$300 Million of PA. Taxes Used for Private School "Scholarships" without check on needs of students

[JPZenger]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/23/1094286/-Educational-Tax-Credits-Are-Often-a-Bait-and-Switch

"A story in Monday's New York Times explores the use of state tax credit programs to pay for "scholarships" for students who attend private schools. The story suggests that many of the students who receive such scholarships already attend private school and are not low-income.

To the extent that this is true, the political marketing of these programs as alternatives (for a select few students) to public schools in distressed communities is a "bait and switch." Educational tax credits actually siphon taxpayer dollars to subsidize private schools, reducing state revenues available for public schools.

Is this how the scholarships to attend private schools work under Pennsylvania's Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program? Probably: there is no prohibition on EITC scholarships going to students already attending private schools; middle-class families are eligible to receive scholarships (the income limit for a family of four is $84,000); and there is no evidence that even this income limit is enforced. In fact, Pennsylvania's Act 46 of 2005 prohibits the state from requesting from scholarship organizations any information other than the number and amount of scholarships that they give out. I guess we're just supposed to trust the scholarship organizations to self-enforce the income limit.

The lack of definitive evidence on who receives scholarships under Pennsylvania's EITC program is consistent with the overall lack of accountability in the program, which has now cost Pennsylvania taxpayers more than a third of a billion dollars. EITC scholarships lack both financial accountability (how money is actually used) and educational accountability (who gets the scholarships and how scholarship students perform in school compared to similar public school students) — as we documented in a report last year.

Everybody wins. Except perhaps the children whose public schools face funding cuts that much bigger because of the revenues lost to the EITC program."


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Remember these are tax CREDITS, not deductions. Therefore, it costs a corporation almost nothing to offer them, and they get good relations with powerful Republican politicians who effectively get to pick the schools that receive the funds, through their friendly lobbyists. The PA. Legislature came very close last year to a major expansion in the cost of this program - the same year they were cutting nearly ONE BILLION dollars from funding for public schools.

....Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[dkf]

1. Is it really so awful to help kids go to private school?

My co worker sent her son to private school because her local school wasn't very good and she never got a single dollar of state funds to help educate him. I'm not sure that is fair either.

[JPZenger]

2. Selection process and eligibility

The point is that this program was supposed to go to kids from lower-income families who otherwise could not consider alternatives. Instead, the eligibiity goes up to 80K family income, and no one is checking to see whether that requirement is even met. If the tax money is not going to the kids who most need it, while are we spending the money.

Every dollar that goes out as a tax credit is one dollar of tax money that is not available for the public schools that are full of low-income kids.

Also, as the NY Times reported recently, the money is being disbursed by organizations run by lobbyists - and they are making sure the money goes from corporations to the politicians who the corporations want to influence politically. The politician then stands up at a press conference holding a giant check to announce how much money he got from the XYZ drilling corporation to help that politician's favorite private school.

[Pat Riot]

3. "because her local school wasn't very good"

Yes, imo, it is awful. It's awful to cut a billion from public schools then divert the money to private schools. Put the damn money into public schools to improve them. For one thing, this is just one more step in blurring the line between church and state, as many private schools are religious. These charter schools too. Not everything should be done for profit. This reminds me of the part in Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" where they closed the state juvenile facility and the corrupt judge in the Scranton Wilkes-Barre area sent kid after kid to the privately owned facility owned by him and his buddies.

Sorry for the rambling rant. My point is the money should go to public schools until they will be very good.