Corbett's announcement breathed new life into a proposal that has floundered for a year: introducing taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers to help Pennsylvania's poorest families transfer their children from the worst-performing public schools to other public, private or parochial schools.
But say voucher and controversy crackles. Perhaps that is why Corbett dubbed the vouchers "opportunity scholarships." Will struggling city schools be forced to improve? Or will they be bankrupted? Will upstate schools get overlooked? Will children gain or lose?
Pollster G. Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College said the battle mirrors the voucher debate 16 years ago, which did not break on party lines.
"Some rural lawmakers don't like it because they won't be able to avail themselves of the money in their districts. Others think it's a way to get public schools to be competitive," said Madonna. "There is division by region, by ideology, by partisanship."
The list of lawmakers with Corbett on Tuesday told a tale: all were Republican, only one from the southeastern part of the state, and none from Philadelphia - whose schools would be most affected. The legislature's leading voucher proponents, Sens. Anthony Hardy Williams (D., Phila.) and Jeff Piccola (R., Dauphin), were absent, though Williams issued a statement of support later.
The plan would reroute to a student's new school 75 percent of the per-student state dollars that would go to the student's home district. Though Corbett didn't provide figures, estimates of such vouchers are in the $7,000-to-9,000 range.
According to last year's figures, the vast majority of the poorest-performing schools - 91 of 144 - were in Philadelphia.
The fact that the plan is focused on the poorest families makes it more palatable to some - but less attractive to legislators who had hoped some vouchers would be available to middle-class families.
