It may seem ludicrous to describe $1.1 billion in total increases in K-12 public education funding as a half-measure.

That’s a vast amount of money, after all.

But the needs of Pennsylvania’s underfunded schools are vast, too. And the newly signed state budget failed — yet again — to fully deliver what the students of those schools need.

At long last, the state Legislature has accepted that an adequacy gap exists in Pennsylvania school funding. That is, there’s a massive gap between what low-wealth districts and high-wealth districts can spend to meet the educational needs of their students, and so the state must fill that gap.

High-wealth districts can make up for state funding shortfalls by generating higher property tax revenues from their well-to-do tax bases.

Low-wealth districts face a double whammy: They have more English language learners, more students with disabilities and more students from economically disadvantaged households. And those districts have tax bases that are narrowed by swaths of tax-exempt properties (such as government buildings) and lower-priced homes.

So, hooray, lawmakers finally have accepted the obvious: Underfunded school districts need more money from the state, and the state is obligated to calculate the adequacy gap when allocating funding to school districts.

In 2024-25, some $494 million will go to Pennsylvania’s low-wealth schools to address that gap.

The problem? The new budget contains no multiyear commitment and no codified funding levels for addressing the adequacy gap beyond 2024-25.

As LancasterOnline reported, education advocates, along with state House Democrats, “had hoped to pass a seven-year plan with specific, year-over-year increases to erase the $5.1 billion funding gap across 371 school districts statewide.”

If we were teachers grading this effort, we’d give it an “incomplete.” And we’d include a note, in red ink, reminding lawmakers that Commonwealth Court President Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer didn’t merely observe in her landmark 2023 ruling that Pennsylvania funding of public schools was unconstitutional. She issued a directive to remedy that reality.

In response, Democratic state Rep. Mike Sturla of Lancaster, co-chair of the Basic Education Funding Commission, proposed House Bill 2370. That bill proposed $5.1 billion in new funding to be distributed through a prescribed formula to low-wealth school districts each year through 2030-31.

That bill passed in the Pennsylvania House but was watered down in the state Senate during budget negotiations. And Senate negotiators lowered the adequacy gap sum by using census data for poverty levels rather than school districts’ poverty data.

So now the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that was decided in their favor in Commonwealth Court must consider whether they need to return to court to remind lawmakers of their constitutional responsibilities.

This is incredibly frustrating. Students in low-wealth districts already have waited too long for their schools to be able to hire the teachers and support staff members needed to help them to succeed. How are schools supposed to add much-needed resources without any reassurance they’ll have the money to cover the costs beyond 2024-25?

The final budget also dramatically reduced the sum Democrats had proposed for tax equity payments meant to enable low-wealth districts that have overtaxed their residents to freeze property taxes. The $32 million allocated for 2024-25 isn’t going to go very far.

We were relieved, at least, that the state budget didn’t include money for a new private-school tuition voucher program that Republican lawmakers were championing. Taxpayer dollars should be spent on public schools, not channeled to private schools that screen out students they don’t want to admit. Rural school districts, where families don’t have as many — or any — choices regarding education options, could also hurt by diversion of funding.

Shapiro and state lawmakers can cheer all they want about passing a state budget that was only 11 days late. We’re sure many of them now are enjoying the Legislature’s summer recess (poor lawmakers — they had to work past the Fourth of July and everything).

But we’re tired of hearing about “down payments” made toward the fulfillment of the commonwealth’s constitutional obligation to provide all students with a “thorough and efficient” system of public education. At some point, the commonwealth is going to need to settle its debt in full. School districts — and most importantly, the students they’re charged with educating — need consistency.

But disappointment has been the only constant.

— LancasterOnline via TNS