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This year marks the 25th anniversary of Pennsylvania's Educational Improvement Tax Credit program, which -- combined with the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program -- has served more than a million kids. However, instead of celebrating this milestone, some lawmakers placed this popular and successful program on the chopping block.
Democratic state Rep. Nikki Rivera, D-Lancaster, introduced legislation that, by our calculation, would have cut thousands of scholarships. But after facing significant public pushback (including from concerned parents), House Democrats amended the bill to stop the immediate cuts. However, they still adopted punitive eligibility criteria, a tax on scholarship organizations and requirements that we believed would undermine donor privacy, resulting in fewer scholarships.
Thankfully, another bill expanding the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program passed with broad bipartisan support in the Pennsylvania Senate.
When the dust settled, neither bill became law. Instead, the state budget resulted in an Educational Improvement Tax Credit stalemate, neither growing nor cutting it.
Meanwhile, state spending on public education grew massively despite declining enrollment. Harrisburg added nearly $900 million in new statewide funding, including $565 million in "adequacy" funding with no accountability strings attached. This is on top of a system that already spends close to $24,000 per student, according to our calculations.
Despite year after year of funding increases, Pennsylvania public education hasn't yielded academic growth. Based on statewide testing, alarming percentages of Pennsylvania kids -- often more than half, depending on their grade level -- are not proficient in math, English language arts and science.
We can't keep pouring hard-earned taxpayer money into a broken education system. Instead, we should be increasing educational options.
Although the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program avoided austerity, flat-funding this program basically amounts to a cut. For years, the program caps have limited the number of scholarships Pennsylvania kids can receive. So, despite awarding a record-breaking 101,000 tax-credit scholarships awarded in 2025 -- according to data compiled by the Commonwealth Foundation based on Right-to-Know requests to the state -- Pennsylvania also wait-listed nearly 70,000 students.
Failing to address this shortage only kicks the can down the road for the kids in low-income households who need scholarships the most. The longer we keep these kids wait-listed, the longer they must endure subpar -- and often failing -- schools. This is unacceptable.
And we have the opportunity -- and the obligation -- not only to expand our state programs but also to avail ourselves of national scholarships.
The new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program allows taxpayers to donate up to $1,700 to a scholarship organization in exchange for a full federal tax credit. The funding, in turn, goes toward students of all kinds -- public, private, charter and cybercharter -- to pay for education-related expenses, such as tuition, tutoring, books, special education expenses, supplies and more. This federal program does not take a single dollar from public education in Pennsylvania.
The advocacy organization Education Reform Now estimates that the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit could bring in between $32 million to $967 million for Pennsylvania kids in new scholarship funds, but only if the commonwealth opts in. So far, 30 states -- representing nearly all red states and a handful of blue states, such as Colorado and Virginia -- have chosen to participate.
Sadly for our commonwealth's kids, Gov. Josh Shapiro has yet to do the same. But there is no excuse for not opting in. Failing to do so will only fund scholarships for students in other states that participated in the new federal opportunity.
Pennsylvanians aren't buying the governor's delay tactics. A poll commissioned by the Commonwealth Foundation found that 71% of Pennsylvanians want Shapiro to opt the state into the new federal tax-credit scholarship program. Three-fourths of them want to expand the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program, adopt educational opportunity accounts for students in Pennsylvania's worst schools, and enact a state-level tax credit that directly refunds parents for education expenses.
Education is personal for me because it was my dad's ticket out of poverty. And for hundreds of thousands of our students, this can be the same story. A good education gives them not only knowledge and skills but also an opportunity to pursue their American dream.
The good people of our great commonwealth deserve more educational opportunities for their kids. Preserving school choice is not enough; we must expand it to reach the families left behind. And the governor needs to opt Pennsylvania into the federal scholarship program.
This is a no-brainer that puts kids first and on a pathway to prosperity.
Megan Martin is the chief operating officer and general counsel for the Commonwealth Foundation,