school choice

S2: E9 Featuring Commonwealth Foundation Sr. Education Analyst Rachel Langan

You’re in for a treat! In this episode of School Choice Report, host David Hardy interviews Rachel Langan, Senior Education Policy Analyst at the Commonwealth Foundation, about Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) programs. These programs offer tax-credit-funded scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools, providing an alternative to underperforming public schools.

Langan shares insights from the Commonwealth Foundation’s latest report on EITC, highlighting that most scholarship recipients come from families well below the income threshold, are outperforming public school peers, and are more consistently attending school. She discusses how private schools often achieve better results with less funding per student and emphasizes that low-income families could greatly benefit from these scholarships, especially in areas with underperforming public schools. Langan also addresses challenges in notifying eligible families, as many public schools fail to inform parents about scholarship opportunities.

For more information on the scholarships mentioned in this podcast, please visit the following:

Children’s Scholarship Fund of Philadelphia

K12 Scholarships PA

And for a copy of the report mentioned in the podcast, visit ScholarshipReport.org.