When it comes to adequately funding school districts in Pennsylvania, we’ve developed a believe-it-when-we-see-it attitude.

We’re heartened by the Basic Education Funding Commission’s recommendation that the School District of Lancaster and other underfunded school districts, including Panther Valley in Carbon County, get the resources they need to be part of the “thorough and efficient” public education system promised by the state constitution.

Just as we were heartened by the state Commonwealth Court ruling nearly a year ago that blasted the state for failing to adequately fund those school districts.

But will those underfunded school districts actually get the money they need?

We’ll believe it when we see it.

The minority report produced by the Republicans on the commission asserted that comprehensive “solutions, not funding alone, are required to ensure all school districts have the resources necessary to supply students with comprehensive learning opportunities that meet 21st century academic, civic, and social demands.”

Comprehensive solutions don’t just materialize out of the ether. They require financial investment.

As the AP/Report for America reported, state House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler of Drumore Township criticized the Democrats’ report as containing a “simply spend more money” solution to fix inadequacies in the commonwealth’s school funding system.

Nailed it in one, Rep. Cutler. That’s exactly what is needed: more money - to hire more experienced teachers in school districts with increasing numbers of English language learners and students with disabilities, so class sizes can be reduced; to bring buildings up to date, so districts can recruit teachers who will stay, and students can learn in environments that are conducive to their success; and to provide support services to students with diverse needs.

Republicans prefer funneling tax dollars to private-school tuition voucher programs. They don’t seem concerned about the inequitable distribution of school funding in Pennsylvania. And they’re asserting that hefty tax increases would be required to spend the billions more on schools that the Democrats recommended in the commission’s majority report.

But because the current school funding system is so heavily dependent on property tax revenues, local school districts have been raising school taxes for years. That’s part of the problem the funding commission sought to address.

All underfunded schools want is what the majority on the Basic Education Funding Commission has determined they need - the resource levels that the state’s successful school districts already enjoy.

Consider these pieces of testimony included in the commission’s majority report:

• Laura Boyce, executive director of Teach Plus Pennsylvania, a nonprofit aiming to empower teachers to lead on issues that advance equity, opportunity and student success, said that the lowest-wealth and most inadequately funded districts in Pennsylvania employ less-qualified teachers than adequately funded districts.

They also have higher rates of teacher attrition than high-wealth districts. They have fewer classroom teachers per student than adequately funded districts. They have lower average teacher salaries than high-wealth districts. And they have fewer support staff per student than adequately funded districts.

• Kristen Haase, a Lancaster educator and Teach Plus Pennsylvania senior policy fellow, testified that the School District of Lancaster’s ratio of students to counselors is 346 to 1, while the American School Counselor Association’s recommended ratio is 250 to 1.

So the students with the greatest needs are in school districts with overburdened school counselors. Does this seem like a recipe for success?

• Testifying for the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association, Laura Ward said that 52 school districts - 10% of school districts across the commonwealth - did not have a school librarian assigned to the library.

As Education Week reported in November, “School library impact studies ... consistently show a positive correlation between the literacy achievement of students who attend schools with full-time, professional school librarians and well-stocked libraries compared to students whose schools do not have access to such resources.”

Would you feel comfortable sending your children or grandchildren to a school that didn’t have a librarian?

Our lawmakers must find a meaningful way to fairly, equitably and adequately fund education in the commonwealth, or risk condemning the next generation of Pennsylvanians to being inadequately prepared for citizenship in the 21st-century world and workplace.

Lawmakers can continue to bury their heads in the sand about the money that’s needed to remedy decades of inadequate and inequitable school funding. Or they can support a 2024-25 state budget that accepts that reality and will make a real difference to the lives and futures of Pennsylvania children.

We hope they choose the latter course. But we’ll believe it when we see it.

LancasterOnline/LNP