School Finance Policies, Racial Disparities, and the Exploding Educational Debt: Egregious Evidence from Pennsylvania.

This article analyzes how three recent policy decisions by Pennsylvania lawmakers—enacted in 2011, 2014, and 2016—have increased racial disparities in education funding, disproportionately underfunding school districts with the highest concentrations of Black and Latinx students. It finds that these districts spent $2 billion less than needed in 2018–2019 to meet state adequacy targets and would have received substantially more state aid if lawmakers had maintained or fully implemented funding formulas established in 2008. The study shows that these funding gaps persist even when controlling for poverty, indicating that racial disparities in funding are not solely explained by economic disadvantage. The article highlights how these funding inequities limit districts' ability to invest in human resources critical to student success and contribute to an expanding "educational debt" owed to minoritized students in Pennsylvania.