Pennsylvania voucher measure advancing quickly

From The Associated Press:

The state Senate could vote as early as Wednesday on a bill that is designed to meet Gov. Tom Corbett’s desire to overhaul Pennsylvania’s public schools by helping thousands more of those students afford private and parochial school tuition with taxpayer help and making it easier to open charter schools.

A rewritten version of legislation that had stalled in the Senate in the spring easily passed the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday, just a day after the committee chairman released the new draft.

The rewritten bill adds a chapter on charter schools, but also it substantially scales back the scope of Piccola’s earlier voucher program that would have cost hundreds of millions of dollars more and been available to children of the state’s poorest families.

Under the new bill, vouchers would be limited to children in the worst-performing school districts, but income limits would be higher.


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BY Adam Emerson

Editor of redefinED, policy and communications guru for Florida education nonprofit