But constitutional questions, other concerns remain
A new school voucher program for Pennsylvania’s poorest students took the first step towards becoming a reality Monday in the Senate Education Committee.
After lengthy debate, the committee approved S.B. 1 with a bipartisan vote. The bill will create a new “opportunity scholarship” program by redirecting a small portion of state public school funding to vouchers which poor students in failing schools can use for tuition at private schools. It will also expand funding for an existing private school scholarship program which is funded by contributions from businesses, the Education Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program.
The bill moves to the state Senate floor for consideration and is likely headed to the Senate Appropriations Committee, where the financial impacts of the bill will be worked out.
Two amendments were attached to the bill Tuesday. One prohibits private schools from recruiting opportunity scholarship recipients for athletic programs and the other mandates only non-profit schools are eligible to accept students through the voucher program.
Debate on the bill Tuesday focused on the constitutionality of the measure, an issue which may need to be settled by the state Supreme Court. The bill contains a provision to “fast track” it to the Supreme Court if a constitutionality challenge is made after it becomes law.
State Sen. Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery) said the bill violated the state constitution’s ban on using state funds for religious institutions such as private schools.
Article 3 Section 15 of the Pennsylvania Constitution states, in part, “no money raised for the support of public schools in the commonwealth shall be appropriated or used for the support of any sectarian institution.”
“What that seems to say in very plain language is that you can’t take money from public schools and give it to religious schools,” said Mr. Leach.
Committee Chair Jeffrey Piccola (R-Dauphin) said the bill would pass constitutional muster because the funds for the proposed voucher program do not come from property taxes, which are the funds used directly for the support of education.
“The money that is being used in this program is General Fund money which is not raised exclusively for the public schools,” said Mr. Piccola. “We are not using [property tax funds] or requiring school districts to use that money to support sectarian schools.”
The state Supreme Court will likely have to settle the constitutionality issue, said state Sen. Andrew Dinniman (D-Chester), the minority chair of the committee and co-sponsor of S.B. 1 with Mr. Piccola.
“It’s a legitimate question, and it’s hard for us to determine the answer. I believe the courts will determine it,” said Mr. Dinniman.
Dick Komer, a senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, a Washington D.C.-based civil liberties law firm, said previous rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court have allowed for similar voucher programs.
“The U.S. court has established a clear exception between providing aid to schools as schools and providing aid to students and allowing those families to choose,” said Mr. Komer. “The program picks the parents and the parents pick the schools. The state is not encouraging the parents to pick a certain school or schools.”
An amendment offered by Mr. Leach to allow a student in the voucher program to opt-out of religious instructions and ceremonies at a private school was defeated along with eight others offered by Mr. Leach and other Democrats on the committee.
One of the defeated amendments would eliminate the third year of the bill’s phase-in process when it would expand from low-income students in failing schools to all low-income students in Pennsylvania.
Students who take advantage of the voucher program proposed in S.B. 1 would be allowed to take the state-level portion of their school’s per pupil spending and apply it against the tuition at a private school of their choice. The proposal does not include any additional appropriations, but the funds eligible for the program would be capped at $50 million in the first year and $100 million in the second year.
In the program’s third year, it would expand to all low-income students in the state, with estimates ranging between $500 million and $1 billion of education funds redirected to private schools through the program.
Opponents of the school choice bill have criticized the unknown costs in the third year, and beyond, and claimed public schools cannot afford to lose those funds.
“We should fix public schools that are struggling, not abandon them using a voucher program,” said Woodrow Sites, assistant executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools.
Mr. Piccola said Tuesday it was important for the voucher program to be broad-based.
“While we focus initially on the worst 5 percent of school buildings in the commonwealth, there are lots of mediocre schools throughout the commonwealth,” said Mr. Piccola. “Parents who are low-income deserve the same kinds of opportunities to have their children escape those kinds of circumstances.”
