PA: Vouchers Feed Discrimination

In Pennsylvania, where we ought to be focused on responding to a court finding that our whole method of funding public education is both inequitable and inadequate, our Democratic governor Josh Shapiro and the GOP legislators just cannot get over their desire for more school vouchers.

This despite the fact that our current voucher system is both hugely unaccountable and also used to fund some jaw-dropping religious discrimination. 

So there are hearings going on (and have been for some time). Recently one of the people offering testimony was Susan Spicka, of Education Voters of Pennsylvania. Spicka is a rock star in the world of supporting public education. At a hearing of the House Democratic Policy Committee, Spicka opened her testimony with these lines:

In his budget address, Governor Shapiro said, “It’s ridiculous that here in Pennsylvania two women can get married on a Sunday and fired from their job on a Monday, just because they’re in love.”

What Governor Shapiro left out is that the children of this couple could get kicked out of their private school on Tuesday. And that tax dollars are used to support this discrimination.

Discrimination is a feature, not a bug, of school voucher programs. Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) school voucher programs direct $470 million tax dollars into private and religious schools that can, and do, explicitly discriminate against students for just about any reason they choose.

During this particular hearing, Representative Ismael Smith-Wade-El asked the question that has been on lots of minds since the death of Nex Benedict (video below):

Do you feel that the outcomes of these sort of funding pass through and voucher programs pose a risk to the lives of transgender young people?

Spicka's answer was to the point. Yes.  

If you're not living in an area like this I don't think that you can understand the impact that this hate that is coming out of these churches has on communities and on children, and without the tens of millions of dollars in voucher funding that has been poured into Lancaster County since eitc ostc was founded, these churches would not have the revenue that they have they would not have the expanse that they have. These churches are being funded by voucher dollars and they are spreading the hate.

Spicka's full testimony is worth reading, but I want to underline this point because it is often overlooked. It's not just that these discriminatory schools reject and expel students who don't align with their particular values. It's not just that they take taxpayer dollars and then decide which students they consider worthy of receiving an education, once again demonstrating that the promise of school choice is empty--it's school's choice instead.

It's also that by strengthening and funding these schools, taxpayers are energizing a source of toxic attitudes in the community. People who want to treat LGBTQ persons as Other, treat them as (as NC gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson puts it) "that filth," get to gather together in a bubble, convince each other that their way is the only right way, and then go out into the community and act on that belief. 

We continue to see signs that increased anti-LGBTQ rhetoric fuels more abuse and mistreatment of LGBTQ persons, and funding these christianist organizations makes it easier for them to amplify their anti-LGBTQ voices. 

I use the term "christianist" because none of this discriminatory nonsense looks like the Christianity that I know. Look, if you feel you can't fully and freely exercise your religion without being able to marginalize, attack, and discriminate against certain classes of people, I'm pretty sure you're doing your religion wrong. You are making your community worse, and why taxpayers should finance your bad behavior is beyond me.