Report: School tax credit programs turn away half of student applicants | Pennsylvania

(The Center Square) – A new report found that despite record-high demand, Pennsylvania turned away nearly half of students applying for educational grants in 2023.

That’s because red tape means not every dollar of the $600 million budgeted for the programs can be spent until a business or individual donor contributes in-kind, leaving at least $75 million on the table in December.

It’s also more evidence why, the Commonwealth Foundation says, the state must do more to expand school choice options, such as creating scholarships that don’t rely on funding from donors in exchange for tax credits.

The foundation, a policy organization that backs fiscal conservancy, says the latter method –  called the Educational Improvement Tax Credit and the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit – is arbitrarily capped by the Legislature and at the mercy of its unpredictable budget enactments.

As a result, of the 164,000 students who applied for tuition help through the programs, just 85,000 were served. For the OSTC, which offers additional help to families that live within the boundary of a bottom-performing school, nearly 75% of those who applied were turned away.

“When current programs cannot satisfy demand, thousands of ousted families have no other choices for their children,” said Rachel Langan, the foundation’s senior education policy analyst. “The only solution is to find more options.”

The problem is, legislative leaders don’t agree that more school choice is better. Some aren’t even convinced the existing tax credit programs are worth the return on investment.

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal suggests he is one of them. Of the $19.7 billion he wants to spend on public education in the coming year, no additional money is given to the school choice tax credits, nor is there any voiced support for “lifeline scholarships,” which is the program the foundation and mostly Republican legislative allies want to create.

Lifeline scholarships offer education grants up to $15,000 to students living in the bottom 15% of school districts. Shapiro, himself, supported the idea on the gubernatorial campaign trail. During his first year in office, he helped Senate Republicans draft the program as part of a budget deal, only to abandon it at the behest of Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives.

For them, diverting public money to private schools violates the state constitution and ignores a court order to equalize funding across districts after decades of disparate support.

Program advocates say throwing more money at struggling schools hasn’t worked, despite years of trying. Giving families a choice, they say, will deliver better results for students.

“Applicant numbers alone illustrate how strongly families want educational options,” said Andrew Lewis, president of the foundation, and a former House legislator. “As more parents learn about scholarships and tax credits available to them, waiting lists will only grow.”