Pennsylvania’s delivery of some federal COVID-19 aid to schools shortchanged districts with a high density of poor and minority students, including in local counties, a new report finds.
State districts with the highest poverty rates received millions less than their wealthy equivalents, and two-and-a-half times less than if a fair funding formula had been used in the second round of Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act distribution, according to a recent analysis by the Keystone Research Center.
The Keystone State received millions in CARES funding for schools in two rounds. Federal guidelines required the first round to be allocated using the Title 1 formula factoring in poverty rates, and poor districts received eight times more funding than wealthy ones using this model. Another pot was distributed to charter schools and intermediate districts.