Josh Shapiro

On Discriminatory School Vouchers, Democrats Divide the Party to Appear Unified!?

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Most Democrats oppose school vouchers.

In fact, the national party officially opposes them as part of its stated platform.

However, the national party warned Pennsylvania State Democrats against adopting a formal resolution opposing vouchers because the Democratic Governor, Josh Shapiro, supports them.

The national party was afraid of appearing divided going into the 2024 election.

But it IS divided!

Stopping this resolution is what divided it.

If the Democrats wanted to actually be unified, they should have pushed for Shapiro to get on the same page as the rest of them. The national party’s position is X. He is pushing for Y.

The fact is Shapiro already broke with the party earlier this year by working with Republican senators to craft a $100 million school voucher program. However, after a tidal wave of Democratic push back, he eventually rejoined the group and vetoed that same program.

So – despite Shapiro’s grumblings – Democrats actually were united again against vouchers before the national party got involved.

The national Dems could have put pressure on the Governor to keep with the group. Instead they asked the majority of Democratic lawmakers to just hush until Donald Trump was defeated and Sen. Bob Casey was re-elected.

That’s not unity. It’s deception.

They’re cynically hoping no one reads the news and folks just button their lips about the continuing disagreement over this wasteful and discriminatory policy that they have allowed to fester.

Several Democratic committee members introduced the anti-voucher resolution at the party’s September meeting in order to both chastise the Governor and clarify the party’s continued commitment to public schools. They agreed to table it so the authors of the resolution could work with committee staff to remove direct criticisms of Shapiro.

However, the committee members who brought this forward said they’d continue to push for the state Democratic Party to affirm an explicit anti-vouchers stance at all future state committee meetings – even those during the Presidential election year. They did not consider this controversial because they were merely asking the state party to align its stance with the national party’s official platform.

Unfortunately, the problem goes much deeper.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have trouble supporting public schools while perpetuating a self-fulfilling prophecy of academic struggle.

The overwhelming majority of children in the state (and throughout the country) are public school students, but legislators will not adequately fund their schools.

Instead they waste $470 million every year on private and religious schools.

Lawmakers are Constitutionally required to fund public schools – not private and parochial schools – yet Democrat and Republican legislators BOTH support throwing your tax dollars away on something that isn’t their responsibility or yours.

The problem is there are at least two ways of doing this.

There are hush hush programs called Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) programs – school vouchers in everything but name.

Then there’s the idea first floated by Republican Gov. Tom Ridge in 1995 that every student should get a school voucher that could be used at a private or parochial school.

The low key programs are tax-credit scholarships that allow donors to pay less in taxes if they fund tuition for low income students at private schools. The full throated program could go to students regardless of parental income.

The former program already exists and is supported by nearly all Republicans and some Democrats. The later program is supported by nearly all Republicans and very few Democrats. It is the later which actually goes by the name of school vouchers.

So as nice as it would be to have all Democrats on the same page being against school vouchers, that would really just mean they were against anyone above the poverty line getting a voucher. Many of them would still be fine with poor kids getting subsidized to go to private and parochial schools.

In fact, just this year the General Assembly approved a 40% increase, or $150 million, to the state’s existing tax-credit scholarship programs as part of an expansive budget deal.

Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court ruled the legislature wasn’t meeting its Constitutional obligations to public schools due to inadequate funding.

Republicans, angered by Shapiro’s veto of the voucher program he helped create, refused to go along with Democrats and add a single penny in funding to the Commonwealth’s impoverished public school system – Supreme Court ruling be damned!

PA lawmakers are determined to waste taxpayer dollars on private and parochial schools while starving the public school system they are required to support.

School vouchers are not a new idea. They’ve been tried and failed over and over again.

If we look at the facts, using a school voucher to go from a public school to a private one actually hurts kids academically.  


  
Large-scale independent studies in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio and Washington, D.C., show that students who used vouchers were as negatively impacted as if they had experienced a natural disaster. Their standardized test scores went down as much or more than students during the Covid-19 pandemic or Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  


 
This should come as no surprise. When we give children school vouchers, we’re removing their support systems already in place.

 
 
They lose the friends, teachers, and communities where they grew up. It’s like yanking a sapling from out of the ground and transplanting it to another climate with another type of soil which may not be suited to it at all.

Moreover, vouchers have nothing to do with helping kids escape struggling public schools.  


 
  
School vouchers overwhelmingly go to kids who already attend private or parochial schools.  


In the states that have released their data, more than three quarters of families who apply for vouchers for their children already send their kids to private schools. That’s 75% of voucher students in Wisconsin, 80% in Arizona, and 89% in New Hampshire. So these kids didn’t need our tax dollars in the first place.  We’re just paying for services they’re already receiving.


 
Moreover, the very idea is absurd. If the school where the student is enrolled is struggling, why wouldn’t you simply invest in that school to make it better and fix the underlying problem? Why disrupt children’s educations by moving them to another school in another system that is entirely unproven, itself? 




Vouchers are about exclusion – who gets to attend these PRIVATE schools –  and indoctrination – what nonsense they can teach that public schools cannot.  


  
 
Private schools can and do discriminate against children based on religion, race, gender, sexuality, special needs – you name it – even if those schools take public money.  
 


For example, in Florida, Grace Christian School, a private institution that refuses to enroll LGBTQ kids has received $1.6 million so far in taxpayer funding. In Indiana, more than $16 million has gone to schools banning LGBTQ kids—or even kids with LGBTQ parents! That’s roughly 1 out of every 10 private schools in the state with just this one discriminatory enrollment.  


  
 
Meanwhile thousands of parochial schools that receive public funding use textbooks provided by The American Christian Education (ACE) group. This includes the A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press textbooks. A Beka publishers, in particular, reported that about 9,000 schools nationwide purchase their textbooks.  


 
   
In their pages you’ll find glowing descriptions of the Ku Klux Klan, how the massacre of Native Americans saved many souls, African slaves had really good lives, homosexuals are no better than rapists and child molesters, and progressive attempts at equal rights such as Brown vs. Board of Education were illegal and misguided. You know – all the greatest Trump/MAGA hits!  


