Education scholarships pushed to legislative front burner

(The Center Square) – Students across eighteen public schools in Pennsylvania failed proficiency tests for math and reading.

That is, not even one percent of children hit the benchmark. This reality is widening support for school choices beyond assigned districts, as has happened in some form across 34 states.

Sen. Judy Ward, R-Hollidaysburg, and Sen. Anthony Williams, D-Philadelphia, say the commonwealth’s resistance must end. It’s a rare bipartisan alliance, though for Williams, it’s deeply personal: the shocking statistics come from his district, which stretches north from the airport to the city’s west side.

And for him, it’s not just the state that will suffer the consequences of an uneducated workforce. It’s the entire country.

“China will not take us over by military force,” he said during a Senate Education Committee hearing on Tuesday. “China will not even take over because of the tariffs. China will take us over because our children are not prepared to compete with their students.”

Senate Bill 10, he said, will help more than 15,000 students in Pennsylvania who struggle to learn in their assigned district school. The legislation creates a school choice program called the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success, or PASS, that offers scholarships up to $15,000 for kids living in the bottom fifteen percent of districts.

The scholarships will be limited to households making 250 percent of the poverty level or less, which amounts to $80,375 annually for a family of four.

Despite the bipartisan nature of the proposal, it faces an uphill climb with the Democrat-majority House and their ally in the governor’s mansion, Josh Shapiro.

In a statement circulating on social media, the governor’s spokesman said it’s up to the House and Senate to agree on a bill and get it to his desk.

The position remains unchanged from the last time the program, then called Lifeline Scholarships, played a prominent role in pre-budget negotiations in 2023.

During that summer, Shapiro and Senate Republicans agreed behind the scenes to back the legislative proposal. A late-stage breakdown in negotiations with the Democratic-majority House led to its demise.

Shapiro said it wasn’t his job to change their minds. In a television interview last year, he reaffirmed his support for school choice — whether it was in the form of a tax credit or a “direct appropriation.”

Critics say the state’s money is better spent on public schools. The state’s most recent budget, signed into law on July 11, earmarks $811 million in new spending. More than two-thirds of the money funnels to districts based on a newly reconstituted formula that weighs socioeconomic needs.

Doing so, lawmakers say, acknowledges a February court order to redirect school resources more equitably.

Senate Education Committee Democratic Chair Lindsey Williams, of Pittsburgh, said Tuesday that no matter the name given to it, educational scholarships serve only one purpose.

“Vouchers or PASS or whatever we call them, are a plan to defund, destroy and destabilize public education and I’ll be a no every time,” she said.

A recent poll from Ragnar Research shows that support for school choice crosses partisan, ethnic, regional and income demographics, with 71 percent of respondents in favor of the concept.

Christen Smith is Pennsylvania editor for The Center Square newswire service and co-host of Pennsylvania in Focus, a weekly podcast on America’s Talking Network. Recognized by Editor and Publisher Magazine as one of the media industry’s “Top 25 Under 35” in 2024.

This article was republished with permission from The Center Square.