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Commission tries to figure out school funding formula

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(Harrisburg) — Work is underway to come up with a public school funding formula in Pennsylvania, butsome members of the state’s Basic Education Funding Commission recognize the challenge that’s ahead.

Pennsylvania’s district are as small as a couple hundred students and as large as more than 135,000 (Philadelphia School District).

But commission members want to develop a formula that can fairly distribute state dollars to every district.

The current system doesn’t take money away from districts that lose population, and districts with an large influx of students often have to just hope for more money.

“We tend to always, even as people, do things the way they have been done. The role of the commission is to really perhaps come up with a new paradigm,” saysState Senator Andy Dinniman, ranking Democrat on the Senate Education Committee.

Dinniman says he’s optimistic the Commission will come up with a formula, and says information gathered at a recent hearing will help. Pennsylvania once had a school funding formula, but it faded away after 2010.

“Everyone’s saying that one of the real problems of the school districts is that there is no predictability, so if we come up with a good formula, and we’re able to add the predictability aspect to it, then I think that will make a significant difference,” says Dinniman.

The Commission faces a June 2015 deadline for its report.

It may be inevitable that some districts will push back against any changes, since the current rules don’t strip funding from areas that lose students.

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