Who would Pa. vouchers save from failing schools? Philly students could be eligible regardless of the school they attend.

The controversial voucher proposal that would pay some Pennsylvania families to send their children to private schools has been pitched as a way to free students from failing public schools.

But the way the plan is written, Philadelphia students would be eligible regardless of whether they attend a “low-achieving school,” as designated by the state, and even if they attend a high-performing one.

The question of who exactly would benefit from taxpayer-funded vouchers — and what it would cost the state and its public school system — has become a flash point ahead of the June 30 state budget deadline, even as the proposal’s prospects in the legislature are unclear. After a voucher battle held up last year’s budget, a new drive for the program — this time featuring celebrity backing from Jay-Z — has drawn intense pushback from public education advocates.

Here’s how the voucher program would work, and why it has become contentious in Philly and Harrisburg:

Proponents say the vouchers would provide a crucial benefit to needy students in low-performing schools. Under the bill before the Pennsylvania Senate, however, any student who lives “within the attendance boundary of a low-achieving school” and meets income guidelines would be eligible for the new program, known as PASS.

The state defines “low-achieving schools” as within the bottom 15% statewide on standardized test scores. Among the 138 Philadelphia schools that appear on that list are some high schools that accept students from anywhere in the district — an attendance boundary of the entire city.

While Philadelphia has some of the state’s lowest-performing schools, it also has some of its highest-ranked — such as Masterman and Central — along with other selective high schools. Under the bill, even students attending those schools — or a well-performing Philadelphia elementary school, for instance — could qualify for a voucher.

“Not all these children are attending underperforming schools in reality,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, a pro-public-education advocacy group.

A spokesperson for Sen. Judy Ward, a Republican from Blair County who introduced the bill, declined to respond on the record to specific questions about the eligibility requirements.

“We cannot wait any longer to offer a lifeline to children trapped in schools that are failing them,” Ward said in a statement. “This legislation empowers parents and enables young people to pursue their dreams at a school that best fits their individual needs.”

The language regarding the bottom 15% of schools comes from an existing Pennsylvania program that provides tax credits to businesses for contributing to private-school scholarships. To be eligible for the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) program, children also must live within the attendance boundary of a low-achieving school.

It’s not clear how that requirement is implemented. Pennsylvania Department of Education spokesperson Casey Smith said that “since school districts set the boundaries for each school building, this would be more of a local decision.”

A school designated as low-achieving is supposed to communicate to current families, “as well as those that would transfer into that school in the fall,” that OSTC is an option, Smith said.

There is no public data on recipients of the OSTC scholarships — or a second Pennsylvania scholarship program, the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program — making it impossible to evaluate who has qualified thus far.

The Department of Community and Economic Development, which oversees the tax credit programs, did not respond to questions about student eligibility and how it verifies information provided by scholarship recipients.

The voucher proposal’s income requirements present another eligibility question. To receive a scholarship, students would have to live in a household earning 250% or less of the federal poverty level — about $75,000 for a family of four.

About 55% of Philadelphia’s 200,000 public-school students live in households earning 185% or less of the federal poverty limit — the income threshold for free and reduced-price lunches. So with the entire district within geographic boundaries for the voucher program, at least 110,000 Philadelphia students would be eligible based on income levels — likely significantly more when households earning up to 250% of the federal poverty limit are included.

That creates a much broader eligibility pool than the voucher program — at least at its proposed funding levels — could cover. The Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative advocacy group that has been pushing for vouchers, estimates that 250,000 children statewide would be eligible for the program; the program, proposed to be funded at $100 million last year, would be able to afford only 13,000 scholarships, said Nathan Benefield, the foundation’s senior vice president.

“We don’t assume a mass exodus” from public schools, said Benefield. He said other states had seen fewer than 5% of eligible students apply for private school vouchers in the first year of a new program.

Critics note that under the proposed bill, students who receive a voucher one year could continue to receive it in subsequent years, even if they move or their family income increases.

“If this is about scholarships, and ‘opportunity,’ we already have that,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney with the Public Interest Law Center, which represented school districts in a lawsuit that led to a ruling last year declaring Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional for depriving poorer districts of needed resources. “This is intended to open the door to something else entirely.”

Although Benefield said the voucher program’s intent was to “target those with the greatest need,” he said the Commonwealth Foundation “would certainly love to see a universal” voucher program.

That’s happened in other states, as the school-choice movement has expanded. In Ohio, for instance, a voucher program that started in the 1990s with just the city of Cleveland has grown to encompass the entire state, with every student eligible.

The Pennsylvania proposal “resembles a conservative vision for what a means-tested, antipoverty” program would look like, said Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University. “It’s just that the historical record has shown it never stays that way.”

In states such as Iowa, Florida, and Arizona, most students applying for universal school-choice programs were already attending private schools, Education Week reported last year. The Brookings Institution found that families in Arizona’s wealthiest communities were most likely to be accessing program funding.

The scholarship amounts awarded by state voucher programs — Pennsylvania’s is proposed to provide $2,500 for half-day kindergarten, up to $10,000 for high school, and $15,000 for students with special needs — are too low for low-income families to access the best private schools, Cowen said. That’s part of the reason voucher programs have “devastating” academic outcomes, Cowen said: “You can’t leave a so-called failing public school and go to an even worse private school and expect the results to improve, even if it’s what the parents want.”

Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning think tank, acknowledged that studies showing negative academic results for kids using private school vouchers were “absolutely” an argument against the programs.

But, Petrilli said, some research shows positive a impact from voucher programs on traditional public schools.

“It’s kind of ironic — these programs seem to be helping the kids who don’t participate in them more than the kids who do,” said Petrilli, who favors school choice but said “it should also come with accountability.”

Proponents of the Pennsylvania voucher effort say it would not take money from public schools, though school districts receive state funding based on enrollment; students who leave for private schools reduce a district’s enrollment count. Critics also say states that spend money on vouchers tend to invest less in public education.

Some district leaders with schools on the low-achieving list say vouchers will only worsen the funding shortfalls they fault for their problems.

“It’s not the schools that are failing,” said Brian Waite, superintendent of the Shenandoah Valley School District — one of six plaintiff districts in the funding lawsuit, all of which have low-achieving schools. “It’s the funding that’s failing us.”