  
Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s a curriculum worthy of taxpayer dollars. I think if you’re going to take public money, you should have to accept all of the public, and you shouldn’t be allowed to teach counterfactual claims and prejudice as if they were fact.  

That’s why Democrats should unequivocally oppose school vouchers of all types!

If lawmakers were making decisions based on facts instead of which policies will get them the most donations from wealthy special interests, this would be a no brainer.

As usual it is campaign contributions that are dividing the party – not popular policy.

State Democrats should pass an anti-voucher resolution today!

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Will PA Finally Hold Cyber Charter Schools Accountable?

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Pennsylvania pays more than $1 billion every year for its 14 cyber charter schools.

And overpays them by more than $450 million each year.

Now – after half a decade of legislative shenanigans – a new bill actually has the possibility of being passed to hold these types of schools accountable.

Last week House Bill 1422 passed by a vote of 122-81, with all Democrats voting for it, joined by 20 Republicans. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro would likely sign the legislation if it comes to his desk.

So now it goes to its biggest hurdle – the Republican-controlled Senate.

The state GOP has held up every cyber charter reform measure since the previous Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf suggested it. However, now that Democrats hold a slim majority in the House, Republicans can no longer stymie it completely.

One of the largest problems centers on the cost of doing business. Cyber charter schools educate students online via computer. So why do local public schools have to pay cyber charters the same money as brick and mortar schools to educate students living in their boundaries? Cyber charters don’t have nearly the brick and mortar – no athletic fields, busing, etc. And the physical structures they do have are much smaller. The result is underfunded public schools and cyber charters bursting with cash.

That means higher public school taxes for you and me while cyber charters spend money like it’s going out of style.

The new measure would stop that by telling public schools exactly how much they must pay cyber charters – $8,000 per student not receiving special education services. Most schools currently spend approximately $10,000.

In addition, cyber charter schools would no longer be given more funding for special education students than authentic public schools. Tuition for special education students would be aligned with the system used for authentic public school districts. These measures, alone, are expected to result in about $456 million in savings.

But that’s not all!

The legislation also seeks additional transparency, eliminating conflicts of interest and requiring cyber charters to comply with the state’s ethics and open records law as authentic public schools are already required to do. It would ban enrollment incentives, restrict advertising and event sponsorships.

Gov. Wolf’s original proposal went even further. He had asked the General Assembly to place a moratorium on new cyber charter schools and cap enrollment in low-performing charter schools until they improve. None of that appears in the current legislation.

The bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-Montgomery, said the goal was not to close cyber charter programs, but to stop overfunding them. He said:

“We’re looking to put money back into the public schools and also leave the choice that’s there. We should have choice in this state. We’re asking that it’s a fair playing field.”

A lot of the prohibitions in the new legislation seem to have been inspired by real practices by current cyber charter schools like Commonwealth Charter Academy (CCA), the largest school of this type in the state.

For example, CCA spent approximately $19 million on marketing over a two-year period, including a float featuring Jerold the Bookworm for a Thanksgiving Parade.

The proposed law would prohibit all public schools from paying to sponsor public events such as parades and professional sporting events. Moreover, it would require all public schools who advertise to state that the cost of tuition and other costs are covered by taxpayer dollars.

CCA also uses tax dollars to provide $200 for monthly field trips that can be of debatable educational value. They’ve gone to petting zoos, laser tag, bowling and kayaking. A parent of a CCA student even bragged on Facebook about using these funds for Dave and Busters Arcade, a Motley Crue concert, Eagles tickets, and family vacations to Universal Studios and Disney, according to Education Voters of Pa.

The new bill would prohibit cyber charter schools from paying or reimbursing parents/guardians from educational or field trips as well as offering any cash, gifts or other incentives for enrolling or considering enrolling in a cyber charter school.

It would also force these types of schools to be more financially accountable by requiring them to approve an annual budget by June 30th each year, and make the budget available, as well as imposing fund balance limits so they couldn’t horde taxpayer money – all things already required of authentic public schools.

Charter schools – institutions that are publicly financed but often privately run and not subject to the same rules and regulations as authentic public schools – are still controversial despite the first charter school law being passed in 1991 and having spread through at least 45 states. However, only 27 states also allow CYBER charters like this – schools that teach mostly (or entirely) distance learning through the Internet.

Nationwide, Pennsylvania and Ohio have the largest cyber charter enrollment. In 2020-21, the Keystone State enrolled 61,000 students in cyber charters – and roughly 21,000 attend CCA.

A 2022 report by Children First found that of the states with cyber charters, Pennsylvania spends the most but has the “weakest systems to ensure students and taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.” Moreover, of the roughly $1 billion state taxpayers spend on these schools, several reports suggest that the money comes from the poorest districts, where cyber student academic performance is much lower than at neighboring authentic public schools. These are the students most in need of help.

Many provisions in the proposed bill read like such common sense initiatives, it’s chilling that they aren’t already in place.

The bill would require cyber charter schools to verify the residency of enrolling students, report the number of newly enrolled students and how many of those students have been identified as needing special education. Since cyber charter teachers meet with students online, they would need to visibly see and communicate with enrolled students at least once per week to verify the student’s well-being.

There are also many rules about how a cyber charter school can be governed. You could not have a school director from another school district or a trustee from another charter school serving on the board of the cyber charter school. Boards would require a quorum and a majority vote to take action. They would have to comply with the Sunshine Law, Right-to-Know Law, and the Ethics Act. Cyber charter school boards would need to have at least seven non-related members, at least one of whom must be a parent/guardian of an enrolled student.

But let’s not forget the many ways this new law would make cyber charters more transparent. Cyber charter schools could not lease a facility from a foundation or management company – unfortunately a common practice that allows the school to bill the public for a service to itself multiple times. Any conflicts of interest between the cyber charter school and a foundation or management company would need to be disclosed. Cyber charters would not be allowed to have administrators and their family members serving on the board of a charter school foundation that supports the charter school. No charter school trustee could be employed by the cyber charter school, a foundation that supports the school, or a management company that serves the school. The state Department of Education would need to have access to the records and facilities of any foundation and/or management companies associated with the school. Foundations associated with these schools would need to make budgets, tax returns and audits available.

