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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gov. Tom Wolf hit the road Wednesday to begin selling his proposal for what would be the largest-ever increase in aid for Pennsylvania’s public schools, several times over, as school officials digested the news and Republicans who control the Legislature warned that it will never happen.
The money — just over $1.5 billion in new dollars for instruction and operations — is almost a quarter of what the state sends now.
Districts that would see the biggest increases include smaller cities with an increasingly poorer tax base and growing — and sometimes affluent — suburbs where changing demographics are not fully taken into account by how the state funds schools.
For instance, York Suburban, Wyomissing Area, Conestoga Area and Quaker Valley school districts are among the top 10 districts in proportional increase, at 46% to 63%. That top 10 also includes the relatively poor cities of Allentown, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Pottstown.
Meanwhile, 20 districts — primarily cities with the lowest household incomes — would get $800 million of the $1.55 billion being proposed by Wolf.
That group is led by the state’s biggest school district by far, Philadelphia, at $381 million, trailed by Allentown at $67 million, Reading at $64 million, York at $34 million, Erie at $28 million and Scranton at $24 million.