Don’t be fooled by the latest “school choice” debate in PA. It’s just another attempt on the part of the GOP to undermine, and eventually destroy, public education in the country.
In the recent political wrangling over school vouchers that held up the passage of the state budget, some Pennsylvanians may have wondered what all the fuss was about. The so-called “lifeline scholarships,” included in a bill introduced by state Senator Judy Ward (R., Blair), were supported by most Republicans and a few Democrats, including Governor Shapiro. But ultimately, Democrats in the House dug in their heels and would not pass a budget that included these private school vouchers.
The concept of giving a student attending a low-performing school district the chance to attend a better private school may not sound bad. Especially when Senator Ward adjusted her bill so that the money for these scholarships ostensibly would no longer come from a share of PA’s public-school funding, but rather from the state budget overall.
However, don’t think for a minute that the majority of today’s Republicans care about poor children who are not getting educated. Programs such as the “lifeline scholarships” are framed as being about school choice, a name for the movement that typically asserts taxpayer dollars should flow to students and their families, not to public educational institutions. So, despite the somewhat benign rhetoric, we need to see “school choice” for what it really is: a barely disguised strategy of the Republican party to starve public education in this country and undermine a key segment of support for the Democratic Party – teacher unions.
– Karen Gelman