The overwhelming majority of these regulations simply hold cyber charter schools to the same standard we already use for authentic public schools.

However, what often gets left unsaid is how terribly students do academically at cyber charters – something completely left out of this proposed legislation.

Study after study consistently shows that cyber charters are much less effective than traditional public schools – heck! They’re even less effective than brick and mortar charter schools!

A nationwide study by Stanford University found that cyber charters provide 180 days less of math instruction and 72 days less of reading instruction than traditional public schools.

Keep in mind that there are only 180 days in an average school year. So cyber charters provide less math instruction than not going to school at all.

The same study found that 88 percent of cyber charter schools have weaker academic growth than similar brick and mortar schools.

Student-to-teacher ratios average about 30:1 in online charters, compared to 20:1 for brick and mortar charters and 17:1 for traditional public schools.

Researchers concluded that these schools have an “overwhelming negative impact” on students.

And these results were duplicated almost exactly by subsequent studies from Penn State University in 2016 (enrolling a student in a Pennsylvania cyber charter school is equal to “roughly 90 fewer days of learning in reading and nearly 180 fewer days of learning in math”) and the National Education Policy Center in 2017 (cyber charters “performed significantly worse than feeder schools in both reading and math”).

The legislation being considered here does the important work of holding cyber charters financially accountable. However, there still remains the very real question of whether this type of educational institution is viable under normal circumstances.


 
It will be interesting to see if Republicans find even accountability a prospect worthy of a vote in the state Senate. Lobbyists for charter school networks like K12 Inc. and Connections Education have spent billions of dollars against something like this ever happening.

I guess we’ll soon see who the Commonwealth GOP really listens to – voters or corporate interests.

 

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Absurd School Voucher Proposal Stalls PA Budget

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How do you stop the other team from making a goal when you aren’t even sure your own team’s goalie will try to block the shot?

Pennsylvania House Democrats find themselves in that uncomfortable position as they refuse to pass a Republican supported 2023-24 budget on time.

The problem? School vouchers.

Democrats generally oppose them and Republicans love them. But in the commonwealth, new Gov. Josh Shapiro, ostensibly a Democrat, has let it be known that he likes vouchers under certain conditions.

So Republicans designed a bill exactly along those lines hoping that if they can get it through both legislative bodies, the Governor will give it his signature. (Under the previous Democratic administration, Gov. Tom Wolf blocked the worst the GOP could throw at him, stopping all kinds of horrible policies from getting through.)

A budget encrusted with voucher giveaways passed the Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday, but the House – where Democrats now hold a slim majority – refused to go along with it.

So Republicans are holding the entire budget hostage. As usual.

In a time when the state is flush with cash from inflation-juiced tax collections and federal pandemic subsidies, legislators still couldn’t pass a budget on time.

And it all comes down to our schizophrenic education policies.

Fact: the Commonwealth shortchanges public school students.

The state Supreme Court said so after an 8 year legal battle.

Now lawmakers in Harrisburg are rushing to fix the problem by tearing public schools apart and giving the pieces to private and parochial schools.

It’s called the Lifeline Scholarship Program – throw a lifeline of $100 million to failing edu-businesses and religious indoctrination centers on the excuse that that will somehow help kids from impoverished neighborhoods.

You could just increase funding at the poorest public schools – but that would make too much sense.

Better to give taxpayer money to private interests with little to no accountability or track record and just hope it works!

During the election, Shapiro admitted he liked the concept of these kinds of vouchers, but back then the only other choice was Doug Mastriano, a raving MAGA insurrectionist Republican. The Democrat could have said he had developed a taste for human flesh and he would have been the better alternative.

This means only the slim Democratic majority is left to uphold public schools over this wrongheaded policy nightmare.

House Democrats swear the bill is destined to fail.

House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery, put it this way:

“There are not the votes for it. It’s not coming up, and if it comes up, it will be defeated.”

This seems to be the case. Yesterday, the House Rules Committee voted against sending the tuition voucher bill to the full House for a vote. So it is not scheduled for a vote at all.

However, now that the June 30th deadline has been blown, lawmakers probably will try to use this newest school voucher bid as a bargaining chip to get a spending plan – any spending plan – passed. This could drag on for months – it certainly has in the past.

The current voucher iteration is a taxpayer funded tuition subsidy for students attending private schools.

Under this bill, students in the lowest 15% of schools in the commonwealth (as determined by standardized test scores) would be eligible.

So what’s wrong with school vouchers?

  1) Vouchers have nothing to do with helping kids escape struggling public schools.  

   School vouchers overwhelmingly go to kids who already attend private or parochial schools.

This is true even when the law explicitly stipulates the money should only go to poor and needy children.  

In the states that have released their data, more than three quarters of families who apply for vouchers for their children already send their kids to private schools. That’s 75% of voucher students in Wisconsin, 80% in Arizona, and 89% in New Hampshire. So these kids didn’t need our tax dollars in the first place.  We’re just paying for services they’re already receiving.

 Moreover, the very idea is absurd. If the school where the student is enrolled is struggling, why wouldn’t you simply invest in that school to make it better and fix the underlying problem? Why disrupt children’s educations by moving them to another school in another system that is entirely unproven, itself? 

2) Using taxpayer money to send your child to a private or parochial school has got nothing to do with getting a quality education.  

  If we look at the facts, using a school voucher to go from a public school to a private one actually hurts kids academically.  

  Large-scale independent studies in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio and Washington, D.C., show that students who used vouchers were as negatively impacted as if they had experienced a natural disaster. Their standardized test scores went down as much or more than students during the Covid-19 pandemic or Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  

 This should come as no surprise. When we give children school vouchers, we’re removing their support systems already in place.

  They lose the friends, teachers, and communities where they grew up. It’s like yanking a sapling from out of the ground and transplanting it to another climate with another type of soil which may not be suited to it at all.  


 


   3) Vouchers have nothing to do with more efficient schools.  

  Let’s get one thing straight – voucher schools are businesses, often new businesses just opening up. And like any other start-up, the failure rate is extremely high. According to Forbes, 90% of start-ups fail – often within the first few years.  

