By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and State

(Photo: kylebaker/flickr)

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.

The New York Times story documents that Pennsylvania’s program works very well for some businesses, lobbyists, and lawmakers. The lobbyists set up scholarship organizations, solicit business clients whose donations actually make them money (because the state tax credit alone is worth up to 90% of donations and the federal tax write-off takes the savings well over 100%), and the lobbyists and key lawmakers then influence which schools (and students?) get the scholarships. Then there’s a photo op at the private school that local media write up as a demonstration of the business’s generosity and the legislator’s good work.

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

Today's typical public school lunch (Photo: .imelda, flickr)

A blog post by Mark Price, originally published at Third and State.

An op-ed in The New York Times this morning points out that “school choice” has increased educational inequality.

• Natalie Hopkinson, The New York Times — Why School Choice Fails:

If you want to see the direction that education reform is taking the country, pay a visit to my leafy, majority-black neighborhood in Washington. While we have lived in the same house since our 11-year-old son was born, he’s been assigned to three different elementary schools as one after the other has been shuttered. Now it’s time for middle school, and there’s been no neighborhood option available.

Meanwhile, across Rock Creek Park in a wealthy, majority-white community, there is a sparkling new neighborhood middle school, with rugby, fencing, an international baccalaureate curriculum and all the other amenities that make people pay top dollar to live there.

Such inequities are the perverse result of a ‘reform’ process intended to bring choice and accountability to the school system. Instead, it has destroyed community-based education for working-class families, even as it has funneled resources toward a few better-off, exclusive, institutions.

On Sunday, another op-ed detailed how food manufacturers and food service companies are allegedly fleecing taxpayers while delivering food with little or no nutritional content.

• Lucy Komisar, The New York Times — How the Food Industry Eats Your Kid’s Lunch: Read the rest of this entry →

A blog post by Mark Price, originally published at Third and State.

On Tuesday, the Keystone Research Center published a summary of the employment situation in Pennsylvania. With the release of September’s jobs data, which included a loss of just over 15,000 jobs, a picture is emerging of a job market in Pennsylvania that is shrinking. The continued loss of public-sector jobs and relatively slow growth in private-sector jobs is the main source of weakness in the labor market. The bottom line is that although Pennsylvania ranked in the top 10 of states in terms of job growth early in this recovery, the Commonwealth has moved to the bottom 10 in the last five months.

Much of the public-sector job loss is driven by the fact that tax revenue has yet to fully recover from the recession, the end of federal Recovery Act funding, and state lawmakers’ unwillingness to raise state revenues which has deepened state budget cuts.

In related news — stemming from state budget cuts in funding for higher education — The Pittsburgh Post Gazette this morning reviews the latest on tuition costs at colleges and universities in Pennsylvania.

• Eleanor Chute, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — Cost for Pa. 4-year public universities 3rd in nation:

The average cost of tuition and fees at a public four-year college in Pennsylvania grew by 7 percent, from $11,331 last fall to $12,079 this fall, the College Board said. That’s an average increase of $748.

Pennsylvania’s average cost of $12,079 for four-year public college tuition and fees puts it behind only New Hampshire at $13,507 and Vermont, $13,078.

In K-12 education, local school districts are looking to compensate for state budget cuts through increases in property taxes.

• Roger Quigley, The Patriot-News — Mechanicsburg Area School District considers tax hike

Meanwhile, state policymakers, instead of focusing on ways to maintain employment in education and more generally, are moving to approve a school voucher program.

• Jan Murphy, The Patriot-News — Pennsylvania Senate poised to approve school voucher program