Mother laments Pennsylvania's school choice stalemate

(The Center Square) – Another year, another budget plan adopted in Pennsylvania.

Despite a $3 billion increase in spending – including record investment in struggling school districts – some parents say they’re disappointed that "lifeline scholarships" were overlooked, again.

“Lifeline helps inner city and urban children regardless of their race to get a better education,” Printess Garrett, a Harrisburg School District resident, told The Center Square. “They’ll be taking care of us when we get older so I just think education should always be at the forefront.”

Garrett’s district falls within the bottom 15% in terms of academic achievement, which would qualify her two sons for educational scholarships to attend a private school elsewhere. It’s a plan both legislative Republicans, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and a handful of other Democrats support.

Critics argue the state’s money is better spent on public schools. The state’s new budget , signed into law on July 11, earmarks $811 million in new spending. More than two-thirds of the money funnels to districts based on a newly reconstituted formula that weighs socioeconomic needs.

Doing so, lawmakers say, acknowledges a February court order to redirect school resources more equitably.

For school choice supporters, however, educational scholarships are part of the equation.

Garrett knows firsthand. As a child, she moved from the city to live with her grandparents in a nearby district that offered a gifted program.

After graduation, she worked in public education in both North Carolina and Georgia. Living in the latter with her four children, she said, shifted her mindset about school choice.

“As long as they can get to school it doesn’t matter what their address is,” she said of Georgia’s program, noting that many families there participate.

“It’s all anybody talks about,” she said.

For more than a decade, Georgia families have been able to transfer students out of their assigned school and into another district school, or into a public charter school. In March, the state approved education savings accounts that contribute $6,500 per student to attend a private school.

When Garrett and her two sons moved back to Harrisburg last year, she was disappointed by her options.

“I think Pennsylvania is behind,” she said. “Nothing has changed here, in my opinion, and I don’t think education is taken as seriously as it should be.”

Fortunately, Garrett said, she reconnected with a high school friend, Joshua Robertson, who serves as pastor of the city’s Rock Church. The encounter led her to enroll her sons in the church’s Learning Center – an independent school that offers tailored curriculum to each student – and begin working there, too.

Robertson is also a vocal advocate for expanding school choice through educational scholarships.

“Parents should not be relegated to choose one school district because of their ZIP code,” he said in a video. “I think we have curated an experience here where children can feel safe.”

School choice advocates note that the tabled $100 million school scholarship program would grow programs like the one offered at Rock Church – something Garrett says parents want.

“We get calls all the time,” she said. “It would help kids who don’t have parents like I have or grandparents like I did.”

Although lawmakers came close to an agreement on educational scholarships in 2023, a late-stage breakdown in negotiations between the Republican-controlled Senate and the Democratic-controlled House led to its demise.

At the time, Shapiro said it wasn’t his job to change their minds. In a February television interview, he reaffirmed his support for school choice – whether it was in the form of a tax credit or a “direct appropriation.”

For Garrett, however, the buck stops with the governor himself.

“You promised children something and if a child was listening to the promise you made, you still haven’t fulfilled it,” she said. “It just bothers me when a promise to a child isn’t kept.”