 The same is true here. Like charter schools (another privatized education scheme), most voucher schools close in the first few years after they open. In Wisconsin, for example, 41% of voucher-receiving schools have opened and subsequently closed since public funding began in the early 1990s.  

  Yet when they close, they take our tax dollars with them leaving less funding available to educate all kids in the community.  

 Public schools, by contrast, are community institutions that usually last (and have been around) for generations. Their goal isn’t profit – it’s providing a quality education. 

  4) Vouchers have nothing to do with freedom or choice.  

   Unless it’s the choice to be a bigot and indoctrinate your child into your own bigotry. 

      Vouchers are about exclusion – who gets to attend these PRIVATE schools –  and indoctrination – what nonsense they can teach that public schools cannot.  

   Private schools can and do discriminate against children based on religion, race, gender, sexuality, special needs – you name it – even if those schools take public money.   

  For example, in Florida, Grace Christian School, a private institution that refuses to enroll LGBTQ kids has received $1.6 million so far in taxpayer funding. In Indiana, more than $16 million has gone to schools banning LGBTQ kids—or even kids with LGBTQ parents! That’s roughly 1 out of every 10 private schools in the state with just this one discriminatory enrollment.  

   Meanwhile thousands of parochial schools that receive public funding use textbooks provided by The American Christian Education (ACE) group. This includes the A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press textbooks. A Beka publishers, in particular, reported that about 9,000 schools nationwide purchase their textbooks.  

    In their pages you’ll find glowing descriptions of the Ku Klux Klan, how the massacre of Native Americans saved many souls, African slaves had really good lives, homosexuals are no better than rapists and child molesters, and progressive attempts at equal rights such as Brown vs. Board of Education were illegal and misguided. You know – all the greatest Trump/MAGA hits!  

  Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s a curriculum worthy of taxpayer dollars. I think if you’re going to take public money, you should have to accept all of the public, and you shouldn’t be allowed to teach counterfactual claims and prejudice as if they were fact.  

To be fair, this voucher program is not supposed to take money directly from the public system – one of Shapiro’s requirements for his support – but the money has to come from somewhere.

The state treasury would be responsible for managing the program, and it can’t just print money. This is taxpayer funding. We won’t allocate the money to support the schools we have, but we’re willing to send $100 million to schools we have no responsibility for now!? With no fiscal accountability!?

Lots of other states have enacted vouchers like this and surprise, surprise! The program expands enormously. For instance, in New Hampshire, voucher supporters predicted their program would cost taxpayers about $130,000, but within two years the cost had ballooned to more than $14 million.

Pennsylvania schools have monetary needs – but this voucher program is not one of them.

Lawmakers have been tasked by the state Supreme Court with increasing education funding.

That’s education funding for public schools – PUBLIC. Schools.

If they want to give away our tax dollars to their buddies in the private education industry or support religious indoctrination, that’s a different matter entirely.

And shame on Shapiro for giving the most reckless policymakers in the commonwealth on the other side of the aisle hope that these shenanigans will work.

 

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What Democratic Midterm Victories Mean for Pennsylvania’s Schools

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We can breathe a sigh of relief.

Fascism was defeated at the polls.

Christian nationalism, snake oil salesmen and angertainment all fell to the power of the ballot at this week’s midterm election in Pennsylvania.

Democrat Josh Shapiro beat far right Republican Doug Mastriano for Governor.

John Fetterman beat reality TV star Dr. Mehmet Oz for Senator.

And a host of local grassroots progressives triumphed from Summer Lee becoming the first black woman ever elected from our state to the House to Lindsay Williams retaining her seat in the state legislature. Even Austin Davis (my state representative) will become the first black Lt. Governor in the Commonwealth.

And most surprising, the state house may have even flipped to Democratic control after decades in Republican hands. (There are still a few races that are too close to call.)

All-in-all, it was a good night. Especially in an election cycle where Republicans had every advantage. The President’s party usually loses seats during the midterms, and just last week it seemed that Joe Biden would be no exception. However, now that the dust has cleared, the losses seem to be minimal to nonexistent.

So what does it all mean for our state’s schools and the future of our kids’ educations?

First, we can expect far fewer insane policy proposals and those that are put forward will have next to zero chance of passing.

No more worries about our already meager education funding being cut in half.

No more fears of Florida’s regressive “Don’t Say Gay” law restricting free speech coming to the Keystone state.

The Critical Race Theory panic (A.K.A. – teaching actual history) will fade to just another wing nut conspiracy theory thrown to the Republican base to generate support instead of an actual policy proposal to restrict academic freedom.

I suspect a lot of the baseless hysteria Republicans had been shouting from the rafters will decrease as pollsters show them how ineffective it was in getting votes that weren’t already staunchly GOP.

For the first time in years, Republicans may have to push toward the center instead of constantly to the lunatic fringe. Otherwise, they’ll continue to lose.

Second, we may actually see some positive education policies make their way through the state legislature.

Shapiro has promised to increase education funding. That and the still pending court decision on a lawsuit against the state demanding adequate funding may be enough to turn the funding faucet on a few cranks. With Democrats holding an increasing share of seats, all it takes is a few moderate Republicans (are they out there?) to join them to get things done.

However, it isn’t all wine and roses.

During the general election, Shapiro came out in favor of some school voucher programs. This puts him to the right of our current Governor Tom Wolf. So we can look forward to our new Governor supporting an increase for tax credit scholarships and other de facto voucher plans that will drain public education coffers just as we’re working to increase them.

It is also anyone’s guess whether a pro-voucher Governor would support charter school reform – something we desperately need and that Wolf championed during his tenure.

And though both Wolf and Shapiro criticized standardized testing, it would take a mightily informed and courageous state politician to go up against the economic powerhouse of the testing industry.

In short, the election mostly means we don’t have to worry about as many flaming meteorites crashing down on our schools.

Things might even get better here and there – especially with additional funding.

However, we will have to monitor our representatives as if they were little kids sulking by the cookie jar. They will almost definitely try to sneak in some garbage legislation to hurt our students and enrich their corporate buddies.

When we look at the national situation, it appears much the same. Even with Fetterman going to the Senate, it’s unclear whether Democrats will have control of either legislative body. Even if they do, the majority will be razor thin.

