in early July, they delivered a historic windfall to a popular tax credit program that underwrites scholarships for Pennsylvania students to attend private schools.
“We have zero quantitative data to see if it’s effective,” said state Sen. Lindsey Williams, a Democrat from Allegheny County who also spoke out against the program’s funding increase when lawmakers voted on the budget. “And we don’t even get additional accountability in exchange for the largest increase to the program.”
In 2001, under Republican Gov. Tom Ridge, the legislature voted, without debate, to create the Educational Improvement Tax Credit, or EITC. At the time, some lawmakers and public education activists viewed it as a backdoor way for Ridge, an advocate of government-funded tuition vouchers, to get a school choice program in place in Pennsylvania.
That first year, the EITC program was capped at $30 million, but legislators have negotiated increases to it nearly every year since. With the additional $115 million in this year’s budget deal, the cap now stands at $340 million.