Any day now, the Pennsylvania Senate will vote on voucher legislation that will send millions of taxpayer dollars to private and religious schools. Governor Tom Corbett – who says he "doesn't understand" opposition – recently spoke at an education conference in Washington sponsored by the pro-voucher American Federation of Education. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:
Corbett was talking about tuition vouchers – shifting taxpayer money from public to private and religious schools on a per-pupil basis, an issue that is at the top of his first-term agenda and is under fierce debate in the state Capitol. The governor has backed a proposal to offer tuition vouchers averaging about $7,000 to $9,000 to help lower-income families move children from failing public schools to private or parochial ones.
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In Harrisburg, the Senate's weekly calendar once again did not include the voucher bill, suggesting it might be shy of votes needed for passage. But Erik Arneson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware), said the Senate has worked out an agreement with Corbett and the votes are there.
Meanwhile, "the nation's most sweeping private school voucher program" was just signed into law by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.
Other systems across the country are limited to lower-income households, children with special needs or those in failing schools.
Indiana’s program would be open to a much larger pool of students, including those already in excellent schools. Indiana’s program will be limited to just 7,500 students for the first year and 15,000 in the second, a fraction of the state’s about 1 million students. But within three years, there will be no limit on the number of children who could enroll.