A robust Democratic Party determined to enact progressive legislation could make much of such a situation, but as we’ve seen in the past, that is not the case with the current leadership.

The most we can realistically hope for is that they put a stop to insane GOP legislation.

The question is whether we can build on such Democratic gains at both the state and national level. Usually that doesn’t happen. But it will have to be the goal moving forward.

Stopping the worst is a worthy aim but it cannot be everything. We must continue to push our representatives to make actual progress and fix the slow and steady drip of fascism, corporatism and Christian nationalism that has dominated our politics for far too long.

So let us celebrate a worthy election cycle while we prepare for all the political battles still to come.

A sigh of relief, a renewed fighting stance and back into the fray.

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An Open Letter to Josh Shapiro Asking Him to Reject School Vouchers 

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Dear Josh Shapiro, 


 
Are you for public education or not?

I only ask because as the Democratic candidate for Governor in Pennsylvania, you come off as the savior of schools and children on the campaign trail.

You say you want to increase state funding to public schools. Wonderful!

You say you want to reduce standardized testing. Excellent!

You want to guarantee every student has access to technical and vocational courses and make sure every school building has at least one dedicated mental health counselor on staff. Outstanding!

But in interviews and on your campaign Website, you say you’re in favor of school vouchers!

Wha-Wha-What!?

Did Charles Koch just hack your election headquarters? Is Betsy DeVos impersonating you in the media?

Because supporting school vouchers does not fit in at all with someone who claims to champion public education.

Public education means public schools. It means tax dollars being used to fund public schools and those schools being run by elected school boards.

It does not mean tax dollars going to private and parochial schools. It does not mean our money going to institutions where we get no say in how it’s spent. It does not mean circumventing duly elected school boards. It does not mean the public paying for religious indoctrination or the kind of right wing biased education routinely provided at private schools.

But that’s what school vouchers do.

They steal taxpayer dollars from authentic public schools and allow them to be wasted on private and parochial schools. They destroy any accountability for how our collective money is spent and do serious harm to thousands of the most struggling authentic public school students while lining the pockets of private companies and religious institutions.

And the separation of church and state – forget about it!

This doesn’t sound like the candidate teachers like me have been backing since before this election cycle began. Frankly, it’s almost what your gubernatorial opponent, MAGA Republican Doug Mastriano, champions.

Mastriano – a Trump insurrectionist – says he wants to use state education funding to give EVERY student a school voucher they can use at almost any school in the Commonwealth – public, private or parochial.

You seem to want vouchers ONLY for students at the most underfunded and struggling schools.

Well that’s some distinction!

Instead of providing more support to the most inequitably funded schools, you want to slash their funding even more in the name of some old time Republican plan to let a few escape a bad situation while the rest all drown!?

That is repulsive!

On your your campaign Website it says: 


 Josh favors adding choices for parents and educational opportunity for students and funding lifeline scholarships like those approved in other states and introduced in Pennsylvania. 


 
In an interview in the Patriot News you say: 


 “And I’m for making sure we add scholarships like lifeline scholarships to make sure that that’s additive to their education. That it gives them other opportunities…to be able to help them achieve success”  

These so-called Lifeline Scholarships are a Republican lead measure to give direct-to-student tax-funded scholarships that parents and guardians in the state’s most neglected public schools could use for a variety of options including going toward tuition at a different school.

The GOP sponsored bill passed the state House of Representatives in April on a 104-98 vote and cleared the state Senate Education Committee in June. However, because of an amendment to protect low performing charter schools from losing their funding, it would still need final passage votes in both chambers before getting to current Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk where he would almost certainly veto it.

It would affect about 191,000 students in 382 schools, across 76 of the state’s 500 school districts. However, Two-thirds of the cost of the program (63.1%) is born by four districts – Philadelphia (43.9%), Reading (8.9%), Allentown (5.8%) and Pittsburgh (4.5%).

This would create another taxpayer funded system of education. Affected districts would lose so much funding it would ultimately force them to reduce programs, services, and staffing and/or raise property taxes to compensate.

Moreover, these would be the most neglected districts, and thus the least able to support the cost.

It’s a terrible idea, and I can’t understand why you would buck the overwhelming majority of your party and would-be constituents to support it.

Is it because you send your own kids to a faith-based private school, and that you are the product of just such an education, yourself?

This is how you lose votes, Sir.

Your opponent is perhaps the most odious person to ever run for Governor in the state. He looks to usher in an era of theocratic fascism, curtail human rights and take the Commonwealth back to the Middle Ages.

But that doesn’t mean you should run closer to his positions in the vain hope of stealing some of his base.

The MAGA Republicans will never vote for you. Dressing yourself up in their clothing will not help you do anything but disgust your own supporters until some can’t bring themselves to vote at all.

As election day nears, the polls get closer and closer between Mastriano and you.

Pennsylvanians can’t afford losing their only chance at self rule because of demoralization and despair at a candidate too weak to support the platform he began this campaign on – championing public education.

I urge you to reconsider this flirtation with Republican values and school vouchers.

I hope you are better than this.

We deserve a governor who is better than this.

Please have the courage to stand by authentic public schools.

Yours,

Steven Singer

Tell Josh Shapiro what you think. Email him here: contact@joshshapiro.org

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What my PA Public School Classroom Would Look Like under Gov. Doug Mastriano

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Just one teacher. And 33 kids.

That’s what my classroom would look like if Pennsylvanians vote for Doug Mastriano as our next governor.

The Republican state representative wants to slash education budgets in half – yes, IN HALF!

And that means doubling class size – at least.

Honestly, I don’t know how we’d cram all the desks in the room. I can barely fit 15 in there now.

Where would we put the books, computers and cabinets? The students, alone, would be wall-to-wall.

Just imagine that many middle school kids stuffed into the room arguing about who’s touching who and which classmate stole their pencil or book. Not to mention the children striving to get my attention to solve disputes, get help with classwork, ask permission to use the bathroom – and a thousand other issues!

I’d try my best to meet their needs but under Mastriano we just wouldn’t have the resources we used to have.

