Corbett administration backs school vouchers - Daily Local News 2/17/2011

The Daily Local (dailylocal.com), Serving Chester County, PA


Corbett administration backs school vouchers
Governor endorses the funding for students in failing public schools to transfer to private schools

Thursday, February 17, 2011

By PETER JACKSON, Associated Press

HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Corbett's month-old administration on Wednesday officially endorsed the use of taxpayers' money to enable low-income students in failing public schools to transfer to private schools, but stopped short of backing a more far-reaching legislative plan.

State Education Secretary-nominee Ronald Tomalis, the first speaker at a Senate Education Committee hearing that drew a standing-room-only crowd, said targeting school vouchers at low-income youngsters in the worst-performing public schools would intensify competition within the state's educational system to produce "exponential benefits" for all students.

"With competition comes diversity, and with diversity adoption of programs to meet the individual needs of the student," he said.

Tomalis did not endorse a bill sponsored by Sen. Jeffrey Piccola that in the third year would allow any low-income public-school student to use the per-pupil subsidy the state government sends to his or her school district to attend a different private, public or religious school. Tomalis said the bill "starts the conversation" about how to expand choices for students.

Piccola said his bill would create an "educational free market" that would greatly expand options for students and derided the present system as a "monopoly" guarded by teacher unions and school boards.

"There are thousands of open seats in non-public schools, ready to educate kids trapped in failure because of their ZIP code," said Piccola, R-Dauphin, the committee's chairman.

Sen. Anthony Williams, a Philadelphian who campaigned on the issue of school choice in a losing bid for the Democratic nomination for governor last year and is a co-sponsor of Piccola's bill, said the issue is about civil rights.

"Separate but unequal is what we have," he said.

Opponents said the bill could cost taxpayers as much as $1 billion a year once fully implemented. It also would undermine public education by draining money from local districts; would fail to hold the non-public schools accountable for students' academic progress or how the voucher money is spent; and would leave it up to those schools to decide which students should be accepted, they said.

"Public schools must enroll everyone who shows up at the door and provide them with the best education possible. Nonpublic schools can accept whom they wish and reject those who, for whatever reason, do not fit in their schools," said Thomas J. Gentzel, director of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.

"Pennsylvania might have a chance to really provide an equal opportunity to learn for disadvantaged children, if all of the time, effort and expense being invested in pursuit of vouchers could be put toward more effective, proven and practical reforms," the Education Law Center, a legal advocacy group for public school students with offices in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, said in a statement to the committee.

Piccola said the estimated bill's cost has yet to be calculated, but that it would not reach $1 billion a year.

The bill also would increase state funding for an existing program that provides tax breaks to businesses that sponsor tuition scholarships for children in lower-income families.

Tomalis said the "factory model" approach to education — in which a student's residence determines which public schools he or she attends — is becoming outmoded with the expansion of charter schools and other alternatives to public schools. Modern parents who are used to having abundant choices in other aspects of their lives are demanding more in the education that their taxes finance, he said.

"We are about to face a clash between the ideals and expectations of the new generation of parents and a system that is designed for a generation of the past," he said.

At one point in the daylong hearing, Williams pointedly questioned a representative of the state's largest teacher union — the Pennsylvania State Education Association — about, among other things, why he had not contacted him prior to the hearing to discuss the PSEA's opposition to the bill.

"How credible am I supposed to take your testimony?" Williams asked Michael J. Crossey, a PSEA vice president.

Later, responding to Williams' comments, Sen. Daylin Leach noted that none of the groups supporting the bill had sought to discuss it with him in advance.

"I'm available and easy to find. I'm a lonely, lonely man," said Leach, D-Montgomery, drawing chuckles from the audience.

Corbett, a Republican who previously was state attorney general, had supported vouchers for low-income students in failing schools during his 2010 campaign for governor. Tomalis' comments made it official.

Tomalis is tentatively scheduled to appear before the committee for his confirmation hearing on March 7, Piccola said.

URL: http://www.dailylocal.com/articles/2011/02/17/news/srv0000010943030.prt
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