Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidates advocate school-vouchers bill at forum

Addressing "school choice" advocates, the two candidates for Pennsylvania governor said Tuesday they generally support a bill that would permit low-income students in failing public schools to obtain vouchers they could use for attendance at another public school or private school.

That commitment by Republican Tom Corbett and Democrat Dan Onorato represented a major shift in the education debate since the last election for governor in 2006, when school choice was not a top issue.

It reflects a growing split among public-education advocates, including liberals, over whether taxpayer-funded vouchers should ever be permitted, even in school districts with low test scores and high dropout rates. Democrats in the past have fought off all attempts to create vouchers in the state, saying they undermine support for public education.

Corbett, adopting the terminology of voucher advocates, called it "the civil rights issue of the 21st century."

"Parents should have a right to choose the school their child attends, including a right to make a choice outside the public schools if the school their child attends is failing," Corbett said at a forum organized by Students First, a political action committee.

Though he avoided the term vouchers, Onorato said he, too, supported a bill introduced in June by State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams (D., Phila.) that would provide "opportunity grants" to selected students. The measure is still in the Senate.

Onorato called the bill part of a change package he is advocating, including greater funding for schools, especially early-childhood education.

He said he exercised his own school choice by sending his children to Catholic school in Pittsburgh.

"I have no problems with giving other kids opportunities, too," he said in the forum at the National Constitution Center.

Joe Watkins, spokesman for Students First, said the PAC might make donations this fall to the Corbett or Onorato campaigns, but he did not say which.

In the spring, a trio of Bala Cynwyd businessmen gave a combined $5 million to Williams, then one of three Democrats running against Onorato in the Democratic primary. The three - Joel Greenberg, Jaffrey Yass, and Arthur Dantchick, all of the Susquehanna Investment Group - funneled most of their contributions through the PAC.

Watkins said in summer that he did not expect the trio to become big donors in the fall election, in part because they did not like the public scrutiny their Williams donations brought them.

But asked Tuesday whether they planned to contribute, he said, "I hope so. I really do."

Greenberg, Yass, and Dantchick were at the conference, but they did not speak with reporters.

The candidates took turns speaking, but did not set foot on stage at the same time. Their first face-to-face debate is scheduled for Sept. 27 in Harrisburg.

Both expressed strong support for charter schools and the state's Educational Employment Tax Credit program, which permits businesses to take tax credits for tuition donations to private schools.

Corbett said that Williams' bill calling for opportunity grants is "a great concept" that still has to be worked out in detail.

As governor, Corbett said, he would create a charter school board at the state level. But he said such a group would not usurp the power of local school directors to oversee charter schools. He said it would be advisory.

He also said he would establish a "grading system" for public-school performance - "A, B, C, D, or F."

During a panel discussion prior to the gubernatorial forum, speakers had excoriated teachers unions for - in their view - blocking education changes.

When Onorato spoke, a questioner noted that he has the endorsement of the state's major teachers unions. The questioner was asked whether this would dampen his support for opportunity grants, which the unions oppose.

Onorato said it would not.

After the forum, the Corbett campaign said that Onorato, in endorsing opportunity grants, had flip-flopped from a primary position of opposing all vouchers.

Onorato said that the limited sort of vouchers proposed by Williams had never come up in the primary. He noted that, as a Pittsburgh city councilman in the 1990s, he had once voted "yes" on a nonbinding resolution that supported vouchers in that city.

"I've been for this stuff since the '90s," he said.