Spokespersons for the Pennsylvanians Opposed to Vouchers expressed disappointment in the vote by a legislative committee in support of voucher legislation. The coalition said the vote by the Senate Education Committee to approve Senate Bill 1, which would create a tax-funded voucher program for private school tuition, was expected, but emphasized the group will continue fighting the bill in the General Assembly.

Coalition spokespersons Olivia Thorne, president of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania said, “While we share the concerns of Senate Bill 1’ss sponsors that far too many children are not getting the quality education they deserve, we respectfully disagree with the approach being promoted by voucher supporters.

 “Sadly, instead of promoting proven programs targeted to the needs of individual schools that could help all students in struggling schools, the Senate Education Committee has chosen a path of dubious benefit to the few at the expense of the many,” Thorne said.

Woodrow Sites of the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools said Senate Bill 1 would create a new government spending program with unknown actual costs, with some estimates projecting as high as $100 million in the first year alone, at a time when the Commonwealth’s public schools could potentially lose as much as $1 billion in funding.

 “This is not the time to start a new expensive government program and new bureaucracy, when state lawmakers are predicting widespread cuts to all areas of state government, including public education,” Sites said. “We should fix public schools that are struggling, not abandon them using a voucher program.”

Joan Duvall-Flynn of the NAACP-PA, said the legislation does not satisfactorily address problems of equal access to quality education for all students.

 “Private schools, not parents, still have the  ‘choice’ under Senate Bill 1 of which students they will accept, and which students they will turn away,” Duvall-Flynn said.

Source: PSEA Press Release, March 1, 2011.