NEWS
New report finds overwhelmingly negative results for students in cyber charter schools & mixed results for brick-and-mortar charter schools.
MEMO To: Interested Parties From: Susan Spicka, Executive Director, Education Voters of PA Date: June 4, 2019 Re: CREDO’s Charter School Performance in Pennsylvania (2019) report finds overwhelmingly negative results for students in cyber charter schools and mixed...
Stop the Charter School Expansion Bills
Last week Republican members of the House Education Committee advanced two charter school expansion bills that deliver the charter school industry’s wish list. We anticipate that the House will vote on these bills in early June. Click HERE to send a letter to your...
$100 million more for PA’s “secret school tax”
The PA House Education Committee passed what appears to be a top education priority for many lawmakers this year: a massive increase in taxpayer-funded school vouchers that benefit wealthy families. These lawmakers are not prioritizing an additional $100 million to...
Help end Tom Corbett’s influence over education in PA
Tom Corbett was voted out of office more than four years ago, yet his appointees continue to control the Charter School Appeal Board (CAB), a powerful body that can overturn school board decisions to deny charter school applications and strip communities of control...
State funding system leaves career tech students behind
High quality career and technical education (CTE) programs can equip students with skills, certifications, and higher-education credits that will allow them to graduate from high school ready to enter the workforce in a field they love and in a job that pays a...
So long, SPP. The Future Ready PA Index has arrived!
This week, the Pennsylvania Department of Education released the Future Ready PA Index, a new holistic school evaluation tool that gives parents and community members a treasure trove of information about every school in the commonwealth. Click HERE to explore the...
Now we hold lawmakers accountable for every child’s education
This week Pennsylvanians elected representatives in Harrisburg who will spend the next two or four years shaping education policy and determining how much funding our children’s public schools will receive. We must hold them accountable for every child’s education. We...
Don’t miss out on November 17th!
On Tuesday, November 6, Pennsylvanians will elect a governor, 203 state representatives, and 25 (of 50 total) state senators. On Saturday, November 17th, Pennsylvanians will come together at eight historic regional advocacy summits to kick off a statewide movement to...
Help shut down a school voucher tax shelter
Did you know that some Pennsylvania businesses can turn a tidy profit when they make contributions to school voucher programs? It’s true. When businesses contribute to scholarship/private school voucher organizations through Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement and...
Myth busting PA’s super voucher programs
We have developed this fact sheet, 2018-2019 Myth-busting PA's EITCOSTC Programs, to highlight very serious problems with Pennsylvania's Educational Improvement Tax Credit and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit programs, which siphon $160 million/year out of the PA...
PA lawmakers should let the charter school expansion bill die.
Lawmakers will be in Harrisburg for just nine days before the end of the 2017-2018 legislative session. Any bill that isn’t passed into law by the end of this session will have to start all over again next year. This means that House Bill 97, the charter school...
PA’s school funding lawsuit moves one step closer to trial!
The beginning of the school year coincides with good news for Pennsylvania’s public school students. On Tuesday, August 21, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court removed a major barrier that has kept the school funding lawsuit from going to trial! The court rejected a...
School funding lawsuit briefs show funding is getting worse
Last week petitioners in Pennsylvania's school funding lawsuit filed a brief and affidavits refuting the claim made by the Republican leader of the PA Senate, Joe Scarnati, that the lawsuit was rendered moot because the state adopted a school funding formula in 2016....
How did public school students do in the 2018-2019 PA budget?
As we head into summer, public education advocates should be proud that their hard work over the past year has paid off. The thousands of phone calls you made and emails you sent from every corner of the commonwealth have kept anti-public education legislation from...
ALERT-A brand new assault on PA’s public schools
On Tuesday, June 12, the PA Senate Education Committee will consider Senate Bill 1198, legislation that would: Continue to mandate labeling schools as successful or failing based primarily on students’ standardized test scores using the School Performance Profile...
A new partnership, a new poll, and a school funding lawsuit update
Education Voters of PA, like many other small non-profit organizations, works with a fiscal sponsor, a larger organization that provides services and supports that allow us to focus on our mission rather than on bookkeeping and administrative duties. I am pleased to...
Share your thoughts on school safety
School safety has been a hotly-debated topic in Harrisburg in recent weeks with the House and Senate Education Committees holding hearings on how best to protect students and education workers. Families and students were not permitted to testify at either hearing....
Join a Community Meeting about Public School Funding in Westmoreland County
Join Education Voters and local superintendents for an important discussion about school funding and state education policy. Thursday, May 17 at 7:00 pm Westmoreland Intermediate Unit, 102 Equity Dr, Greensburg, PA 15601 This event is free and open to the public....
On Monday, April 16, Call and Tweet to Oppose Vouchers in PA
We are hearing chatter in Harrisburg that some lawmakers on the Senate Education Committee are itching to vote on Senate Bill 2, the education savings account voucher bill, sometime before they go on break in May. Pennsylvanians who support public education have sent...
PA students deserve better than buckets of rocks and more guns in their schools. The PA House Education Committee must hold an additional hearing on school safety.
While students throughout PA have been begging adults to take action to make their schools safer, some Republican lawmakers were in Harrisburg laughing and joking about wanting to watch students train to throw rocks at an active shooter in their classrooms. This...