A stealthy new PAC, the Philly Archdiocese, and the big-money push for "vouchers lite"
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A stealthy new PAC, the Philly Archdiocese, and the big-money push for "vouchers lite"
This is the story I've been working on for the past week, Check it out:
A NEW, big-money political-action committee turned up on the Pennsylvania radar screen this spring — at exactly the same time that the Philadelphia Archdiocese launched a full-court press for legislation in Harrisburg that would pump millions of dollars of scholarship money into its struggling schools.
The new Fighting Chance PA PAC shares a name with a self-described grass-roots campaign launched in March by the Pennsylvania Catholic Coalition, and it shares office space with wealthy King of Prussia developer Brian O'Neill, who spearheaded a drive to raise $12 million from 10 anonymous donors earlier this year to keep open four endangered Catholic high schools.
In just a couple of months, the Fighting Chance PA PAC already has doled out $225,000 to pro-voucher state lawmakers and other political committees in Harrisburg. Its biggest donation to an individual lawmaker, $25,000, was handed to obscure GOP Rep. Jim Christiana of Beaver County on May 9 — one month before Christiana introduced a bill that would support scholarships for Catholic and other nonpublic schools but would cost the state as much as $75 million.
Ironically, the money that the PAC has raised hasn't come from any source traditionally tied to the Archdiocese: The entire $395,000 has come from three wealthy Bala Cynwyd-based hedge-fund founders — and their Students First PA PAC — who have spent millions since 2010 on Pennsylvania candidates who support vouchers and school choice.
Read the whole story. Is there more to come on this? Stay tuned.
Now the catholic church want tax money to subsidize their work with children? They just spent 11 mil. defending Msgr. Lynn, will pay for his appeal and they want a handout.— mick-of-the-moment- It's about time!!! Excellent schools not constrained by social promotion, union nonsense(somewhat) and and free to make their curriculum NOT based on the lower rung of humanity.
This would be a positive for society as a whole!!!!
Public schools have turned into nothing but public childcare for most parents in Philadelphia, chat rooms to create the next generation of students, that's funny even to me, a money pit for the decent citizen taxpayer with a very small minority of students actually learning what they need to make their way successfully though life.
My Saint John Neumann diploma equals a Temple degree nowdays, it would of been nice back then if my parents didn't have to pay for both my education and the lower rung. Maybe we could of had a nicer vacation.— Crazybrave1 - @Crazybrave1--A Central diploma in your day (or any day) makes your Neumann diploma slightly better than scrap paper.— mick-of-the-moment
- A Central Diploma was once a good piece of paper, not anymore and it never reached the heights of a Neumann diploma. Sorry mick???
- I oppose public education dollars going to provite schools in the form of vouchers. You want to get the better education of a private school? Pay for it yourself. Getting the government to pay for private education is too much of an invitation fo corruption, like what has happened in public housing, foodstamps, medicaid, etc.
Keep them separate.— Mr. Smith - "and free to make their curriculum NOT based on the lower rung of humanity" . . . . . Well, now we know the real agenda (thanks crazybrave for your Turzai-like candor). Are you sure its the Church's mission to exclude and leave behind the least of our brethren, against the teaching of Matthew 25? (Apparently you missed that class at Neumann, or daydreamed about a nicer vacation?) Or is the church being used as a pawn for a grand eugenics experiment to weed out the weaklings? Yeah, right. When hedge fund managers are involved, it can only mean outsourcing to the private sector for profit.— montani semper liberi
- Social promotion is alive in the public schools and it's unfortunate. Sorry? What happens is standards are lowered in order to sustain your utopian process of diversity to the point of a diminished school system.
And while true that if you don't meet the standards in the private sector you get thrown out of school, it made me work/study hard, the opposite is even more untenable, promotion to the next grade without any standard. - Choice if you want to kill your child, but not if you want to educate your child.
Keep them poor, keep them stupid, keep them liberal.— jmc - mick, Central and Girls are still among the best public high schools in the state if not the country. Interesting that crazybrave fails to mention Neumann's dire budget problems and decreasing enrollment over the last 20 years or so.— montani semper liberi
- jmc, nobody's denying choice, but the hypocrisy is stunning. Parochial schools are facing market realities, something we're told the state isn't supposed to meddle with bailouts, right? Furthermore we're told public education and higher education must yield to budget realities, and yet the state can apparently afford 75 million in direct scholarships to parochial schools. Explain that choice.— montani semper liberi
- @Crazybrave--You need brains and established performance to even get into Central. To get into Neumann you need a checkbook or a letter from a priest. No comparison.— mick-of-the-moment
- That's not true!!! I was tested to enter my high school, if I didn't pass I'd of been forced to go to Southern.
So guess what I studied.
And if I didn't keep up my grades I'd get tossed. - "To get into Neumann you need a checkbook or a letter from a priest." . . . . And there's the Church's dilemma. Declining membership in the Church - particularly urban parishes due to suburban flight of the middle class - is a sad fact of recent history, mitigated only by the influx of poor latin immigrants. The priest sex scandals haven't helped win over new converts. The Church clings to stodgy traditions - male, celibate priesthood being the most arcane - that defy common sense in the 21st century. An unholy alliance with profit-motivated neo-conservatism is a sign of desperation.— montani semper liberi
- Is there any fairness for a family to sens their children to a parochial school and pay tuition while at the same time paying taxes that go to "pay tuition" for other children in public schools? I see an unfair double standard in that.— DonQ
- Is there any fairness to a family that has no children yet still must pay taxes, a family that puts out less trash than their neighbor but still pays the same taxes? We can go on and on with these different scenarios.— mick-of-the-moment
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