Why Are Kids Falling Behind in PA?
By most measures, Pennsylvania has invested more in public education than ever. However, despite increased spending, academic achievement has flattened, leaving many in the education policy world scratching their heads as the state budget deadline looms.
Here is a number every Pennsylvania taxpayer should know: $23,807. That is what Pennsylvania now spends, on average, to educate a single public school student for one year. The commonwealth now ranks tenth in the nation and spends about $4,000 above the national average.
This is part of a longer trend in Pennsylvania education spending. Over the last decade, state taxpayer support for public education has surged by 68%. The 2024–25 budget delivered the second-largest single-year increase in state history—more than $1.3 billion, or an 8% bump, in one stroke. Currently, the total bill for K–12 education exceeds $17.7 billion in state funds alone, with Gov. Josh Shapiro proposing to add another $923 million on top of that.
And yet this record-level spending has yielded little return on investment — at least not in the classroom. The latest results for statewide standardized testing show that only 48.5 percent of elementary students are proficient in reading and writing, and even fewer, 41.7%, are proficient in math. The latest Nation’s Report Card shows that Pennsylvania made no measurable improvement since 2003 to close achievement gaps of more than 25 points for Black and Hispanic students, economically disadvantaged students, or English-language learners.
Meanwhile, school districts continue to demand more while holding significant reserve funds. Facing a $5.7 million deficit, Pittsburgh Public School District — like many others across the state — voted to raise taxes, even while holding $226 million in reserves. The Pennsylvania Department of Education reports that school districts are sitting on $7.4 billion in reserve funds — about $4,600 for every enrolled student.
Money is clearly not the problem.
What the money has done is fund a bureaucracy that serves adults more than kids. Since 1999, the number of school employees has grown by nearly 25,000 — a 10% staffing increase. Pennsylvania now has just 6.5 students for every staff member. Aren’t smaller class sizes supposed to produce better academic outcomes?
The current education system seems better designed for self-preservation than educational development. A zip code determines the quality of education a student can receive, harking back to the days of discriminatory redlining and leaving far too many marginalized communities trapped inside failing districts.
This is why education reform is a moral necessity.
Pennsylvania families are already voting with their feet. Analysis by Bellwether, an education think tank, shows that eight out of ten of Pennsylvania school districts experienced population decline between 2019 and 2024. Pennsylvania traditional public schools (excluding charters) now educate nearly 300,000 fewer students than they did in 1999.
Educational alternatives have benefitted from this exodus. Cyber charter school enrollment and homeschooling have grown by 55% and 72%, respectively, since Covid. Since 2019, waitlists for career and technical education have increased by 150%.
Clearly, families want choices — and lawmakers must provide them.
House Bill 2623, the Educational Opportunity Omnibus bill, would do exactly that. It would expand the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program to $200 million, eliminating scholarship waiting lists that currently deny thousands of students access to schools that meet their needs. It would also create the Learning Investment Tax Credit, which would refund education costs for any education setting (public, private, charter, homeschooling, etc.) up to $8,000 per child annually.
The bill would allow Pennsylvania to opt into the new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC). The FSTC grants dollar-for-dollar donations up to $1,700 to scholarship-granting organizations. One estimate suggests that opting in would unlock between $32 million and $967 million in additional scholarship funding for Pennsylvania—at no cost to taxpayers. If Pennsylvania fails to act, that money will go to students in other states.
The Pennsylvania Senate also offered some added support. With a sweeping bipartisan 44–6 vote, the chamber passed HB 1667, which included a $25 million increase to EITC.
The legislative opportunities are abundant. Pennsylvania lawmakers just need to the political will to make them happen.
Critics will argue that these programs drain resources from public education. But I would argue that continually funneling money to shrinking, underperforming districts — regardless of how many students remain or how poorly those schools perform — is a drain in and of itself.
Pennsylvania students deserve a system that doesn’t blindly fund and protect failing and emptying schools. When a district spends three times as much as private school tuition and still produces failure, the answer is not to spend more.
The answer is to let families choose something better.
