My grandfather used to say the freest thing you can get in this world is an education. I didn\u2019t understand what he meant when I was young. But I understand it now.<\/p>\n
I can say the same for my 16-year-old granddaughter, Aziyah. Her father \u2014 my son \u2014 died in a tragic motorcycle accident when she was five years old. Following the funeral, Aziyah, who has always been studious, asked, \u201cWho\u2019s going to take me to school now?\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s who Aziyah is. She has always been a dedicated student. Honor roll since she could sit in a classroom. A 4.5 GPA. Second team All-Catholic in flag football. Voted most valuable player.<\/p>\n
Colleges are flooding our mailbox with letters, and she hasn\u2019t even started her senior year.<\/p>\n
Aziyah is going to go far.<\/p>\n
But when she was preparing to transition to high school, I was concerned. Before she moved in with me, Aziyah lived in West Philly, meaning she was going to attend West Philadelphia High School.<\/p>\n
But she would not have succeeded there. I\u2019m not saying that to be harsh. I\u2019m saying it because I know Aziyah. She\u2019s not confrontational. She puts her head down and works. And in environments like West Philly, they eat kids like that alive \u2014 and I couldn\u2019t let that happen.<\/p>\n
So, I put her in West Catholic High School. It wasn\u2019t an easy decision. Tuition is no joke, and paying for it has proved challenging.<\/p>\n
Mind you, I have a good job and earn a decent salary. But like everybody else these days, I am stretched thin financially. Anybody who\u2019s paying attention to this economy \u2014 or paying for gas, groceries, and utilities \u2014 knows exactly what I\u2019m talking about. After buying the bare necessities, there isn\u2019t much left.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, West Catholic gave me some good news. Aziyah qualified for a scholarship \u2014 made possible by Pennsylvania\u2019s Educational Improvement Tax Credit program.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m going to be honest with you: At first, I didn\u2019t know anything about this program. But this news felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. If not for this scholarship, I would have taken a second job before I told Aziyah she had to leave West Catholic. That\u2019s how much her education means to me. Thankfully, I didn\u2019t have to make that choice.<\/p>\n
But every day, families do make those hard choices. They\u2019re forced to. If you don\u2019t have connections or money, you\u2019re stuck in a box. You\u2019re forced to send your child to the neighborhood school, whether it\u2019s right for them or not.<\/p>\n
Many families weren\u2019t as fortunate as we were. Last year, about 70,000 scholarship applications<\/a> across Pennsylvania went unfulfilled. We are denying too many students who want to better themselves.<\/p>\n And it wasn\u2019t because these kids were unqualified. The real reason is that state law caps these programs, so scholarship organizations and schools cannot raise the funds needed to provide scholarships to these kids.<\/p>\n Harrisburg hasn\u2019t helped much, either. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted<\/a> to eliminate supplemental scholarships, limit student eligibility, and impose taxes and regulations on scholarship organizations. Ultimately, state lawmakers didn\u2019t cut scholarships in the new state budget, but they didn\u2019t increase them either, leaving the statewide scholarship shortage unaddressed.<\/p>\n Not only should we expand our current scholarship programs, but we should also look for new opportunities.<\/p>\n One such opportunity: the new federal tax-credit scholarship program<\/a>. With this program, Pennsylvania kids \u2014 both public and private school students \u2014 could receive tax-credit scholarships of up to $1,700 for education expenses, such as tuition, tutoring, and supplies. If Gov. Josh Shapiro opts Pennsylvania into this program, Pennsylvania kids stand to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in new scholarships<\/a>.<\/p>\n Scholarships like these have been a lifeline for families like mine, who work hard but still need a hand to get their kids into a better school. Education is something that should never be taken away from anybody \u2014 especially not from a student who is willing to work for it. If you can give a hard-working kid a chance, why wouldn\u2019t you?<\/p>\n Pennsylvania students with the ambition to achieve great things deserve every possible resource \u2014 and we should do everything we can to give them everything they need.<\/p>\n Charisse Jefferson lives in South Philadelphia with her granddaughter, Aziyah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My grandfather used to say the freest thing you can get in this world is an education. I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[35589,227,63187,28,30,29,69,8064],"class_list":["post-254511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-catholic-schools","tag-education","tag-educational-improvement-tax-credit","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-school-choice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}