Across the country, in both Republican and Republican-leaning states, policymakers are starting to realize that education vouchers are a very bad idea.
Pennsylvania would be wise to follow suit.
Voucher programs like PASS, Lifeline, and Education Savings Account (ESA) vouchers, which were supported by Gov. Josh Shapiro and some state lawmakers, are promoted as having powerful safeguards, low costs, and constrained to a miniature, select group of students. But we’ve seen that the stroke of a pen in the state Capitol can strip away accountability and change a constrained voucher program into one with universal eligibility, exploding costs to taxpayers, reducing funds available to public schools, and creating endless opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse.
Take Arizona for example. In 2011, Arizona introduced the Empowerment Scholarship Account vouchers. for students with special education needs. The tax money went into an account that families could apply for educational expenses, and the program cost $1.6 million that year. Over time, the ESA voucher program expanded to include additional students, including foster students, students from military families and students from low-performing schools. In 2022, Arizona expanded eligibility to all students, creating a universal voucher program in the state.
Voucher advocates sold Arizonans the universal voucher story Withwould cost only $64 million, when in reality the price of offering a voucher to every student in the state turned out to be has cost Arizona residents more than $900 million this fiscal year alone.
No Arizona policymaker should be surprised that families whose children already attend private schools would be thrilled to have state taxpayers foot the bill for their children’s expenses. More than 70 percent of families who received the $7,000 checks offered under Arizona’s universal voucher program did not attend public schools. And those families did not limit the apply of education tax dollars to paying private school tuition. A recent report found that taxpayers in the Grand Canyon State are now funding voucher families Ninja training, ski resort passes, golf equipment, pricey international snack delivery subscriptions, and more.
Similar stories about the expansion of the voucher system and the waste of money on education come from FloridaWhere 70% of voucher beneficiaries already attended private schools and families pay for it with tax money gigantic screen TVs, paddle boards and Disney tickets. And in Iowawhere the implementation of a universal voucher program found that two-thirds of voucher recipients were already attending private schools, and the program significantly exceeded projected costs.
Governors and lawmakers across the country are heeding these warnings.
Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed the bill on vouchers that came before her in November 2021. In January 2023, a DeVos-funded group found Witmer and the Michigan Legislature to be so strongly supportive of public education that completely ended the school privatization campaign in Michigan.
In IllinoisGov. JB Pritzker and the state Legislature allowed the tax voucher program to expire in 2023, ending the issuance of school vouchers in their state.
Governor Roy Cooper recently called for moratorium on unaccounted for expenses under the voucher scheme and declared 2024 as the “Year of the Public Schools” in North Carolina.
Even the republican strongholds Texas AND Georgia rejected novel voucher proposals as Republican lawmakers joined their Democratic counterparts in opposing vouchers, which they know will have a devastating impact on rural school districts.
Pennsylvania’s novel voucher program should not be considered by Governor Shapiro and state legislators.
First, insufficient education funds must be directed to public schools so that Pennsylvania complies with the recent Commonwealth Court decision that found the current school funding system unconstitutional. This will require an investment of at least $5.1 billion in novel state funding. Every dollar spent on private school vouchers pushes the constitutional promise of a high-quality public education further away from our children.
Let’s not forget that Pennsylvanians already spend $490 million a year on vouchers for irresponsible and discriminatory private schools through the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) programs. Data collection for these programs is so constrained by current law that Independent Fiscal Office report 2022 stated that “…it is impossible to comment on whether state funds have been used effectively due to the lack of overall and detailed performance data.” In other words, no one knows who benefits from the $490 million in vouchers issued each year or what impact this spending has on student outcomes.
Billionaire-funded pro-privatization groups will be flooding Pennsylvania with money, pushing for passage of a novel voucher program in the commonwealth. Gov. Josh Shapiro and state lawmakers should reject the scams these groups are peddling and instead work to ensure that all Pennsylvania children have access to a high-quality education at their local public school.
Susan Spicka, former principal of the Shippensburg Area School District, is the executive director Pennsylvania Voter Education.
