EL board opposing ESA bill

 

BY REGGIE SHEFFIELD

Correspondent

The Elk Lake School District has joined a number of other districts across the state in opposing the passage of a Senate bill which critics charge would divert taxpayer funds slated for public schools to pay for students to attend private and religious schools.

Senate Bill 2, known as SB2, calls for the creation of Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs, for families in low performing and frequently low income school districts that do not choose to send their children to public schools.

If passed into law, SB2 would establish ESAs, in the state treasury using public tax dollars normally allotted to the students’ home school district.

Sponsored by Sen. John DiSanto (R-Dauphin, Perry), the bill failed to reach the Senate floor for a vote in October and now sits with the Senate Education Committee. 

“I believe that all of our children, no matter their background, have potential to accomplish great things. Increased educational options are a significant step forward in helping many children receive a better education to achieve their dreams,” DiSanto was quoting saying at an August press conference announcing the bill in Harrisburg.

DiSanto’s bill targets almost 400 Pennsylvania schools performing in the bottom 15 percent in math and reading.  Those schools include the 1,200-pupil Elk Lake school district as well as schools in Tunkhannock, Wilkes-Barre and other nearby districts.

Numerous other school boards across Pennsylvania have approved similar resolutions opposing SB2, joining other organizations such as the Pennsylvania School Board Association, the PSBA, and the American Association of University Women Lock Haven.

“The bill that is out there, Senate Bill 2, would permit basically the state to take money from school districts and give that money to parents who choose to send their children to private schools for their private school tuition,” Elk Lake School District Superintendent Kenneth Cuomo told board members last week.

“Those private schools in many cases are not held to the same standards of accountability, particularly with student achievement and academic progress, and any form of standardized assessments that public schools are,” Cuomo said.

“So this would definitely be a significant financial burden on any public school,” Cuomo observed.

Critics call ESAs a thinly disguised form of the controversial school vouchers which pay for students to attend out of district schools — usually private or religious — but are funded by state monies normally provided for them to attend that student’s home district.  School vouchers have been harshly criticized as stripping funds from public schools without offering any real educational advantage.

Other groups opposing SB2 such as the Keystone State Education Coalition estimate that it could siphon as much as $500 million in public taxpayer funds from public schools.

“I think everybody should be opposing that,” said board member John Pierson. “A school voucher takes taxpayer money and pays for peoples’ private education. I don’t think the taxpayers realize that.” 

“I could see the potential for that being a cash cow for someone,” said board president Chuck Place.

In an October 23 letter to the Senate Education Committee, Jonathan D. Berger, the PSBA’s director of government affairs, wrote that, “By diverting state subsidies from the school districts in which these low-achieving public schools are located this bill is reducing fair access to educational opportunities for students choosing to remain in the school district. Many of these schools are in high poverty school districts that are struggling financially, and which cannot afford to lose precious resources.”