Stelle + Langan: Southern states shatter the myth of ‘underfunded’ public schools

Pennsylvania has a lot to learn about public education. And states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana offer this important lesson: Increased K–12 funding isn’t the panacea that so many claim it to be. 

Dubbed the “Surging South,” these three states have successfully improved reading and math test scores while also reversing post-pandemic academic losses and absenteeism. Louisiana ranks first in the country in post-pandemic reading improvements, while Mississippi tops the nation in math recovery. Alabama, where nearly a quarter of students qualified as “chronically absent,” now boasts the lowest truancy rate in the United States.

And they did it all with shoestring budgets.

“What’s particularly impressive is that the Southern surge states lifted student achievement with only modest budgets,” writes Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. “Spending per pupil in Alabama and Mississippi was below $12,000 in 2024.”

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania spends almost double that: more than $23,000 per student. In fact, statewide public education funding has increased by nearly $7 billion over the last decade. The Keystone State now ranks seventh in the nation in overall K–12 spending.

However, despite this record-level spending, the commonwealth’s academic achievement certainly is far from the top ten. If anything, Pennsylvania hovers in the middle of the pack academically: The Nation’s Report Card ranks the commonwealth 18th in 4th-grade math, 21st in 4th-grade reading, and 26th in 8th-grade math.

Absenteeism also remains a problem. Regular attendance by Pennsylvania students stands at 78 percent, meaning 22 percent are chronically absent. Truancy is even more acute in Philadelphia, where about 40 percent of students were chronically absent.

In the parlance of public education apologists, this is a terrible return on our “investment.”

Moreover, the commonwealth seems poised to double down on this same flawed strategy. In his recent budget address, Gov. Josh Shapiro requested an additional $932 million for new statewide K–12 spending. Since taking over as governor, Shapiro has signed nearly $3 billion in new state funding for public schools.

But Shapiro’s plea for increased public education spending is, at best, selective. It neglects one of the largest student bodies in Pennsylvania public education: cyber charter students. The governor’s budget “redirects” about $250 million away from the 65,000 Pennsylvania students attending cyber charters. This follows two consecutive years of budget cuts signed by the governor, including robbing $175 million from cyber charters in last year’s budget. He referred to these cuts as “savings” and “reform” — heartless euphemisms that ignore the fundamental fact that, despite being public schools, cyber charters aren’t a priority for the governor.

Another important difference between Pennsylvania and the southern states that outperform it is universal school choice. Both Alabama and Louisiana offer educational savings accounts to all their students. Mississippi, which offers three different scholarship programs, is also considering universal eligibility during this year’s legislative session.

Assuredly, Pennsylvania offers school choice. In fact, the commonwealth once led the nation by creating one of the nation’s first tax-credit scholarship programs in 2001: the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC). Then, in 2012, the commonwealth added the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC). Combined, these programs gifted 101,000 scholarships to students seeking educational alternatives.

However, even these scholarships aren’t enough. Nearly 70,000 scholarship applications went unfulfilled. Clearly, demand has outpaced supply, and lawmakers can right this wrong by eliminating the program caps that deny educational opportunities for Pennsylvania students.

Yet, Shapiro seems to be on the wrong side of this worrisome trend. The governor wants to reduce the amount of education tax credits for scholarship organizations.

Plus, Shapiro has remained silent about opting into the new federal scholarship program, the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC). This program, which federal lawmakers modeled after our EITC and OSTC programs, would bring an estimated $483 million in scholarships for Pennsylvania students.

Meanwhile, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi have all agreed to opt into the FSTC. And why not? It’s a “no-brainer,” said Shapiro’s Democratic colleague, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who also announced his intention to opt in.

Indeed, Pennsylvania still has a lot to learn from other states, especially those often scoffed at in education circles.

“Other states can also lift student trajectories, if they are willing to learn from Southern red states they may be more accustomed to looking down on,” Kristof concluded.

This willingness to learn begins by admitting when we’re wrong. Rather than doing what we have always done (e.g., throwing money at the problem), Pennsylvania must innovate and rethink how we educate our kids.

And we can do that by flipping the script: Funding must flow to kids and families, not broken systems.

Elizabeth Stelle and Rachel Langan are Vice President of Policy and Senior Education Policy Analyst, respectively, for the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank.