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HARRISBURG, PA (May 7, 2024) – PSEA President Aaron Chapin issued the following statement in response to the Pennsylvania Senate Education Committee’s vote today on legislation to create the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success (PASS) Scholarship Program.
“We shouldn’t even think about sending taxpayer money to private and religious schools when our focus should be on fixing Pennsylvania’s unconstitutional public school funding system,” Chapin said.
“We know that public schools in many parts of the state are vastly underfunded. Pennsylvania’s system of public school funding is so inequitable that the Commonwealth Court ruled it violates the state constitution. Instead of sending hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to private schools, we should focus on the public schools that educate 90% of Pennsylvania’s students.
“This legislation also falls short on accountability. Private schools receiving taxpayer scholarships would not have to administer any student assessments — let alone the tests used by school districts and policymakers to gauge how public schools are performing. This will make it impossible to determine how scholarships end up impacting student achievement.
“There is also a lack of any fiscal accountability measures for how scholarship funds are handled by the private schools that receive them. There have been several cases of fraud and abuse with similar programs in other states, and nothing in this bill would prevent the same from happening here.
“Programs like PASS promise an all-too-simple solution to difficult problems in many communities, but the evidence from other states tells us that these programs hinder academic growth and fail to deliver for the kids who are most in need. They are being driven by deep-pocketed special interests and billionaires who want to destroy public schools and send public tax dollars to private and religious schools.
“If we really want to ensure every student in Pennsylvania has access to a high-quality education regardless of ZIP code or socioeconomic status, we must equitably fund the public schools that serve those students. That is the solution we should be talking about.”
Chapin is a Stroudsburg Area middle school teacher and president of PSEA. An affiliate of the National Education Association, PSEA represents about 177,000 active and retired educators and school employees, aspiring educators, higher education staff, and health care workers in Pennsylvania.
