Gov. Tom Wolf was hailed as a public education hero by advocates for public schools on Tuesday as they gathered to celebrate the historic increases in funding included in the 2019-20 budget.

But Wolf made it clear that despite pushing the lifeblood of state funding to school districts to a new high-water mark of $6.2 billion, he’s not done yet.

He wants to see more of those basic education dollars to school districts get distributed through the state’s fair funding formula. He also wants to address concerns related to cyber charter schools, which he referred to as “the growing cost of privatization of education in our public schools.”

Along with that, he wants to see the commitment he has made to public education continue.

“This is my dream for a better Pennsylvania,” he said. “Education is at the heart of it and I’m not going to let up until we have the best educational system possible.”

That was music to the ears of those public education advocates surrounding him.

From a career and technical school student to the parent of a special education student to a district superintendent to the statewide teachers union leader, all who gathered at the Capitol news conference expressed their gratitude for the $220 million increase that schools will receive from the state in the coming academic year for all aspects of K-12 education.

“The governor’s made a commitment to meet the current needs of our students while tirelessly advocating for processes and programs that move us the devastating cuts undertaken prior to his term in office that negatively affected all learners throughout the commonwealth,” said Big Spring School District Superintendent Richard Fry.

Big Spring School District Superintendent Richard Fry credited Gov. Tom Wolf with leading the way in increasing investments for every student in Pennsylvania.

Rylee Shaffer, an incoming welding and metal fabrication senior at York County School of Technology, said the $10 million investments in career and technical education that the state has made both this year and last “will give more students access to career and technical opportunities and support the purchase of new equipment that will give more students hands-on training for careers that are in demand in their communities.”

Wolf acknowledged what anyone who has paid attention to his administration’s agenda that public education has been his priority. Since 2015 when he took office, funding for basic, special and career and technical education have risen by $1 billion, which he said contributed to the state’s graduation rate of 86.6 percent now being higher than the national average of 84.6 percent, according to the latest data published in Education Week.

He’d like to see that rise to 100 percent since today’s better-paying jobs require at least a high school diploma. He said that is why he pushed for – and in this latest budget package succeeded – lowering the state’s compulsory school-age to 6 from 8 and raising the dropout age to 18 from 17. He said that will keep students in school longer learning the skills they need to succeed in the future.

York County School of Technology student Rylee Shaffer said the increased funding for career and technical schools that the state has provided for two consecutive years will give more students hands-on training for in-demand careers.

Getting back to what he signaled will be his focus going forward to help build what he termed the nation’s strongest workforce, he wants to find a way to increase the amount of basic education dollars distributed through the fair funding formula that the state adopted in 2016.

Currently, just more than 11 percent – or $700 million – of the $6.25 billion earmarked in the state budget for basic education is doled out using the new formula that takes into account each district’s socioeconomic factors, according to the state Department of Education.

Since only additional funding added since 2016-17 is distributed through the new formula, Wolf said, “if we keep doing it the way we’ve been doing it, it’s going to take a long, long time.”

But according to a House Appropriations Committee analysis from last year, directing all basic education dollars through the newer formula would result in taking more than $1 billion from 357 districts and distributing it to the remaining 143 districts.

The commission that crafted the formula recommended a gradual phase-in of the new formula to allow districts, many of which are located in rural areas that would lose money, time to right size their budgets.

Calls from organizations and legislators representing those 143 districts have not been successful in getting the Legislature to allow for more than money just the new dollars added since 2016 to be distributed through the new funding system. Wolf is sympathetic but also recognized the need for fairness for the other districts that would lose money.

“We need to come up with a system that’s fair for everybody,” Wolf said. “It’s not enough to simply acknowledge that we have an unfairness in our school funding system. We actually have to fix it.”

As for his concerns about cyber charter, or online tuition-free public, schools, Wolf said along with their limited accountability and the financial drain they put on districts, he has concerns about the troubling academic performance of some of them.

“We should increase accountability to increase transparency to ensure all schools that receive public money, taxpayer’s money, are accountable to the taxpayers that give them that money,” he said. “We need to find a way to make sure these changes are lasting.”

Ana Meyers, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon. However, previously she indicated her organization’s support for charter legislation that increased accountability and transparency of charter schools that the House passed in June and now await action in the Senate. Her organization has also supported legislation to create a funding commission to recommend a new way of funding charter schools that stalled in the Senate prior to the General Assembly’s summer break.

Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.