On The Issues

In Depth

Education in Pennsylvania is in terrible shape. Appallingly terrible!

How appallingly terrible?  According to the 2024 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), more than HALF of all students are not proficient at grade level in reading, and TWO THIRDS are not proficient in math.  But that’s just the average; the worst school district tops out with 4 out of 5 students who can’t read or do math at their grade level.  Even the best school districts still have about 1 out of 5 who can’t perform at grade level.  And the 2024 Keystone Exam identified 18 schools that did not have a single student testing proficient in either reading OR math. The terrible problems are pervasive—and getting worse: Trends show a statewide 5–10% average decline since 2019.

Worse yet, we are not getting value for our tax dollars.  The average cost to educate a student in Pennsylvania exceeds $23,000, but the cost of a non-elite private school is only around $11,000—less than half!

Article 3 Section 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution says: “The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.“  But when more than half the kids can’t read at grade level and two-thirds can’t do math, that can hardly be called “thorough.”  And when the average cost to educate a kid in a government school is more than twice the cost of a non-elite private school, it’s the antithesis of “efficient.” 

Adding insult to injury, there are no required statewide standards for the student’s curriculum.  Although the state’s “Master Plan for Basic Education” includes recommendations, it does not create any requirements, does not require anyone to respond to that Master Plan, and does not directly engage in any follow-ups regarding the Plan.  While the Board of Education regularly receives reports about the Master Plan, those reports do not address the helpfulness or usefulness of the policy recommendations they’ve made.  In other words, the curriculum is being left adrift with no mechanism to ensure it is at all correct, useful, or even being followed.

 Clearly and without a doubt, whatever we’re currently doing with education is not working.   But what needs to be done to fix things? 

• More money? A study by Standard & Poor’s shows that one-third of the best performing schools receive less than the average funding, while the one-third worst receive more than the average funding.  So fiddling with funding is not an answer because money is not the problem.  

• More administrators? The number of administrators has been skyrocketing, yet scores continue to fall.  Since 2000, administrators in Pennsylvania schools have increased 40% while enrollment has dropped 7.7%   So having too few administrators is clearly not the problem.  

• More regulations? The existing regulations have brought us to the sad state we see today.  And far too many mandates are unfunded, leaving local schools to carry the load.  Why would anyone want more regulations? 

• More special programs? Initiatives such as the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC), Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC), and Lifeline Scholarships only nibble at the edges of the problem, and deal only with funding, not the basic task of educating our kids. 

• More politics as usual? Count on it.  The overriding motivation and expertise of our politicians is in getting themselves reelected.  Why would anyone ever think politicians are experts on education?  They’re not, and educating our children is far from their main concern.  Meanwhile, education suffers.

 The bottom line here is that all of these “solutions” have been tried in the past and have not worked.  It’s obvious that a completely new direction must be taken, and taken soon. 

 The cold, hard fact is that the politicians in Harrisburg have failed miserably when it comes to educating our kids.  They obviously can no longer be trusted with the responsibility, so the time has come for them to step aside and let someone more capable take on that critical responsibility.  The time has come for the free market to come to the rescue.  The time has come to privatize Pennsylvania schools completely and eliminate school property taxes! 

 Here’s how:

 On average, the state and federal governments provide about $11,000 of the $23,000+ currently spent per student, with the remaining $12,000 coming from property taxes.  So rather than throwing good tax dollars after bad, that $11,000 can be deposited into an Educational Savings Account (ESA) for each student each year.  Parents can then decide how best to use those funds to educate their children.  Withdrawals from ESAs could only be used for bona-fide educational expenses, and any unused amount at the end of the school year can either be transferred to any other ESA or rolled over to the next school year.  But once a student reaches college graduation age at 25 years old, any remaining balance must either be transferred to any other ESA or withdrawn as taxable income to help launch the student’s chosen career.

 Imagine the plethora of benefits!  Since the average cost of a non-elite private school is around $11,000, every child is guaranteed access to a private school education.  There will no longer be any need for means-tested subsidies, higher subsidies for the disadvantaged or higher cost areas, etc.  While EITC and other programs have been a literal lifeline for about 7% of Pennsylvania students stuck in failing schools, the $2,600 average scholarship amount does not come close to the $11,000 cost of education.  On the other hand, ESAs would be an even greater lifeline by covering the entire cost of a private education, as well as being available to every single student in the state. 

 With that $11,000 boon in hand, the number of kids reading and doing math at grade level will surely improve.  And since the government is already budgeting that $11,000, no tax increase is necessary.  In fact, it goes the other way: Since ESAs will fund a private education entirely, local school taxes will no longer be necessary.  They can be abolished outright.  That means property taxes will plummet to a small fraction of what they are today.  Kids win, parents win, property owners win, renters win, and Pennsylvania’s future is secured.  ESAs would replace all of the other failed Harrisburg education initiatives, saving even more money and ending the unending political meddling.

 The $11,000 figure is based on current understandings and Pennsylvania Department of Education data. The logical place to start in the first year is the average price of private schools.  In subsequent years, the ESA contribution amount will automatically be adjusted to match the median amount that parents actually spent the prior school year.

Of course there will be many questions about the impact of ESAs on the current state of affairs.  See the FAQs below.

But the key question remains: Can the political will be mustered to privatize education?  Given past legislative history and lobbying efforts by special interests, the answer is likely to be a resounding NO!  So the plan is to initiate the use of courts with a lawsuit to address the appallingly terrible education our children are receiving.  Virtually all past court challenges have dealt with education funding and NOT the inadequacy of the provided education itself—such as an unenforced curriculum—so a challenge based on the abysmal results of government-directed education is long past due.  In the most recent court case, William Penn v. Department of Education (587 MD 2014), all seven remedies ordered by the court are exactly what privatization delivers, including equal protection under the law and providing ALL students with access to a quality education that does not discriminate based on income or property values.  And should the new court challenge fail, there are numerous legislative initiatives that can still be pursued.  

In summary, educating our children is far too important to be left entirely in the hands of the government, especially considering their abysmal track record.  Government-controlled education has proven itself to be the worst thing that’s happened to students since homework!  Fortunately, privatizing education and creating Educational Savings Accounts offer the best way out of our appallingly terrible education system.  And the best way to achieve those reforms—and apparently the ONLY way—is to vote Libertarian.