Action United alert on vouchers

From Action United:

"URGENT UPDATE


TUITION VOUCHER HEADING TO FLOOR VOTE

MORE ACTION NEEDED
THIS MORNING SB 1 WAS VOTED OUT OF COMMITTEE AND IS HEADING TO A FLOOR VOTE

WHAT IS HAPPENING…
A fast committee vote this morning has sent SB 1 to the whole Senate for a vote. It could come as early as today or tomorrow.
CALL YOUR SENATOR NOW AND TELL HIM TO VOTE NO!


This bill is a bait and switch for poor people.

Sure, it SOUNDS good, but it WONT give most of us real school choice, it will just take money out of our schools without any promise of a better education for our kids.



Time is tight! CALL IMMEDIATELY!



Call your Senator and urge them to oppose Senate Bill 1.




FIND YOUR SENATOR HERE


If it passes the Senate it will go to the House. Find your State Representative here and give them a call too.



TALKING POINTS
Vouchers are a budget, education, accountability and constitutional issue.
COST:

As PA School funding is slashed, how can we take even more money from public schools least able to afford it and give it to private schools?
And, with the state budget in such dire condition, how can we justify transferring state revenues from public into private entities?
Any voucher bill will cost taxpayers and school districts millions in funding that neither have available, while, at the same time, districts across the state, especially those with students who will be eligible to receive vouchers, are making deep cuts into instructional programs for students.
EDUCATION IMPROVEMENT:

Since only a small percentage of eligible students would use the vouchers to attend a private school, what happens to the overwhelming majority of students who continue to attend underfunded, under performing schools?
These bills do nothing to improve educational opportunities for the students who remain in these schools. In fact, these bills harm their educational opportunities because the schools will have fewer resources with which to provide educational services to the students.
ACADEMIC ACCOUNTABILITY:

How will private schools be held accountable for use of public funds?
Will these schools be required to administer the state assessments?
Since schools accepting voucher students would not have to administer the same assessments as administered in public schools, parents would not be able to compare the performance of their public school to that of the private school.
To make well informed decisions, parents need comparable data. Private schools accepting voucher students should be required to administer the same state assessments as administered to public schools.
FISCAL ACCOUNTABILITY:

Will the money provided through vouchers be audited? Taxpayer dollars should be spent transparently and those spending that money should be held accountable. No Voucher bill so far has required any independent annual audit of how private schools spend public money.
CONSTITUTIONALITY:

The Pennsylvania Constitution is clear that funds appropriated for use by public schools shall NOT be used for the support of any sectarian school, even if funds appropriated from the Commonwealth’s General Fund budget and provided to parents in the form of a voucher were based on the amount that the student’s resident school district would have received from the Commonwealth had the student continued to attend public school. While some may argue that PHEAA provides funds to students to attend a sectarian college or university, the Constitutional provision addresses public schools (K-12), not colleges and universities.
PLEASE MAKE YOUR CALLS TODAY!"