Category: Vouchers

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Why Pennsylvanians Should Reject Vouchers.

  By Diana Polson, Susan Spicka, Vouchers

Why Pennsylvania Should Reject Vouchers Susan Spicka, Education Voters PA Diana Polson, Keystone Research Center Marc Stier, Pennsylvania Policy Center Here we quickly summarize three major reasons why the General Assembly should not adopt a new voucher program. Voucher-funded schools do not offer educational choice for families and students. They use public dollars to support schools that engage in discrimination against many families and students. Voucher programs do not create educational “choice” for many families and students. Instead, voucher programs create the illusion of “choice” because private and religious voucher schools can—and do—engage in discrimination and refuse to enroll students, even if their family is eligible for a voucher. We have seen this in the tax-credit voucher programs already in place in Pennsylvania. In 2022–2023, the Pennsylvania legislature authorized the diversion of $340 million tax dollars out of the state treasury and into private and religious voucher schools through the Educational… Continue reading

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What Would an Equitable Voucher System Look Like?

  By Blog post, Education, K-12 Education in PA, Penn Policy Center, Vouchers

Pennsylvania’s Republican legislators support a voucher program they say is meant to help a small number of students who attend schools they claim are failing. (They don’t mention that those schools are also severely underfunded.) However, these legislators and their supporters, including billionaires Betsy DeVos and Jeffrey Yass, have made no secret that their ultimate goal is to replace our public schools with a system of private schools financed by vouchers. It is doubtful that such a plan could meet the requirements of the Pennsylvania Constitution. When the education clause was added to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1873, it specifically required funding of “public schools.” And, changing the words to “public education” in the constitutional revision of 1967 does not alter the import of the phrase. Could a voucher plan be designed to meet the two goals for public education held by the framers of the… Continue reading

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The Lifeline Scholarship Program Would Undermine Public Education

  By Education, K-12 Education in PA, Penn Policy Center, Testimony, Vouchers

My name is Marc Stier. I’m the executive director of the Pennsylvania Policy Center. Thank you for inviting me to testify today.  I’m here today with my fellow advocates for education—including the leaders of unions of teachers, who have dedicated their lives to our children—to speak against the Lifeline scholarship program put forward by Senate Republicans.  The advocates for that program say that it will not take money from our public schools. This argument is thoroughly disingenuous. While money for the program comes from the General Fund and not from individual school districts, Republicans keep reminding us that General Fund revenues are not unlimited. The accumulated surplus that is supporting the operating budget this year—and is projected to support it for the next five years—will eventually run out. Any funding that goes to the Lifeline scholarship program will come from revenues that are needed to meet our constitutional and moral… Continue reading

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The design behind the Republican voucher plans: Medicare and Education

  By Education, Health Care, Medicare, Published op-eds, Vouchers

Appeared in  the “Your View” op-ed column in the Allentown Morning Call on Friday, July 1, 2011 John Locke wrote that “a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people” Two voucher proposals, the Ryan Medicare plan in Washington and the Piccola education voucher plan in Harrisburg, show us the real design of the Republican Party today— to help the very rich by harming working people. Both proposals claim to address real problems. Congressman Ryan’s plan is meant to deal with the long term costs of Medicare. State Senator Piccola’s plan supposedly helps low-income kids who attend failing schools. However, the proposals will not meet those goals. The Medicare plan does nothing to reduce the costs of senior health care. Indeed, it repeals the Affordable Care Act which would reduce those costs by $500 billion in the first ten… Continue reading

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Voucher bill won’t help those who need it most

  By Education, Vouchers

Originally published in the Germantown Chronicle and the Mt. Airy Independent, April 29-May 11, 2011 Seven years ago, as I campaigned for State Representative in Nicetown and Germantown, I saw that many people, and especially African Americans, felt betrayed by the public schools. They were frustrated with inadequate funding, inexperienced teachers, limited school services, and unresponsive administrators. So I’m not surprised that State Senators who rightfully care about these communities, such as LeAnna Washington (D-4), would consider supporting SB1, the voucher proposal that will be voted on soon in Harrisburg. Good public policy, however, cannot be made on the basis of frustration. There are voucher proposals that progressives like myself could support—proposals that equalize funding statewide for all students and that guarantee everyone a place in a good school where professional teachers are honored, respected and well paid. But SB1 is not that proposal. SB1 is, in fact, a fraud. Continue reading