Taxpayer Funds Used to Lobby Against Educational Choice

All Pennsylvania students deserve quality educations. For kids with unmet educational needs, Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) provide access to the opportunities many of their peers already enjoy.

Yet, instead of embracing the promise of improved education for the thousands of students in Pennsylvania’s lowest performing schools, the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) leads the opposition to ESAs—and they’re using taxpayer funds to do so.

A statewide Right-to-Know request reveals that Pennsylvania schools have transferred millions of dollars to PSBA, which then uses a portion of these funds to lobby against reforms that benefit students and taxpayers.

Tallying only a fraction of school district responses shows the PSBA has siphoned over $10 million from public schools since 2010. We will update this number as more records become available.

In an effort to keep more money in district offices, PSBA crafts a misleading narrative that dismisses ESAs’ promising results from other states and overlooks the local funding districts would retain from ESA recipients they no longer educate.

Pennsylvania families and students deserve better than the status quo. They don’t deserve to have their tax money used to lobby against opportunities for students.