Resolution on SB 1, a bill to create a tuition voucher program in Pennsylvania
SB 1, the tuition voucher legislation under consideration in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, has been
defended as means of attaining a worthy goal, providing broader educational opportunities to
Pennsylvanians from low-income homes and, especially, members of minority groups attending
underachieving public schools.
Pennsylvania’s public schools are, by most conventional standards, among the best in the country. And
they have improved over the last eight years as the state has increased funding for them. But while many
of our schools are good or excellent, far too many schools that serve low-income and especially minority
students are troubled and failing.
While test scores and graduation rates are not the only measures of school success, poor results in the
schools that serve low-income students indicate that something has gone terribly wrong. Indeed, JSPAN
believes, along with some of the proponents of vouchers, that the failure of our country, state and city to
provide a good education to a substantial minority of our fellow citizens is an ongoing moral crisis.
The question, however, is how best to meet that moral crisis. We understand that frustration with our
ongoing failure to address it is what has driven some politicians and activists to embrace a radical
alternative to the public schools. But SB 1 is not the answer.
JSPAN opposes SB1 for four reasons: (1) the tuition voucher program that would be instituted
under SB 1 is an inadequate response to the moral crisis of education in low-income minority
communities; (2) tuition vouchers are a threat to our successful public schools; (3) tuition vouchers
violate the separation of church and state; and (4) tuition vouchers will undermine the political will
to find and institute better solutions to issues of economic inequality and violence that contribute to
under-performing students as much, if not more than, the schools they attend.
1) Tuition vouchers under SB 1 would fail to improve education for the vast majority of low-income
kids. Little of the money provided by vouchers will help those who now attend failing schools.
Analyses of previous versions of SB 1 showed that only 8% of students from the failing schools targeted
by SB 1 will use a voucher. And of those students projected to use vouchers, 65% already attend private
and parochial schools. Recent changes in the legislation will reduce the number of students who benefit
from vouchers but will leave the majority of funding going to those who already attend private schools.
A substantial proportion of the vouchers will go to kids from middle rather than low income
families as amendments proposed to SB 1 will lift the family income limit for recipients of
vouchers to 185% of the federal poverty line. If the State Senate analysis of SB 1 is correct, and only
eight percent of students from the failing schools targeted by the bill will use a voucher, barely 6,500 of
72,000 eligible students receive vouchers.. Most of the funds spent will not impact the education of a
single child currently enrolled in an underachieving public school.
SB 1 provides no guarantee that students from failing schools will be able to attend private schools. SB 1
provides choices for private schools, not for low-income kids: the proposed vouchers are too small to pay
the tuition at many private schools; there is no requirement that private schools must accept students with
tuition vouchers; schools will be free to reject students on the grounds of religion, academic aptitude,
ability to pay, and special needs.
Extensive experiments with tuition vouchers in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Washington, DC have
provided no evidence that these programs have a positive effect on student achievement.
Schools that receive vouchers will not be accountable for public money. The legislation does not require
them to comply with Pennsylvania’s academic standards or measure or report student progress.
2) The tuition voucher program will undermine all public schools in the Commonwealth, including
those failing schools that will continue to educate the vast majority of low-income students.
For the last eight years, the Commonwealth has taken greater responsibility for funding public schools,
which has led to significant improvements and greater equity. But in the last year, the state has reduced its
commitment to the public schools substantially. Public schools that are already suffering from devastating
reductions in state aid can’t afford any further reductions to pay for SB 1.
Plans to rescue our children from inferior public education must not be at the expense of the majority of
similarly situated children that continue to attend underachieving schools. Programs to rescue our children
from failing public schools must be targeted to those children who actually attend these schools and not to
students that have already found their way to non-public schools.
3) SB 1 is a threat to religious liberty. Tuition vouchers under the legislation will go to sectarian
schools, which is a violation of both the First Amendment of the US Constitution and three
provisions of Article III of the Pennsylvania Constitution.
The separation of church and state is a vital concern to all who understand that it was designed to remove
from our politics the sectarian conflict that, in previous eras, led to religious warfare. Such conflict was
found in the United States even into the 19th century, when disputes about what Bible to read in our public
schools occasionally led to armed battles in the streets of our cities.
Tuition vouchers undermine the solution that has traditionally resolved these conflicts, that is, to exclude
religious instruction from public schools and prohibit the use of public funds to support sectarian private
schools. Under SB 1, tuition vouchers will go to schools that teach religious and anti-religious doctrines
including those of a wide range of Protestant sects, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and, no doubt
atheists. United States Supreme Court decisions prohibit the use of public funds to teach religious
doctrine. Indeed, JSPAN believes that a voucher program will violate the spirit if not the letter of the First
Amendment.
In addition, many of the schools supported by tuition vouchers are likely, for sectarian reasons, to make
educational decisions not in the best interest of the students of Pennsylvania. Schools that for religious
reasons are unwilling to teach evolution or how to respectfully question authority will not prepare the
students of our Commonwealth for life in the 21st century.
While recent, highly disputed, decisions by the US Supreme Court seem to allow for tuition vouchers
under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, there is little question that three
provisions of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania set even stricter limits on public
support for religious instruction. Article II, section 15 prohibits the use of taxpayer funds to “support any
sectarian school.” Article III, section 29 prohibits appropriations for educational purposes to “any person
or community” or “any denominational or sectarian institution, corporation or association.” And Article
III, section 30 requires a vote of two-thirds of both House and Senate members to appropriate any money
to “any charitable or educational institution not under the absolute control of the commonwealth” other
than public schools. An amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution was required before the
Pennsylvania courts allowed public funds to go to students who attend sectarian institutions of higher
education. There is little doubt that the tuition voucher program under SB 1 would not meet the letter or
spirit of the Constitution of our Commonwealth.
4) Finally, tuition vouchers will undermine the political will to find and institute better solutions to
the moral crisis we face.
There are alternatives to vouchers that aim to improve public schools in lower income communities.
Experiments are being conducted in public schools here and elsewhere that aim to empower principals in
these schools to lead and improve them; to encourage better qualified teachers to work in these schools
and to give them the training and support they need; and to devise new curricula that can energize lowincome students. These efforts are necessary if we are to reach the vast majority of children in lowincome communities who will never receive a voucher to attend a private school. With the right kind of
leadership and funding, the public schools could create opportunity for all students and provide a highlyeducated work force, as they have for past generations..