Bill pits public vs. private
Intelligencer Journal
Lancaster New Era
Updated Jan 19, 2011 22:47
By BRIAN WALLACE, Staff Writer
A proposal to establish a state-funded school voucher program has drawn opposition from Lancaster County public school officials and support from private school administrators.
State Sens. Jeffrey Piccola of York and Anthony Williams of Philadelphia announced last week they will introduce a state-funded school voucher plan into the General Assembly.
Senate Bill 1 would allow students from low-income families to use the state subsidy that would have gone to their public school to pay tuition to a private school or another public school outside their attendance area.
Called the Opportunity Scholarship and Educational Improvement Tax Credit Act, the bill would affect only students in the state's lowest-performing schools in the first year.
Four county schools are among the 144 schools on that list — McCaskey and McCaskey East high schools and Phoenix Academy in Lancaster, and Washington Educational Center in Ephrata.
In the second year, vouchers would be expanded to all low-income students living in a district with a low-achieving school. In the third year, the program would be offered to all low-income students, regardless of where they live.
The legislation would provide tuition vouchers averaging about $5,000 per student, depending on the state subsidy in the district in which the pupil lives. The money could be transferred to another public school or used to pay private school tuition.
A family of four would qualify for the aid with a household income of $28,665 per year or less.
In School District of Lancaster, about 70 percent of students would be eligible for vouchers, said Matt Stem, coordinator of student services.
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Private school officials have lauded S.B. 1, saying it would give families more options for providing the best education possible for their children.
But public school officials consider the voucher plan "ill-conceived" and "bordering on outright malice." Giving public money to private schools that don't have to meet the same state and federal mandates as public schools is "seriously misguided," they said.
Paul Thibault, president of Lancaster Catholic High School, said he "couldn't be more pleased to see the Legislature take up a subject that we all recognize as a matter of simple justice: that children be educated to the very best of their abilities, regardless of the specific educational setting."
Thibault, in an e-mail, said the bill would benefit Lancaster Catholic, although he could not estimate how it would affect enrollment.
The school charges $6,630 a year for tuition, he said, although the actual cost of educating a student is about $8,400.
The Rev. Monsignor William King, vicar general of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, also has supported the plan, according to published reports.
So has Richard Thomas, superintendent of the Lancaster Mennonite School system.
In addition to providing state-funded vouchers, S.B. 1 would add $25 million to the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program, which gives tax cuts to businesses that contribute to private schools and public school foundations.
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Richard Caplan, president of the School District of Lancaster board, opposes the legislation, saying it's based on "the false presumption that private is better."
"The latest studies indicate that the number of highly performing private and charter schools is below 50 percent," he said.
Caplan called the logic behind the legislation "mind-boggling," given that Pennsylvania now provides improvement grants to schools that struggle academically.
"On the one hand, they're giving schools money, and on the other they're taking it away," he said. "The state wants to run away from the obligation to make sure the public education system is working."
Hempfield School District superintendent Brenda Becker said she welcomes competition with private schools, but the playing field needs to be level.
The legislation would not require that any school, private or public, accept a student who qualifies for a voucher.
Public schools, on the other hand, must enroll all students who live in their attendance areas and provide all the specialized services they might need, regardless of cost.
"If we are not doing our job as public schools, by all means, hold us accountable," she said in an e-mail. "But to assume this will represent a panacea is ideologically hopeful at best and seriously misguided otherwise."
Gerald Huesken, superintendent of Conestoga Valley School District, said he fears the bill would lead to even more public dollars going to private education.
The last time the Legislature pushed for vouchers, he said, the state approved a charter school law that has cost local public schools millions of dollars in cybercharter school tuition.
In 2009-2010, county school districts paid $9.7 million in charter school tuition, according to the state, with most of the money going to cyber schools.
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Other superintendents warned that the legislation could cause enrollment fluctuations that would wreak havoc on school budgets and could result in parents "shopping districts" for the best athletic teams for their children, in violation of interscholastic rules.
The vouchers would, they said, be far less, in general, than the tuition they now charge — averaging about $8,000 in Lancaster County — to enroll students from other districts in their schools.
Solanco superintendent Martin Hudacs questioned whether the program would have the desired effect, given the lack of oversight of nonpublic schools.
"Will there be accountability for the success of these students' achievement in the private school, as there is in public schools?" he said in an e-mail.
"Who is going to be sure this initiative is accomplishing its purpose?"
In a news release, Williams likened opposition to the voucher program to "Gov. George Wallace standing in the doorway of a classroom to continue the segregation of the '60s."
"Why would we block access to great schools for children in need? All kids deserve access to a great education — regardless of race, income or ZIP code," he said in the release.
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With Republicans controlling both the state House and Senate, and with Republican Gov. Tom Corbett supporting the voucher concept, the legislation has a better chance of approval in 2011 than it would have had just a few months ago.
But the bill, which is scheduled to be introduced in the General Assembly this week, is likely to face an immediate legal challenge.
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association considers S.B. 1 unconstitutional because it would violate a ban on providing state funds to parents to pay for their children's pre-college education.
There's also the question of whether the legislation, by supporting religious schools, would violate the separation of church and state mandated by the U.S Constitution.
"If you accept voucher students, you're accepting public dollars," said Timothy Allwein, PSBA assistant executive director.
S.B. 1 stipulates that the state Supreme Court "will have exclusive jurisdiction over challenges, with the ability to render a declaratory judgment on the law's constitutionality," according to a summary of the bill.
Read more: http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/340151#ixzz1BbSypcqg
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