adequacy and equity. Simply put we must both grow the pie and distribute the funds to the school districts and students with the greatest need.” She explained, “The legislature must be committed to the goals of both adequacy and equity through robust, predictable long-term funding to meet the needs of students based on concrete adequacy targets…. Without an adequate state contribution, there aren’t enough resources in low-wealth districts to achieve equity across the state.”
The testimony highlights the shortchanging of Black and Latinx students, who are concentrated in low-wealth school districts and are deprived of educational opportunities as a result. It also addresses the need to reform funding policies for cyber charter schools, for special education in charter schools, and for special education overall.
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For the past decade, expenditures for educating students with disabilities in Pennsylvania have been climbing steadily, mirroring a national trend. But those rising costs have been almost entirely borne by local school districts.
By failing to keep pace with these expenditures, Pennsylvania has retreated from its responsibility to educate students with disabilities — despite the fact that the state remains legally responsible under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for ensuring that students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.
Read our report, produced in partnership with the PA Schools Work coalition.
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Dozens of Pennsylvania organizations and advocates joined in a letter to Gov. Wolf in January 2020, urging him to help address the unmet needs of over 270,000 students with disabilities in Pennsylvania by increasing investment in special education and basic education in his FY2020-21 budget.
The letter calls for an increase of $100 million in special education funding and for restoring the declining state share of special education funding to the level of a decade ago – as well as calling for additional dollars in basic education funding to close the state’s massive adequacy gap . Finally, it calls for revisions to the state’s special education funding formula, both to better reflect district poverty and to extend the current three-tier funding system to charter schools, tying funding levels to student need.
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This October 2018 report from the Education Law Center highlights how the rise in special education costs in districts across the state is outpacing state special education funding, creating new challenges for underfunded school districts.
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Education Law Center Staff Attorney David Lapp’s testimony to the Pennsylvania Basic Education Funding Commission on November 18, 2014, entitled “Time for a Rational Fix to the Special Education Tuition in Pennsylvania Charter Schools.”
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The Special Education Funding Commission held public hearings throughout the state in 2013, receiving testimony from dozens of witnesses. Students, parents, educators, and national experts uniformly emphasized the long-term impact of the state funding system on the ability of schools to meet the needs of children with disabilities.
Special Education Funding
Equal Access
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Education Law Center Staff Attorney David Lapp’s testimony to the Pennsylvania Basic Education Funding Commission on November 18, 2014, entitled “Time for a Rational Fix to the Special Education Tuition in Pennsylvania Charter Schools.”