This Pennsylvania Educational TourThe House Appropriations and Education Committee, which includes Democrats and Republicans, heard from educators about the impact a school voucher program would have in Pennsylvania during a panel discussion Wednesday. And while some said vouchers offer parents school choice in low-performing districts, others said voucher programs drain much-needed tax revenue from districts that can least afford it.
“Voucher plans like PASS are the educational equivalent of predatory lending,” Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University, told a panel of lawmakers.
Cowen said that based on 20 years of studying school vouchers, he does not believe that Pennsylvania’s voucher program will be successful. He added that similar programs in other states serve as a warning, as vouchers can have an impact students in Pennsylvania.
“Over the last decade, academic achievement has been devastating,” Cowen said, “roughly on par with what COVID-19 or Hurricane Katrina did to test scores. Over the last 10 years, when vouchers were scaled up statewide, the results were terrible.”
Cowen said most schools receiving vouchers are either “financially distressed schools that were barely making ends meet before the voucher bailout” or “transitional schools” that “only reopen to take advantage of new funding.”
Gov. Josh Shapiro voiced his support for a $100 million education voucher program backed by GOP senators earlier this year during budget negotiations, but later budget item vetoed the program after House Democrats said they would not support the initiative.
However, the governor continued to advocate for an education voucher program and Republicans in the state legislature have not abandoned the plan.
Maura McInerney, legal director of the Education Law Center, said during the hearing that the proposed voucher program was “unwise” because it would divert funds from public schools to private schools, employ public money to support and subsidize private schools that discriminate against students based on race, disability, religion, ethnicity, sex and gender, and lack transparency and accountability. Vouchers, McInerney said, simply do not improve educational outcomes for children.
McInerney cited data from February Commonwealth Court Decision which ruled that the property-tax-based system for financing public K-12 schools is unconstitutional.
“The General Assembly has an urgent task of creating a constitutional funding system as mandated by the court,” McInerney said. “Creating vouchers is an unnecessary distraction from this fundamental responsibility.”
But Keisha JordanPresident and CEO of the Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia (CSFP) and Benjamin Scafidi, professor of economics and director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State University, testified that vouchers could be a lifeline for Pennsylvania’s neediest students.
“For CSFP students, tax credit scholarships are life-changing,” Jordan said.
Jordan said that Philadelphia Children’s Scholarship Fund is “the largest provider of K-8 private school scholarships in the state of Pennsylvania,” receiving funding primarily from two state tax credit programs: the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit Program (OSTC). The organization has been around since 2001 and has awarded more than 70,000 scholarships to Philadelphia students, she said.
EITC provides millions of potential tax dollars every year to private schools and educational programs. The program, which was created in 2001, was supported by Republicans in the state legislature, while Democrats and public school advocates argued the money should go directly to public schools in the state. OSTC provides tax benefits to qualifying businesses that donate funds to the Opportunity Scholarship Organization.
“And I’m not sharing this data to make a negative statement about public schools or the public school system,” Jordan said. “They have enormous challenges ahead of them, and we also believe in adequate funding for public schools. That’s why these grants need to be part of a larger education reform effort in Philadelphia that includes adequate funding for public schools.”
Scafidi disagreed with the claim that funding the voucher program takes money away from public education.
“They say we can’t have school choice because it steals money from public schools,” Scafidi said. “The truth is, public school students have more resources available to them when some students leave for whatever reason.”
Scafidi said public schools keep most of the federal funding they receive, even if a student chooses to attend a private school.
But McInerney said any money spent on the voucher program ultimately means less money for public schools.
“I just want to highlight the fact that we’ve said repeatedly that our public school system is underfunded, and therefore the revenue that’s generated in one pool is going to have to go into the education pool,” McInerney said. “So it has an impact. It has a knock-on effect.”
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jordan Harris (D-Philadelphia) said that while vouchers “don’t take money away” from public school funds, funding for the proposed voucher program “does take money away from a larger pool.”
Harris asked Cowen if any state was “doing a good job of providing education.”
Quoted by Cowen Wisconsinwhich has the nation’s oldest school voucher program, as its “preferred” model compared to other states, given its educational and financial oversight. That includes removing at least one insolvent school from the voucher program, Cowen said.
But he added that Pennsylvania’s proposed voucher program is problematic compared to other states that have already passed similar laws.
“The current language in the PASS Act actively encourages students to leave public schools by requiring the Commonwealth to do something like advertise against local school districts,” he said.
“If the Legislature were to actually pass such a plan, it would be critical that the bill include much broader oversight provisions than what it currently has, which is frankly a more empty check than most bills I’ve seen around the country on this issue,” Cowen added.
Panel on the topic Wednesday afternoon Two days of hearings in Philadelphia have concluded.
On Tuesday joint committee hearing held panels which discussed support for Black educators and students, improving literacy, and a financial review of the Philadelphia school district. plate On Wednesday morning, there was a discussion about school infrastructure in Pennsylvania.
The next hearing in the case Pennsylvania Educational Tour will take place on November 2 in Wilkes-Barre.
“The reason for this whole tour is that we actually have an opportunity to reimagine what education looks like in Pennsylvania,” Harris said Wednesday. “And I can tell you that whether we agree or disagree on the issues, I know my colleagues, all of us, really want to do this the right way. And that’s why we’re having this kind of discussion.”
