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Pennsylvania school districts are in a crisis of historic proportions.  Not since the Great Depression has the public education system in the Commonwealth faced such dire circumstances.  Districts are looking down the barrel of a pandemic-imposed loss of nearly $1 billion in local revenues while having to shell out almost a billion dollars for unexpected pandemic bills for personal protective equipment and spiraling cyber charter costs. 

How does one respond to this funding crisis? If you’re a member of the state legislature and of a certain persuasion, you can always make things worse.  

This week we were dismayed to learn that state reps were scheduled to vote on House Bill 2696 which establishes an entirely new half a billion dollar state program, a thinly-veiled scheme for affluent families who’ve chosen religious and private education for their children. 

On its face, the program seems to benefit all families with school-aged children, distributing a $1,000 voucher per child to support their education.  Yet, the bill’s intended beneficiaries become obvious with its laundry list of allowable voucher expenditures for computers, curricula, counseling, special education services and subject matter testing, all of which public schools provide their students for free and thus clearly not helpful to public school families.

Adding insult to injury, the budget busting bill would allow parents to hold on to taxpayer voucher funds, unspent, for years, which is at odds with the stated purpose of the program, to address the “urgent” need to “get students back on track.” 

Further, in line with these cynical times, where it’s vogue to find ways to escape paying taxes or tapping public funds with little accountability, the bill hands parents the cash regardless of income, without any evidence of need or proof that the parent has any eligible educational expenses. 

But the bill was suddenly pulled from a vote after ever vigilant advocates, educators, and concerned parents pounced on the reckless giveaway of tax dollars to private and parochial schools when investments in public schools couldn’t be more important.

Utterly tone-deaf, the state Senate will hold a hearing on Monday on Senate Bill 1230, essentially a copy of the shelved House bill, but with a $250 million cap.

Clearly, they’re not hearing the actual needs of struggling students.

Pennsylvania already operates two novel education funding programs that offer parents one of the most robust school choice landscapes in America.  To support those measures, nearly $2.2 billion in state and local funding is peeled away from public schools for charter school tuition payments and to cover lost state tax revenue from corporate contributions that primarily benefit private and religious schools.  This latest edition of the education funding diversion campaign would bring the total of funds that could otherwise meet Pennsylvania’s school funding crisis to $2.7 billion. 

Against this backdrop, it’s blatantly irresponsible that any Pennsylvania lawmaker is advancing legislation to create yet another education funding stream that will divert state funds from public schools.

Meanwhile school districts, which educate 90% of school-aged children in the state face a gaping deficit and so too, does the Commonwealth.  More than $5 billion in recurring state expenses have yet to be backed by any revenues for the current fiscal year. 

It’s downright insulting to nine in ten households in this state with school-aged children that instead of moving legislation to help public schools meet the expenses of safely re-opening for 1.7 million students, lawmakers will waste time exploring ways to craft a state funded, personal expense account for parents of the most privileged 200,000 students in the Commonwealth.

Senate Bill 1230 is precisely the kind of wasteful state spending that voters despise, and it is exactly the wrong answer to what the parents of students in Pennsylvania need the state to be doing right now. 

We urge all members of the Senate Education Committee to reject this measure post haste and return to the desperate needs of their constituents.