In Pennsylvania, as anywhere else in America, private schools can do pretty much whatever they want. They can refuse to accept disabled or LGBTQ applicants. They can expel students for getting pregnant and even for merely having LGBTQ friends outside of school. At the same time, they can require applicants’ families to attend church, not to mention teach students that God created the universe in six days.
Some schools in the state do exactly that—with the support of nearly a half-billion dollars’ worth of public funds, and with hardly any state oversight. And yet, even some Democrats, including Governor Josh Shapiro, want to direct more taxpayer dollars—which otherwise would go to public schools—to private schools.
Pennsylvania has two programs that provide students with tuition vouchers for religious and secular private schools: the Educational Improvement Tax Credit, or EITC, and the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit, or OSTC, programs. But a new report from the Keystone Research Center has found that these schools have a troubling track record and glaring lack of accountability, allowing taxpayer dollars to subsidize wealthy families and fund expensive schools that teach creationism and discriminate against students.
While proponents of vouchers claim they give better educational opportunities to underserved students with low test scores, the report highlights just how little information exists to even assess these programs’ impact on student achievement. What is known, however, is that these programs now have a combined annual budget of $470 million—up from $340 million the previous year. In the 2022–2023 school year, $240 million went to religious schools and nearly $17 million went to the 24 most exclusive, most expensive schools in the state, where the average tuition is about $41,000 a year.
“What we really found is that these voucher programs that already exist in Pennsylvania are exclusive,” Diana Polson, the Keystone Research Center’s senior policy analyst and co-author of the report, told me. “If you look at the average EITC and OSTC scholarship, it’s usually around $2,000 a year. That would barely make a dent in any of these schools.”
While the income limit for scholarships is nearly $150,000 per four-person........