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Pennsylvania School Choice Bills

Posted By Andrew J. Coulson On April 27, 2011 @ 11:56 am In Education and Child Policy | Comments Disabled

Much attention and controversy have been focused in recent months on Pennsylvania Senate Bill 1, which would create a government-funded school voucher program.  Less attention, and far less controversy, accompanied the passage yesterday of an expansion of the state’s existing education tax credit program [1] out of the House education committee. The vote was 21 to 4.

Apart from the seemingly more favorable reception it is receiving, the tax credit program has three notable advantages: it is less likely to curtail educational freedom [1] by suffocating participating private schools with regulation (which would defeat the purpose of a school choice program), it does not force taxpayers to support types of education that may violate their convictions [2], and it encourages direct co-payments by parents toward the cost their children’s education, when they can afford to do so (which is associated in the international [3] and historical [4] research with higher school efficiency and greater responsiveness to parents’ demands).

Worth thinking about.

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URLs in this post:

[1] an expansion of the state’s existing education tax credit program: http://standardspeaker.com/news/school-choice-tax-credit-bill-advances-1.1138033

[2] does not force taxpayers to support types of education that may violate their convictions: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-coulson/a-winn-for-education-and-_b_848035.html

[3] international: http://www.cato.org/pubs/articles/coulson_comparing_public_private_market_schools_jsc.pdf

[4] historical: http://books.google.com/books?id=3xi49dmYw0wC&dq=andrew+coulson+market-education+chapter+9&q=parental+financial+#v=snippet&q=financial%20responsibility&f=false

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