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HARRISBURG — Most Pennsylvania voters don’t support using taxpayer dollars to create a private school voucher program, a new Spotlight PA poll shows, an idea embraced by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro in a break with most members of his party.

Supporters argue vouchers give parents and students in struggling public schools vital choices. Opponents say they’ll devastate public schools by diverting funding and don’t necessarily help students.

Debates over a proposal to spend $100 million on such a program led to a nearly six-month budget impasse in 2023.

The Spotlight PA poll asked likely voters whether they approve or disapprove of a proposal that “would use $100 million in taxpayer money to establish a voucher program that sends public school students to private or religious schools.”

Of the respondents, 22% said they strongly approved, 14% somewhat approved, 18% somewhat disapproved, and 36% strongly disapproved. 10 percent were unsure or refused to answer.

The poll was conducted by the MassINC Polling Group between Sept. 12 and 18, and asked 800 likely voters about the upcoming Nov. 5 election.

Shapiro came out in favor of a voucher program when he ran for governor, and a predominantly Republican group of lawmakers has pushed hard to make such a program happen. Supporters have big money backing them, including Pennsylvania’s richest person, Jeff Yass, and rapper Jay-Z.

Firm opposition from state House Democrats has repeatedly sunk the effort.

The specific proposal Pennsylvania lawmakers have been considering would create a $100 million program that would be available to students from relatively low-income families — those that make less than 250% of the federal poverty guidelines, or less than $78,000 annually for a family of four. Students would also have to attend “ low-achieving” schools to qualify.

While $100 million is a tiny appropriation compared to the more than $8 billion Pennsylvania is currently spending for basic education annually, opponents have noted that small voucher programs in other states have ballooned to take up bigger and bigger shares of state budgets.

Research on vouchers’ outcomes is mixed. Recent studies have shown that larger programs, which are increasingly common, have had negative impacts on student success.

The Spotlight PA poll found that both political affiliation and race played a role in whether a person supports vouchers.

For example, 76% of Democratic respondents said they strongly or somewhat oppose such a program, while 53% of Republicans expressed some level of support. White respondents were also more likely to oppose vouchers (57%) compared to respondents of other races (39%).

Spotlight PA isn’t the only organization that has conducted a poll on vouchers in recent years, though many surveys are commissioned and designed by groups that advocate for alternatives to public schools. Voucher proponents often point to this polling to argue that vouchers are overwhelmingly popular.

One of the most frequent pollsters on this issue is EdChoice, a school choice organization that advocates for state-level voucher programs. Since 2020, it has run a monthly national poll that asks adults and school parents if they support a program in which “tax dollars currently allocated to a school district would be allocated to parents in the form of a 'school voucher' to pay partial or full tuition for the child’s school.”

The group uses its national data to estimate what opinions in states might look like.

“For vouchers, support has hovered in the low to mid-60s,” said Paul DiPerna, vice president of research and innovation for EdChoice.

Using that data, the group predicts similar levels of support in Pennsylvania.

Asked about the discrepancy between that estimate and Spotlight PA’s poll of Pennsylvania voters, DiPerna said outcomes often come down to language. For instance, he said, voters tend to react negatively when asked about using “taxpayer money” for a program, but are more amenable to using “government funding.”

Likewise, he said people tend to be more open to voucher programs that would be limited to poorer people, or people in struggling school districts — though his organization doesn’t specifically push for those limitations.

“Our focus and our mission as an organization is the broadest possible eligibility, the broadest possible access, and also the broadest range of providers,” he said.

Maura McInerney, legal director at the Education Law Center, which advocates for public school students, agreed that wording in voucher polling matters. That’s why she is skeptical of any polling from school choice groups like EdChoice.

“It's the way that question is framed,” she said. “‘Do you agree students and families should have a choice about where their children attend school?’ And people respond, ‘Yes,’ but what we need to do is really look at the more specific information about, what do vouchers do?”

One of the Education Law Center’s biggest arguments against vouchers is that they can route public money to schools that are permitted to discriminate against certain students.

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act bars discrimination based on race, religion, and disability, but doesn’t explicitly apply those standards to private schools. While federal law prevents such schools from discriminating based on race, many religious schools have, in the past, opposed further protections, arguing they infringe on their religious liberty.

That means in Pennsylvania, private schools are allowed, for instance, to turn away gay or pregnant students.

If it were up to McInerney, voucher polling questions would look very different.

“The question we must focus on is, ‘Do you agree that public dollars should be directed to unaccountable private schools that can and do subsidize discrimination?’” she said. “If you posed it in that way, you might get a very different response.”

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