By Marc LeBlond and Myles Slade-Bowers
Pennsylvania’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30. The Governor and the legislature are tasked, by law, with passing a budget to ensure funding of K-12 students, state police, and human services, such as SNAP and Medicaid. It is supposed to be enacted before the 4th of July. This year’s budget was finalized in mid-November, when people are thinking about pumpkins and turkey, not hot dogs and fireworks.
The enacted budget raises overall spending, increases public district school funding, and adds some additional funding for low-income students participating in Pennsylvania’s tax credit scholarship program, Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC).
While the increase to EITC will provide much needed purchasing power to certain low-income families seeking high quality educational options, the deal stops short of providing the transformative educational reforms Pennsylvanians had hoped to receive—especially after electing a governor who made school choice a key campaign promise.
Consider our neighbors to the west in Ohio. Each Ohio K-12 student is eligible for a scholarship to attend a school of their parent’s choice, with lower income families receiving the highest dollar amounts. And another border state, West Virginia, offers government funded education savings accounts (ESAs) to any K-12 family who wants one. ESAs offer families even more flexibility. In addition to private school tuition, families can use their ESA to pay for tutoring, textbooks, educational therapies, and a host of other approved educational expenses. These benefits are immensely attractive to families with K-12 children.
As the types of programs offered in Ohio and West Virginia proliferate to other states, families eager for school choice options are starting to move from non-choice states to states that offer more robust educational choices. Florida offers an astonishing array of public and private school choice options to hundreds of thousands of students. Despite the doomsday predictions of private educational choice options ruining public education, Florida continues to punch above its weight in math and reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and public school enrollment in Florida is up since 2019.
Meanwhile, in New York, which has no private school choice whatsoever, public enrollment has declined more than 6% over that same period. Families are increasingly choosing states other than New York to raise their families. In the wake of New York City electing a self-proclaimed socialist as mayor, U.S. Sen. from Pennsylvania Dave McCormick has started running ads offering New Yorkers safe refuge within the Commonwealth. Indeed, if Mamdani caves to the big school unions and opposes charters schools, this will only hasten the exodus.
For the most part, the theme of union-protectionism causing public enrollment decline is repeating in states where interest groups have blocked district competition.
California, New Mexico, Illinois, and Michigan each face significant public enrollment declines, to name a few. Just as King Midas’ wish for gold backfired and destroyed his life, the more union groups try to preserve their monopoly, the more they weaken and shrink public education. In a case of profound irony, the likely best thing Randi Weingarten could do to preserve her dues base—is lobby for school choice.
If Pennsylvania truly wants to attract population from neighboring states while strengthening the overall education ecosystem, it should do what Florida has done—offer a panoply of educational choices. Florida has an ecosystem of public charter schools, open enrollment, and various private school choice programs that work for parents, students, and educators.
This type of diverse policy is not only politically profitable; it is also morally right. All students deserve to thrive in an educational setting that works for them.
Pennsylvania needs ESAs, expanded Tax Credit Scholarships, and thriving public charter schools. In addition, Gov. Shapiro should opt in to the federal scholarship tax credit. These reforms would give Pennsylvania families the choices they want and deserve.
Expanding school choice options in Pennsylvania would open the gateway to parental choice in the northeast. Many families in New York, New Jersey, and New England feel boxed in by rigid, union-driven policies.
Pennsylvania is poised to become a natural landing place for those seeking flexibility. As families eventually leave New York and New Jersey for the appeal of an education that works for their children, northeastern states will have no choice but to offer educational choices, as well.
Another benefit of expanding choice policy is the creation of new markets and new educational supply. Over 600 private schools have been created in Florida since 2013, thanks to various scholarship programs. School choice policies pave the way for future educational options that currently do not exist.
The attitudes of Pennsylvania parents and even policymakers themselves have shifted strongly in favor of more parental choice. The policy simply hasn’t caught up yet. But momentum can stall. If Pennsylvania truly wants to be an attractive beacon of freedom, it must capitalize on the opportunity for reform soon.
Marc LeBlond is Director of State Advocacy at American Federation for Children. He lives in Williamsport, Pa., with his wife and four school-age children.
Myles Slade-Bowers is a Government Affairs Fellow with the American Federation for Children, where he advocates for expanding school choice and empowering families to access high-quality K–12 education.