For example, there’s no way we could afford a school nurse at each building like we have today. We’d be lucky to have one nurse for all four buildings in the district – elementary schools, middle schools and the high school. If a student feels sick, there’s not much I could do except send the child to the office to try to call home and get a parent or guardian to pick the kid up early. And if the parents can’t make it, just let the kid put his or her head down?

What if the issue’s more psychological? There might be a school counselor somewhere in the district so a student can talk out an issue he or she is having – perhaps conflict resolution with a former friend, discuss peer pressure to try drugs or maybe deal with suicidal thoughts. But there’s probably a long waiting list to see this mythical counselor. Hopefully, the problem is not too urgent.

I feel especially bad for the special education students. Aides would be almost non-existent so many kids with special needs would have to struggle through issues with which we’d normally help them. All the individual Education Plans (IEPs) would have to be rewritten to take this new normal into account.

Even lunch would be disrupted. After all, there would be fewer cafeteria workers so it would be harder just to cook a hot meal and make sure it gets onto a tray in time for students to eat it.

There’s no doubt about it.

My classroom would be very different if Mastriano wins the gubernatorial election in November.

The former US Army Colonel who participated in the January 6 insurrection proposes slashing education funding from $19,000 on average, per student, to $9,000.

According to an analysis by the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), the plan would mean a 33 percent overall cut in public school revenue, or a $12.75 billion loss. It would require approximately 118,704 layoffs – 49 percent of all employees in schools around the state.

At my district of Steel Valley in Munhall on the western side of the Commonwealth, the situation probably would be much like I described.

I can’t imagine how any teacher could adequately tend to double the students, but I might not have to imagine it.

I’d probably be laid off.

More than half of Steel Valley’s staff would be out of a job – 92 of our current 172 school nurses, counselors, aides, cafeteria workers and teachers would be looking for work.

And that’s just where I’m employed.

Things would be even worse for my daughter where she attends McKeesport Area School District.

According to PSEA estimates, the nearby McKeesport district would lose 281 of 521 staff – a 54% reduction. Classes would go from an average of 17 students to an average of 46. That’s an increase of 29 students per class!

How can she learn in that kind of environment!? She isn’t in college yet. She isn’t in some University of Pittsburgh survey class that meets in an auditorium. She’s in middle school!

But it would be pretty similar at public schools, charter schools, career and technical centers and intermediate units across the state.

From one side of the Commonwealth to the other, we’d go from 239,902 staff to 121,198. Class size would go from an average of 16 students per class to 33. That’s an increase of 17 students per class or 109%.

However, the PSEA estimate is actually a best case scenario for Mastriano’s proposal.

Like so many wannabe big time policymakers, he is very light on the details of how we would educate the state’s 1.7 million students. This whole proposal was just something he blurted out during a March 2022 WRTA radio interview.

It’s his plan to completely eliminate local school property taxes. Funding would be provided directly to parents via “Education Opportunity Accounts,” and families could then decide whether they want a public, private, charter or home school option.

To go from a statewide average funding level of $19,000 a student to $9,000 a student requires a cut of $17.6 billion, or 53%.

But if the remainder isn’t being paid by property taxes, that’s a roughly $15.3 billion a year expenditure by the state that used to be paid by local property taxes. Where is he getting that money from? And if the state can afford to pay that much, why not just pay the full $19,000 per student and make none of these unnecessary cuts? Or why not just pay half and reduce property taxes by that much? Mastriano is not exactly forthcoming on any of this.

PSEA admits that to come up with its own estimates of the damage the organization filled in a few details. The union assumes the state would fully fund the $9,000-per-student voucher and leave other local non-property taxes and federal revenues untouched.

That might not happen. We could be looking at an even more draconian situation.

The biggest question the PSEA is sidestepping is the impact of allowing taxpayer dollars to fund so many different types of schooling.

Even under Mastriano’s plan, nontraditional educational providers like charter schools would suffer because like traditional public schools they would be receiving less funding from the state than they do now. And parents using their vouchers to pay for private schools for their children would still have to make up a pretty big gap between the amount of the voucher and the cost of private school tuition.

However, since traditional public schools serve the overwhelming majority of the state’s students, they would take the biggest hit financially. If more parents use their voucher to pay for private, charter or home schools, that’s less funding for our public school system. That means even greater cuts to student services and more staff layoffs.

Moreover, what if parents use the voucher for a fly-by-night educational option that doesn’t meet it’s obligations?

For example, according to reports by the Network for Public Education, about half of all charter schools close in 15 years. And 27% close in five years.

And when it comes to charter schools that took federal funding, 12% never even opened. They just gobbled up the cash with nothing to show for it.

What will happen to students whose parents lose their vouchers in schools like these? Who will pay for these kids to be educated? Or will they have to go without?

And when it comes to private schools, does Mastriano mean only secular private schools or does he include parochial schools? Will your tax dollars be used to pay for students religious education?

And what about the curriculum at these private schools or some home school programs? Many use texts published by Bob Jones University Press, Accelerated Christian Education, or A Beka.

The books are riddled with counter factual claims and political bias in every subject imaginable such as abortion, gay rights and the Endangered Species Act, which one labels a “radical social agenda.” They disparage religions other than Protestant Christianity and cultures other than those descended from White Europeans.

They teach that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, some dinosaurs survive into the present day (i.e. the Loch Ness monster), evolution is a myth disproved by REAL science and homosexuality is a choice.

Teaching these things in school is not just educational malpractice, it’s exactly the kind of indoctrination the right is claiming without evidence happens at public schools.

If someone wants to pay for such an education out of their own pocket, that’s one thing. But to ask taxpayers to fund such propaganda is something else entirely!

Thankfully, Pennsylvania voters don’t have to accept this. Not yet anyway.

There are still more than three months before the election. Voters can choose the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro. He has promised to INCREASE education funding and not just blow up the whole system.

To see an interactive map of how Mastriano’s education cuts would affect your school district, click here.

For now this is only a bad dream. We still have time to wake up and vote accordingly.

Students should not have to submerge themselves in a sea of classmates and hope the teacher will have time to educate them.

We should cut class size, not increase it.

We should hire more teachers, not rely on a skeleton crew.

We should invest in education, not sell off our future for a fast buck today.

