Administration seeks to add more schools to voucher bill in negotiations

By Peter L. DeCoursey
Bureau Chief
Capitolwire


HARRISBURG (Aug. 8) -- Education Secretary Ron Tomalis and Senate Education Committee Chairman Jeff Piccola, R-Dauphin, both expressed optimism about ongoing voucher negotiations aimed at producing a bill this fall.


But a top House GOP leader said it was up to the Senate to pass a voucher bill and up to the governor to drum up public support for it.


Tomalis also said the proposal would be based on the first two years of Senate Bill 1, plus an expansion of the Education Improvement Tax Credit and adding 48 schools where half the students were behind their current grade level in test results.


Tomalis, in a forthcoming CapitolCast interview, said: “This is the governor’s highest priority and what he wants to address with the legislators this … coming fall. … I’m very hopeful, I am much more positive about things in the fall than I was… I feel very comfortable about the conversations we have been having with the Legislature.”


Asked if there was agreement between Corbett and the Senate GOP on what the fall voucher bill will look like, Tomalis said: “Pretty close.”


Piccola responded: “There has been hard work for the last several weeks at the staff level but nothing is finalized. I am pleased with the leadership of the governor's office and the positive involvement of the House.”


The current bill would allow thousands of students in the 144 schools with the worst student achievement records to apply for a voucher of $7,000 or more – limited by the cost of the private school tuition – to attend another school. Tomalis said the Corbett administration also wants to allow - in future years, not the first two years of the bill - kids from schools where 50 percent of students are below grade level, to get vouchers.


That would add 48 schools to the list said Tomalis spokesman Tim Eller.


Piccola said the proposal was still under discussion and not yet finalized, and declined further comment on the addition of the 48 schools.


Other provisions Tomalis said Corbett will push for would seek to bring “accountability” for the private school scholarships. That testing requirement for students receiving the vouchers would largely follow Piccola’s proposal, Tomalis said.


But while Gov. Tom Corbett said Thursday that ultimately a House-Senate-administration joint plan was his goal, a top House Republican leader continued to say a voucher bill has to get to them first, and Corbett and the Senate have to sell it.


Piccola blamed the collapse of a late-starting June voucher effort on the unwillingness of House Republican leaders to negotiate a bill, much less commit to pass it. That drumbeat was then repeated by other Senate leaders on that issue.


House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, said July 20: “The Senate took the lead on school choice the way we took the lead on fair share and welfare reform and passed them first. The Senate is just going to have to decide what they can pass and send over to the House. One chamber has to start all these bills, and we started a bunch. They took the lead on school choice. Now we will see if they can deliver a bill to the House.”


Then, late last week, Turzai told The Morning Call of Allentown on the topic of vouchers: "I think that there are important issues. But the governor and his team, they’re going to have to go sell it. They really need to make the case [to the House and the state]. A lot of time[s], you see movement in the Legislature, when people are pushing it.


"I think, in the school districts that aren’t performing, it’s not always their fault. I don’t blame educators in some of these districts. Sometimes I think it is the system. Sometimes there are bigger issues. But you got to find ways for kids to succeed. I’m certainly open to looking to find more ways to get kids to succeed. But in the end, the governor and his team have to state the case.”


Asked last week by the newspaper to respond to those comments, saying it was up to him to move vouchers, Corbett shrugged and said he hoped for “a joint proposal” on the issue.


Piccola’s e-mailed response to the Turzai comments was: “No reaction since nothing is final.”


Tomalis said the Corbett administration’s commitment to giving students and parents more choices would include, over time, giving students more curricular options through the Internet, and not limiting a student’s classes to a school’s faculty.


Tomalis said this voucher bill “is an important first step, but it is in my mind just the tip of the spear of where we’re going to go in education, not just in Pennsylvania, but across the country.


While the House had pressed to take the EITC from $75 million annually this year to $200 million, Tomalis said it may take a phase-in of years to achieve that level of funding, given the state’s budget problems.


Corbett said: “Vouchers are very important. … We came close to getting it [in June], a lot closer than you all know, I think, to getting it. We’re looking at it, we’re working on it, to come up with a bill that addresses the needs of the children who are attending the failing schools and to get them the ability to go to a better school, to have the money go with the child.”