The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

December 4, 2011

School board homework: Stop vouchers

By Joy Leiker Herald Staff Writer

MERCER COUNTY — Public school leaders have taken their fight against Gov. Tom Corbett’s vouchers to the streets.

More precisely, to Pennsylvanians’ front yards.

Blue-and-white yard signs have popped up in the last month, signs distributed to school districts by the Pennsylvania School Board Association. And during at least two local school board meetings, superintendents displayed the signs and asked board members to take them and display them.

The signs read: “Support public education. Stop budget cuts. Say no to vouchers.”

The anti-voucher sentiment among public school leaders isn’t surprising. They’re opposed to spending taxpayer dollars for private schools, and the vouchers would allow students in the state’s poorest performing schools to take their allotment of public money and pay tuition at another school, including private and religious schools.

Corbett campaigned on the promise of bringing education vouchers to Pennsylvania. And earlier this year, in his first budget as governor, he cut public education spending.

Last month Sharpsville Superintendent Mark Ferrara scattered the signs around the school board’s meeting room and encouraged board members to post them. Ferrara said the signs cost $5 each and were paid for with donations – not taxpayer dollars.

“It’s supporting what we do day in and day out,” Ferrara said of the anti-voucher message. “It just reflects the frustration that we face in public education.

“Those who receive vouchers are not necessarily held to the same level we are. If it was a consistent, level playing field such as PSSA scores ...” it would be different, Ferrara said.

This is the first time in his six years in Sharpsville he’s turned to political signs to spread a message, the superintendent said. Asked if he had any hesitation to buying the signs – or displaying them, like the sign outside the Seventh Street School, Sharpsville’s administration office – Ferrara said no.

“Since they were donated we feel a little more at ease,” Ferrara said. “It’s kind of voicing our frustration to get some public sentiment, to get the word out to the powers-that-be that, hey, we need help.”

Up the road in Greenville, the Greenville Area School District did the same thing.

The result: A few signs are visible in both communities.

Strangely though, among the 18 board members in those two districts, only one board member was displaying a sign in the front yard Saturday – Janice Raykie, a member of the Sharpsville board.

Mrs. Raykie said she feels “very strongly that there should be no vouchers.” She said she’s tried to stay on top of the many changes made to the legislation since it was introduced this spring, and she’s exchanged e-mails with state Rep. Mark Longietti, Farrell, D-7th District, about it too.

Technically though, the sign in her yard isn’t a Sharpsville sign, she said. An employee of Sharon City Schools, Mrs. Raykie said Sharon Superintendent John Sarandrea sent an email to school employees inviting them to buy a sign for $5. Mrs. Raykie said she ordered her sign, then was given another when she attended the next Sharpsville school board meeting.

Mrs. Raykie said she gave that sign to a friend.

“It’s a scary thing and it will actually cost local school districts a lot of money if it passes,” she said of the voucher bill.

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