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The Guardian vs. the Goon: PA’s Most Important Governor’s Race

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The choice for Pennsylvania Governor could not be more clear in November.

On the one hand, we have Josh Shapiro – an Attorney General who fought for Commonwealth citizens’ rights for six years.

On the other, we have Doug Mastriano, a former US Army Colonel and 3-year state representative who supported a literal coup against the United States government.

In any sane world, that would be all you’d need to know.

Shapiro, the state’s chief law enforcement officer, vs. Mastriano, a traitor who actively worked to overturn the votes of the very citizens who elected him to office.

This should not be an election – it should be a rout.

However, Commonwealth voters will need to come to the polls and make it clear that they reject Mastriano’s fascism and that they instead support their own right to determine who governs in Pennsylvania and beyond.

That sounds extreme. I wish it weren’t also true.

Following the last Presidential election when it became clear Donald Trump had lost the vote, Republican Mastriano helped organize large rallies pushing false claims of election fraud. He chartered buses to take protesters to the Capitol on January 6. He personally crossed police barricades at the Capitol during the riot, and attempted to submit “alternate” (i.e. fake) pro-Trump electors to the official count. And he even coordinated all this with Trump when he was invited to the White House to discuss the “stop the steal” strategy.

If Mastriano somehow wins the governors race, he will be in a position to basically call off Democratic rule in the state. As governor, he would choose the secretary of state — the official in charge of administering the 2024 presidential election. This would effectively allow him to pick the winner, himself.

This is not just conjecture. Mastriano has gone on record that as governor he would decertify voting machines in some precincts – making it hard to count votes there. He has even alluded to the independent state legislature doctrine, which holds that state legislatures can name whoever they want as the recipient of a state’s electoral votes, regardless of who voters select.

This is not conservatism. It is not protecting American values or law and order. It is the opposite.

By contrast, Shapiro, the Democrat in the race, is a model of exactly those qualities usually associated with sobriety and efficiency.

As Attorney General, he fought federal government overreach including Trump’s travel ban. He filed a lawsuit to stop religious organizations denying health coverage including contraceptives to employees. He joined a lawsuit against for profit colleges resulting in a $168 million settlement. He reached an agreement with federal officials to prevent the distribution of blueprints for 3D printed firearms. He launched an investigation of allegations of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church including a Grand Jury report alleging the sexual abuse of more than a thousand children at the hands of more than 300 priests.

In short, he worked hard to protect the people of this Commonwealth.

And the difference is stark on so many other issues when compared head-to-head.

Shapiro supports increasing public school funding. Mastriano wants to cut it in half.

Shapiro wants to increase security and gun regulations to prevent school shootings. Mastriano wants to give teachers guns and let them do the shooting.

Shapiro has fought to protect women’s reproductive rights against the state. Mastriano supports the state telling people what to do with their own bodies.

And on top of all that – Mastriano has ties to White Supremacists!

Until recently, his campaign paid consulting fees to Gab, a white nationalist social media site owned by anti-Semite Andrew Torba. Gab was the site that helped inspire the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue mass murder in 2018. Torba and others on the site that Mastriano was explicitly looking to for support commonly champion Great Replacement theory and support Vladimir Putin.

No skeletons of this type have been found in Shapiro’s closet.

The worst anyone has found so far is a $100,000 donation from Students First PA, a charter school advocacy group, which he took money from when he was running for Attorney General in 2016. However, Shapiro made no effort to hide the donation and his voting record when he was a state representative was not pro-charter. In 2011, for example, he voted against a measure to provide tuition vouchers of charter schools, and he has been a vocal critic of the industry for years. Moreover, neither Students First PA nor any other pro-education privatization organization that I can find has made any significant donations to him this election cycle so far.

The way I see it, this is a simple – if terrifying – election.

Shapiro is not perfect, but if elected, he would function similarly to current Governor Tom Wolf. He would be a guardian against the overreach and bad decisions of the gerrymandered Republican legislature.

One can hope voters throughout the Commonwealth would take back their individual voting districts from the extremists, but given the still uncompetitive lines of these districts, this seems unlikely.

So we need a Wolf, we need a Shapiro, standing on the battlements stopping the goons like Mastriano from taking advantage of the majority of us.

Shapiro would certainly do that. He might even go farther and fight to find ways to get real change through the legislature. But even if he can’t do that, voting for him is essential.

Mastriano may simply be the worst candidate for governor in the Commonwealth’s history – and that’s saying something!

We need Shapiro. We need Austin Davis as Lt. Governor. And we need John Fetterman as Senator.

That would make a huge difference both nationally and throughout the state.

It would set us up with a firm foundation and at least keep people safe from the worst.

I know it is depressing to be put in this situation constantly. Every election cycle seems to be the most important because the country is falling apart. Maybe we can find a way to turn things back and reach some level of sanity. But we can’t do anything unless we elect Shapiro, Davis and Fetterman.

We need the guardians against the goons.

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Charter School Lobby Donates $50,000 to Teachers-Union-Backed PA Attorney General Candidate

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Giving a bribe into a pocket

 

What’s the best way to avoid a charter school scandal?

 

In Pennsylvania, apparently you bribe the Attorney General.

 

That may be why Students First PAC donated $50,000 to Josh Shapiro, a Democrat running for the position.

 

This political action committee is not to be confused with the infamous national group founded by Michelle Rhee. Students First PAC is a state organization that typically contributes to charter school friendly candidates.

 

And $50K is quite a chunk of change in a State Attorney General race – the office in charge of prosecuting charter schools for breaking the law.

 

Charter school scandals have been an almost weekly occurrence throughout the Commonwealth. Chester Community Charter School, the state’s largest brick-and-mortar organization, is under investigation for pocketing $1.2 million “in improper lease-reimbursement payments.” As Philadelphia public schools are being closed due to a miserly state budget, “nonprofit,” charter operator Aspira Inc. was caught using public money to boost its real estate holdings instead of using those funds to educate children. Nicholas Trombetta, the founder of Pennsylvania’s largest cyber charter, an institution that operates exclusively over the internet, “was charged with fraud, for funneling $8 million of the school’s funds into his personal companies and holdings.”

