Peter Greene has read the legislative language of SB 2 in the Pennsylvania State Senate so we don’t have to, and he spells out what is in it. You can be sure that there is nothing good for public schools.

An astonishing 15% of the lowest scoring schools are eligible, which is way larger than most states. As Peter points out, even if every school were doing a good or great or awesome job, there will always be a bottom 15% to thrown into the pool of eligible-for-a-voucher.

He writes:

What’s Super-Duper About It?

Vouchers are a policy idea that will not die; let’s just give every student a check and let them enroll at whatever school they want to (and let’s not talk about the fact that they don’t really get to decide because top private schools are expensive and all private schools are free to accept students or not for whatever reason).

But many reformsters see another end game. Why bother with school at all? Let students purchase an English class from one vendor and a math class from another. Get history lessons on line paid for by your educational voucher card account.

ESAs make that splintered version of “education” possible. Instead of saying, “Here’s a tuition voucher to pay your way to the school of your choice,” the state says, “Here’s a card pre-loaded with your education account money. Spend your special edu-bucks however you want to.”

Do you think that legislators in Pennsylvania care that voucher studies for the past few years have consistently shown that kids do worse than the ones who stayed behind in public schools?

Guess not.