A short time later, Gov. Corbett - a leading voucher advocate - and Senate leaders reached a new compromise that critics say is designed to reduce the amount of vouchers in low-income districts like Philadelphia and give the excess dollars to families in more affluent districts.
The little-noticed change is typical of what has become a mega-million-dollar stealth push - heavily funded by out-of-state, right-wing millionaires and billionaires - to make Pennsylvania into a national proving ground for school choice.
In little more than a year, activists like Michigan's Betsy DeVos, of the Amway fortune; the heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton; and three wealthy Main Line hedge-fund traders have doled out an astonishing $6-million-plus in campaign cash to top Harrisburg pols, while they and allies have spent millions more on rallies, inflammatory mailers and lobbyists.
In doing so, they've managed to put a voucher program, which would take hundreds of millions of dollars from public schools and shift them to private or parochial schools, on the political front burner - even as those same public schools are facing draconian budget cuts.
Earlier this month, supporters of the state Senate's ambitious voucher program postponed a vote on the plan - perhaps until the fall - as they struggled to work out differences with the state House, where leaders would rather expand a less ambitious tax-credit program.
But critics of the voucher proposals don't expect it to go away - not with the enthusiastic backing of Corbett, whose campaign has received at least $50,000 from the pro-voucher Students First PAC, and from other lawmakers drenched in political dough.
