Neither more nor less: How Pa. education spending can be different

State budget negotiations are full of false dichotomies. We are forced to choose loyalties between public, charter, or private schools. But is that really our only choice? While policymakers debate whether to spend more or less on education, perhaps we might ask, “How can we spend differently?”

Is there a means by which we can fund public education and empower families to make the best educational decision for their children?

I think of students like Daryl, one of our Logos Academy students, who needed a smaller learning environment in order to be successful. His grandmother used to boldly declare that the love and careful attention he received at Logos Academy enabled him to overcome his social and emotional learning challenges.

She firmly believed that the power of school choice changed Daryl’s life for the better. We can do the same for hundreds of thousands of other children by allowing families to find schools that best fit their learning needs.

For families with students attending the lowest-performing schools in PA, a Lifeline Scholarship Program would provide money that follows their children, whether they choose public, charter, or private schools. Each scholarship would offer families about $7,000 for approved educational expenses, such as tuition, tutoring, and special education services.

Meanwhile, school districts retain most of the $21,000 they get in revenue per student. This ensures that no public school districts are left behind simply because a student learns better elsewhere.

For too long, parents and educators have felt inclined to pick a side: public or private. It’s a false dichotomy that pits us against each other. In reality, we can preserve ample resources for public schools while offering options to families who feel their children need something different.

Pennsylvanians widely support school choice for everyone. In a statewide poll, 77 percent of Pennsylvania voters agreed that all kids should have access to the best public schools regardless of location and that arbitrary boundaries force vulnerable children into underperforming schools.

Most stuck in these schools are students of color and live in low-income households. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s (PDE) Future Ready PA Index, the average student population in schools that would qualify for Lifeline Scholarships are 40 percent Black and 35 percent Hispanic. Eighty percent are living in poor households, while 3 percent are homeless.

I’ve never believed that a child’s zip code, ethnicity, or household income should determine if they have access to a high-quality education. Children should not be punished because their families cannot afford to live in high-performing school districts—mainly for reasons beyond their control.

Moreover, how is it fair that students facing a dramatically increased risk of violence can’t access another option? Schools that qualify for Lifeline Scholarships have twice as many incidents of violence—including incidents of bullying, assaults, threats, and fights—as other higher-performing Pennsylvania schools.

According to PDE, one of Pennsylvania’s lowest-achieving schools reported as many as 1,863 incidents in a single year. Another had 49 arrests.

With numbers like that, it’s easy to understand why students stop showing up. In Philadelphia’s failing schools, the average “chronic absenteeism” rate, which tracks students who have missed more than 10 school days in a year, is about 46 percent.

Students in failing schools deserve to envision a path forward for themselves. Lifeline Scholarships offer hope to the parents and children who need it most.

When we started the Logos Academy in 1998, we were not under the assumption that we were somehow better than the schools around us. Our goal was to offer families and students something different that might be exactly what they needed to succeed.

I was glad when then-candidate Josh Shapiro voiced support for Lifeline Scholarships, saying he “favors adding choices for parents and educational opportunity for students and funding lifeline scholarships like those approved in other states and introduced in Pennsylvania.”

As equity in education takes center stage in our budget negotiations, we have the opportunity to move beyond false dichotomies. We can invest in public education and offer students a lifeline to a brighter future when they desperately need it.

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This piece was originally published at the York Daily Record and can be found here.