 

It’s easy to see how having the state Attorney General on your side would benefit an industry rife with fraud and malfeasance.

 

Shapiro, chair of the Montgomery Country Board of Commissioners, is the odds on favorite to succeed Kathleen Kane as the state’s highest ranking law enforcement officer.

 

He is running for the Democratic nomination against Northhampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, and Allegheny Country Attorney General Stephen Zappala.

 

Despite strong corporate education reform ties, Shapiro has been endorsed by the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), the largest teachers union in the Commonwealth.

 

At a public debate earlier in March, challenger Morganelli called out Shapiro on the Students First PAC donation.

 

“Josh, you are really good at giving speeches but your resume doesn’t match your performance,” Morganelli said. “You have received $25,000 from Students First PAC, which is a charter school [organization], and you received it on March 4th 2015. That is a charter school advocate that is hurting our public schools. Josh gives a great speech here then takes $25,000 from Students First PAC, I think that’s wrong.”

 

Morganelli added in a prepared statement in Harrisburg, “It was later determined that Josh accepted an additional $25,000 from Students First PAC in 2012. Who knows how much more he may have received from them that has not yet surfaced.”

 

Shapiro has never publicly denied these allegations.

 

His response at the debate was that voters should judge him based on his record.
However, Shapiro’s campaign manager Joe Radosevich responded further.

 

“Josh’s record in support of public education is unmatched and he’s proud to stand with Pennsylvania teachers in this election,” he said. “Josh is the only candidate for Attorney General who will protect Pennsylvania teachers and stand up for the rights of each and every student to a ‘thorough and efficient’ education as guaranteed in our state constitution.”

 

Morganelli also took issue with PSEA for endorsing Shapiro over himself. He criticized the organization for a history of siding with candidates with whom high ranking leaders have a relationship regardless of their positions on eduction. He cited PSEA’s endorsement of Tom Corbett for Attorney General in 2008. Corbett won that election and went on 2 years later to become one of the worst Governor’s in state history whose “greatest” achievement was slashing almost $1 billion from our public schools.

 

PSEA’s endorsement of Shapiro is in the same line, Morganelli said.

 

“How can PSEA endorse a candidate who is in bed with the Charter school folks? This would be like someone being funded by both the NRA and CeaseFire [PA] – inconceivable!”

 

PSEA spokesman David Broderic compared Morganelli’s criticism to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

 

“PSEA’s members decided to recommend Josh Shapiro, based on his support for our issues,” Broderic said. “That’s what happens in politics. Today’s Trump-like antics don’t do anything but devalue politics. It’s a shame he felt the need to do that.”

 

Shapiro is receiving tremendous flack for the donations. In private, he explained the matter further, according to a confidential source.

 

He said the money was actually donated by his friend Joel Greenberg, a hedge fund manager who has worked with Shapiro on county, Jewish and Israeli issues. Greenberg funneled the money through Students First PAC. He gave his own personal money to Students First PAC which, in turn, gave it to Shapiro.

 

Greenberg is infamous in his own right as one of the three Philadelphia investment bankers who founded Students First PAC. He is also on the board of the American Federation for Children, a national school choice group with mega wealthy far right backers including the Koch Brothers.

 

The explanation makes little sense. It is shameful that the PSEA hasn’t pushed Shapiro to either publicly explain his actions or give back the money. At very least, the union could retract its endorsement.

 

Morganelli is to be praised for bringing the matter to public attention. Unfortunately, he is plagued by his own political shortcomings.

 

In 2007, Morganelli joined State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe for a witch hunt against illegal immigrants.

 

Metcalfe, a Republican from Cranberry Township, is so far right, he makes Rick Santorum look like Bernie Sanders! He is infamous in state politics for flamboyant actions against homosexuals and immigrants.

 

Metcalfe wrote a report called “Invasion PA” claiming Commonwealth lives were at stake because of a perceived influx of illegal immigrants. It was laughed out of Harrisburg, but Morganelli supported it – at least at first.

 

“It’s not an illegal immigration issue, it’s a crime and national security issue,” said Morganelli, who claimed about 5,000 illegal aliens in Northampton County had been responsible for a disproportionate share of the crime.

 

Five of 10 rapes in Northampton County last year were committed by illegal immigrants, Morganelli said.

 

Pennsylvania taxpayers are picking up the tab for illegal aliens housed in county and state prisons, he said.

 

However, when the report was met with ridicule, Morganelli tried to distance himself from it.

 

He called it ”deficient.”

 

”The report was, in my view, poorly constructed,” the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review quoted Morganelli as saying. ”It was a compilation of opinions and inferences drawn from arrests that really did not support the conclusion that an ‘invasion’ is occurring in Pennsylvania.”

 

In addition to this catastrophic lapse in judgement, Morganelli is also a staunch advocate for the death penalty. Not exactly someone suited to state office.

 

Of the three Democrats running for the position, Zappala is clearly the best candidate. He has been a just Attorney General in Allegheny Country since 1998. For instance, he is in favor of treatment and prevention for drug abusers rather than incarceration.

 

The Republican candidates are John Rafferty, a state senator from Montgomery County, and Joe Peters, a Wyoming County resident who was a former police officer, federal prosecutor and spokesman for current Attorney General Kane.

 

Kane is not seeking re-election. The primary election is April 26.

 

The office has been plagued by scandal under Kane. She stormed into the position with immense political good will, the first Democrat and woman to be elected to the position since it became an elected office in 1980. She was a rising star likely to challenge Republican Pat Toomey for U.S. Senate. However, her star fell in August 2015. She was arrested and charged with multiple offenses, including two counts of felony perjury, and obstruction of justice. A month later the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania suspended Kane’s license to practice law, the first such occurrence for a Pennsylvania Attorney General. Since she was not removed from her position, she has continued to exercise her duties as with a suspended license by delegating legal responsibilities to her top advisers.

 

Pennsylvania needs an Attorney General free from controversy, and both Shaprio and Morganelli don’t fit the bill. We can’t let someone who accepts huge charter school donations take over regulating the industry.

 

And shame on PSEA for letting down the Commonwealth’s teachers, parents and children. Endorsements should be made based on what’s best for our schools not personal relationships.