Pennsylvania GOP Makes Another Attempt To Pass School Vouchers

From Forbes.com

Attempting to pass a school voucher bill is an annual ritual in Pennsylvania’s legislature, and this year is no exception. But voucher supporters seem stuck in a bit of a rut.

In 2017, SB 2, Education Savings Accounts for Students in Underperforming Schools, would have created ESA vouchers that gave parents the right to use the state subsidy differently. Originally intended for their child’s school district, the vouchers instead would have provided flexible funding for a variety of education-related costs. The bill offered no oversight, and very broad definitions of qualifying expenses. Students were eligible if their district was in the bottom 15% of Pennsylvania schools. That bill stalled in committee.

That’s until 2018, when the bill emerged from committee with some slight modifications. Some small oversight for spending was added, and a requirement that students spend at least a semester in a public school to be eligible.

In 2019, HB 1800 made it out of committee. This was a narrow approach, aimed at providing vouchers for students in districts that were in receivership (a sort of financial takeover primarily for financial issues). It was a hot issue because Harrisburg schools were put in receivership in June 2019, to gasps from a court audience, as reported by Lawrence Binda for The Burg.

In 2022, HB 2169 was proposed. Once again, it was specifically aimed at students in “failing” schools and was to take the form of an ESA, a block of money to be used for a variety of education expenses. This time it was called the Lifeline Scholarship. The conservative Commonwealth Foundation had a press release ready to go hours after the bill was introduced. Sean Kitchen, reporting for The Keystone, later unveiled emails showing just how closely state officials had leaned on the foundation for help in crafting the bill.

Read the full post here.