Today’s debate at the Independence Visitors Center in Philadelphia, hosted by the Independence Hall Tea Party Association wasn’t so much between supporters and opponents of SB 1 , the pending school choice legislation in Pennsylvania, but between the play-it-safers and the go-for-the-fencers.
And when the rather collegial affair ended, there seemed to be a consensus that the bill did have room for improvement.
The only disappointing facet of the afternoon was the failure of State Sen. Anthony Williams (D-8) to show up to defend the bill he authored, despite being on the playbill to do so.
Williams did appear long after the debate ended and was seen having an intense, quasi-private discussion with SB 1 critic Chris Freind
It would have been nice to put your cards on the table for all of us to see, Tony.
With regard to the debate, defending it as per the status quo were Rev. Joe Watkins, who is executive director of Students First, and WPHT 1210 AM radio host Dom Giordano, who had been scheduled to moderate but jumped in at the last minute to fill in for Williams. Tea Party activist Don Adams was drafted to take Giordano’s place as moderator. Squaring off against them were Freind, who is a columnist and a former executive director of the school choice advocacy group REACH Alliance, and State Rep. Curt Schroder (R-155) of Downingtown.
All are strong supporters of school choice. Watkins best summed his side’s position by comparing public schools to a burning building and saying if one couldn’t rescue all the children one should at least rescue the ones they can.
Freind in his rebuttal compared the matter to a sale of a house and said one should never start negotiations with the lowest offer one would accept.
Freind wants a voucher program that would cover far more than just families whose incomes are at or below 130 percent of the
federal poverty level — $28,665 for a family of four — as per SB1 after three years.
He, true to his word, would not say what would be the “lowest offer” he would accept despite some needling from Giordano.
Freind and several others noted that middle class families often find their children trapped in inadequate schools.
He said SB 1, as is, would let the teacher unions maintain almost all their power.
One point of discussion involved whether there were enough votes to pass a broad school choice bill. Freind insisted yes because the last school choice attempt failed by just a handful of votes with the GOP having just a one-vote majority in the House and the Black Philadelphia Democrats being in opposition. He noted that many of the Black Democrats are now supporters and the Republicans have a 12-vote House majority.
Giordano and Watkins both insisted that the votes were not there.
Schroder, the insider on the stage, would not guess as to how the votes would fall and said nobody has counted them.
Schroder made the biggest news of the day when he said SB 1 would likely be amended in the House to something more palatable to Freind’s faction. Both Watkins and Giordano expressed approval.
So much for contention.
Freind noted that IBEW 98 President John Dougherty, whose union endorsed SB 1 , told him he would be quite happy if the number of students who would eligible for vouchers were increased.
Several interesting points were made during audience feedback time. A homeschool mom pointed out that homeschoolers saved the state’s taxpayers $286 million last year and asked if assistance to homeschoolers could be part any House amendments to SB 1.
Schroder said he was amenable to that.
Lisa Esler of the Delaware County Patriots passionately pointed out that it was not just about test scores but saving children from being indoctrinated into values their parents believe to be wrong.
A woman who described herself as a former Philadelphia School District principal said she began a charter school after retirement whose students now show a 70 percent competency compared to 30 percent in the competing public schools.
Freind noted that school choice is not necessarily a panacea for non-public schools. He said many of the Catholic schools closing are not doing so because of demographics but simply because they are bad schools.
Freind made it clear that critics of the bill must shun the racist opponents of it, who he recognized existed.
The questioners for the debaters were Sharon Cherubin, executive director of Unite PA and Teri Adams, president of the Independence Hall Tea Party Association.
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