Poll: School choice support defies partisanship in Pennsylvania

(The Center Square) – A recent poll suggests that support for school choice doesn’t hinge on any political affiliation, age, ethnicity, region or 2024 presidential vote.

Rather, across all demographics, as many as two-thirds of respondents support the concept of educational scholarships that offer state funding directly to families to fund private school tuition.

Support for the policy reached as high as 56% among Democrats and Kamala Harris voters – a significant figure given the party’s historical opposition to it.

Ragnar Research Partners interviewed 800 likely voters in person between March 15 and 17. The results showed 84% of Republicans, 79% of independents and 56% of Democrats supported the idea.

Support among Black and Hispanic voters was 82% and 80%, respectively. Among white voters, favorability dropped to 70%. Meanwhile, three out of four younger voters under age 44 expressed support for school choice, compared to 72% for those under 64 and 65.5% for those 65 and older.

At least two-thirds of voters in every region of the state also approve of the concept, with the highest rates measured in urbanized communities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton and Harrisburg.

Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children Growth Fund, lamented that despite the state’s early adoption of school choice tax credits two decades ago, the commonwealth has fallen far behind its neighbors.

“These polling results are crystal clear – Pennsylvania voters want expanded school choice,” he said. “Educational freedom for families continues to receive overwhelming support across political, geographic and demographic categories.”

For critics, however, using taxpayer money to pay private school tuition feels unconscionable, particularly after a state court ruling to equalize funding across 500 school districts lest lawmakers run afoul of their constitutional obligations.

The polling data, however, backs up the skyrocketing demand seen within Pennsylvania’s existing school choice tax credit programs, where nearly half of students are turned away due to funding constraints.

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 in 2023, just 85,000 were served. For the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit, 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.”