By Eric Boehm | PA Independent

HARRISBURG — A proposal to create a voucher program for Pennsylvania’s poorest students cleared a major hurdle Monday and is headed to the Senate where it could receive a vote on final passage as early as Tuesday or Wednesday.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the school choice bill Monday afternoon with a vote 15-11. The committee also amended the measure to address concerns from both sides of the political spectrum about the cost, accountability and eligibility of the voucher program created in S.B. 1.

The major change made by the Appropriations Committee on Monday was expansion of eligibility to allow the parents of middle-class students to take advantage of the proposed voucher program.

Under the new changes to the bill, the state will establish a  middle-class scholarship program in the fourth year after S.B. 1 becomes law.

During the first three years of the program, eligibility will be capped at 130 percent of the federal poverty level – equal to $28,665 for a family of four this year. Only students attending the state’s 144 “persistently lowest-achieving schools” would be eligible for the voucher program during the first two years.

With the addition of the middle class scholarship program, eligibility will increase to 300 percent of the federal poverty level – equal to $66,150 this year.

The committee also voted to require public schools that choose to participate in the school choice program to accept transfer students by a lottery system, rather than on a first-come, first-serve basis. Private schools will not be subject to the lottery provision and will be allowed to accept transfer students based on their current enrollment criteria.

“There is nothing in this bill that forces any school, public or private, to participate,” said state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, chair of the Senate Education Committee. “But if they choose to participate, they must participate in the lottery system.”

Without the lottery system, some Democrats argued, the bill would allow schools to “cherry pick” the best students and deny others the opportunity for choice.

“This conversation has always been about parents having a choice, but now there is this emphasis on the school’s having the choice,” said state Sen. Larry Farnese, D-Philadelphia. “A lottery system seems to be the fairest way to do this.”

Among the other changes made by the committee Monday was placing a $250 million cap on the third year of the voucher program, when the eligibility expands from only poor children in failing schools to all low-income children in the state. The $250 million cap on the vouchers will apply only to poor students who are already attending private schools and wish to take advantage of the vouchers, and there will be no cap on poor students leaving public schools for other public or non-public schools.

In the fourth year, available funds above and beyond the $250 million cap will be used to fund the middle class scholarship program, said Piccola.

The expanded eligibility for the fourth year and beyond aims to address concerns among some on the right about which students can benefit from the legislation. While the majority of grassroots groups on the right support the legislation, some have been critical of S.B. 1 for being restricted to lower income families.

The amendment also requires participating non-public schools to administer annual tests to voucher students so the state can track the performance of those students in grades 3, 5, 8 and 11. All public school students are subject to the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests in those grades.

The amendment does not require non-public schools to use the PSSA tests, but the schools must administer it or another standardized achievement test and must report aggregate scores to the state and to parents.

Piccola said the law did not include the PSSA tests specifically because that would require regulating the curriculum of the non-public schools.

The bill was voted out of committee mostly along party lines, with Republican state Sens. Lisa Baker, Luzerne, Stewart Greenleaf, Montgomery, and Patricia Vance, Cumberland, voting against the bill.

Farnese and fellow Democratic state Sen. Lisa Boscola, Northampton, supported it.

Earlier Friday, a coalition of more than 20 interest groups unified their opposition to the voucher program. Led by the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, the group presented the results of a poll showing 61 percent of Pennsylvanians oppose the voucher idea.

They claimed the voucher bill would cost state taxpayers up to $1 billion and would drain poor and struggling public schools of students and tax dollars while forcing property tax increases to make up the difference.

Piccola said the bill would not cost taxpayers additional funds, since the money used for the voucher program would come from the state’s basic education subsidy, which already exists. Instead of spending more funds, the bill would redirect funds that already are appropriated on an annual basis.

In the proposal passed to the Senate, the state’s portion of the per-student funding for school districts would follow the student to the new school. All local tax revenues still would go to the local school district.

State Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, said the bill was an “open ended entitlement” in the third year and beyond, when it opens up to more than the poorest students in the state.

State Sen. Mary Lo White, R-Venango, said the bill was not perfect but created a better opportunity for students across the state.

“I am an opponent of failing public schools, not of public education,” White said. “I cannot sit back and watch us fail these kids again.”