Now more than ever, Pennsylvania public schools require evidence-based policies

Imagine losing sleep over growing educational inequality and weak pandemic recovery among Pennsylvania’s schoolchildren. National testing data confirms these fears, as test scores haven’t recovered their pre-pandemic levels. If you controlled policymaking, how would you respond? Would you support doubling down on proven, effective education policies? Or champion limited, private interests?

As a parent and education policy researcher, these issues keep me up at night. But unlike our current federal administration, I devote my research to advance rigorously evaluated school policies to address these concerns — like robust funding for low-income students — and to steer clear of those proven ineffective — like voucher programs that funnel public tax dollars to private, unaccountable, and sometimes discriminatory school providers.

Unfortunately, some in our commonwealth disagree, instead supporting dubious programs and promoting weakened educational oversight at a time when evidence-based policymaking should be more important than ever before. Some even seek to curtail rigorous research itself. So how does existing research weigh Pennsylvania’s two most critical education policy issues: school funding and school choice?

The argument that more school funding improves student outcomes is settled science among researchers.

First, to those who doubt school funding effectiveness, I’ll be crystal clear: The argument that more school funding improves student outcomes is settled science among researchers. Invest an additional dollar in public education and average outcomes like student test scores, graduation rates, and long-term earnings improve, especially among low-income students. That doesn’t mean every dollar is invested perfectly, so I encourage school leaders and legislators to strategize improving the efficiency of scarce resources. Agendas to reduce most education funding simply ignore scientific findings.

Second, private school choice mechanisms like vouchers and tax-credit scholarships tend to harm student outcomes. Moreover, typically they exclude the neediest students by failing to meet most private school tuition thresholds and are not held to public school admissions and accountability regulations. Personally, I don’t oppose private education, I simply oppose allocating scarce public resources to limited private interests.

Following the state’s fair funding lawsuit, Pennsylvania must address its unconstitutional state funding formula by improving funding for low-income schools. This year’s state budget included over $1 billion in new education funding, while Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed further increases in his recent budget proposal. Backtracking on landmark funding increases to spend taxpayer dollars on ineffective and unaccountable private schools flies in the face of evidence-based policymaking.

» READ MORE: Can the big ambitions in Shapiro’s latest Pa. budget surmount opposition from GOP lawmakers? | Editorial

Some states have tried these policies, providing ample forewarning. For example, last summer I returned to Philadelphia after five years researching education policy in St. Louis. You might wonder: How is Missouri relevant to Pennsylvania? As a cautionary tale, it turns out.

While I lived there, Missouri had one of the nation’s lowest average teacher salaries, launched an unaccountable tax-credit school scholarship program (which frequently violated its own regulations), and provided the nation’s worst per-pupil state funding, leaving local school districts to compensate. The wealthiest districts thrive and the poorest struggle, resulting in enormous wealth gaps even among neighbors. Instead, sustained funding reforms in other states have improved both short- and long-term student outcomes, improved teacher working conditions, reduced teacher turnover, and shrunk gaps between poor and affluent schools.

Years ago, I studied Pennsylvania’s ineffective pingpong approach to school funding under the Rendell, Corbett, and Wolf administrations, when one governor would champion a policy, only for the next governor to rescind it and move back to square one. Today, the situation is more dire amid the Trump administration’s plan to slash federal education funding. Federal funding typically makes up only about 10% of district budgets, but it’s almost exclusively allocated to low-income, special education, and English as a second language students. Therefore, federal funding cuts will disproportionately harm our most vulnerable students.

Most of all, if there’s anything this country should avoid right now, it’s unaccountable government spreading skepticism of rigorous science. Pennsylvanians should take heed, especially those invested in Philadelphia’s schools and those in the commonwealth’s most vulnerable school districts.

J. Cameron Anglum is an assistant professor at the Lehigh University College of Education and a longtime Philadelphia resident. The views expressed belong solely to the author and do not reflect the views of Lehigh University more broadly.