PTA Legislative Alerts

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Maryland PTA & County Council Alerts

MARCH 2010: Maryland PTA joins Public School Educators, Civil Rights organizations and other informed Marylanders in STRONG OPPOSITION to Tax Subsidies for private/parochial Schools – Senate Bill  385 & HOUSE BILL 946 . Maryland PTA urges all members and our friends to call/email the Governor, their State Senator and Delegates today. - http://www.capwiz.com/npta2/md/directory/statedir.tt?state=MD&lvl=  or http://mdelect.net/electedofficials/ 
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Public Funds for Public Schools ONLY!!
Background
  • Education vouchers provide parents a public subsidy to help finance the costs of sending their children to a school other than a public school. Although they may be called scholarships, certificates, portability, or choice, these funding schemes are all vouchers and authorize the use of public tax dollars to pay private and parochial school tuition and fees.
  • Education tax subsidies are a sibling of vouchers. These may be proposed as tax-free savings accounts, or as tax deductions or credits for education expenses. The impact of each is to reduce public revenue without improving public education.
  • Vouchers and education tax subsidies do not provide “choice” since neither can guarantee parents that their children will be admitted to the school of their choice. There is also no strong evidence that these programs improve student achievement. Furthermore, these programs undermine accountability, since private schools are not held to the same standards as public schools.
PTA Position
PTA supports public funds for public schools only, and opposes using tax dollars to finance education vouchers for private and religious schools. PTA opposes tax credits and deductions for elementary and secondary school tuition and other education-related expenses for public and nonpublic school students.
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Talking Points
  • Vouchers divert money from public schools (where 90 percent of all school-age children are enrolled) to private schools (where the public has no oversight of how those public dollars are spent), while doing nothing to improve public education.
  • Vouchers will not ensure parental “choice.” Private and religious schools may deny applications for enrollment for any reason. The “choice” in “choice programs” lies with private school administrators, not with parents.
  • There is no strong evidence that voucher programs—whether funded directly, or indirectly through education tax subsidies—improve student achievement.
  • Americans have consistently rejected vouchers, both in surveys and in referendums.
  • The primary beneficiaries of education tax subsidies are wealthy families whose children already attend private and religious schools or whose children are home-schooled, as opposed to families whose children attend public school