The Moral Imperative for Educational Choice in Pennsylvania
The Parker family lives in Philadelphia’s Mayfair. The father works as an Uber driver. The mother works at a local car dealership. They make ends meet but don’t make enough to send their son to Father Judge High School – even with financial aid. Charter schools have a waiting list longer than Roosevelt Boulevard. And the son is forced to attend Lincoln High School.
When Josh goes off to Lincoln, he enters a school where 78% of students can’t do grade-level math, and 68% can’t read at grade level. But with no alternative, the Parkers drop off Josh at Lincoln, hoping that he’s among the tiny percentage that can read and do grade-level math.
Meanwhile, Joanna Green lives in Yeadon, just outside the city. A single mom, she works as a paralegal for a small law firm in Lansdowne. As a single mom there’s only so much that she can do. Though she’s not Catholic, she’d like to send Pasha to Sts. Cyril and Philomena in Lansdowne for the discipline and academics. But even with aid, Joanna can’t afford the $5,500 tuition. With no choice, she must send Pasha to Penn Wood Middle School, part of Delaware County’s William Penn School District.
According to published reports, William Penn is among Pennsylvania’s most dangerous districts. In the most recent study, the number of reported incidents is equivalent to almost 30% of all students in the district. Rachel Langan of the Commonwealth Foundation paints an even bleaker picture.
As I wrote in 2025, under federal law, if a school is deemed “persistently violent,” the school district must alert parents and allow them to leave the district to find a safer school – using their school district funding. But Pennsylvania districts skirt the law by only counting those “incidents” with an arrest. In 2023-24, only 1 “incident” resulted in an arrest – despite their own data showing that the district of 4,500 students had over 1,300 violent “incidents.”
Each day, Joanna drops off 12-year-old Pasha at Penn Wood – and prays.
Isn’t it an academic and moral imperative to give the Parkers and Greens a solution? Imagine being the parents or grandparents of those children – knowing that you’re sending them off to schools where the odds are against you, and we all know it.
Yet, it gets gut-wrenchingly worse.
Langan just published an emotional follow-up report that should elicit demands for immediate action from politicians in Harrisburg. There are nearly 400 schools in Pennsylvania where the proficiency rates in both math and reading are frighteningly low – like Lincoln High School.
There are hundreds of schools in Pennsylvania that are dangerous. We may never know all of them, nor just how truly dangerous, because so many public schools “fudge” the data.
Too many schools are on both lists.
Martha Bradmore lives in Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood. A grandmother, she raises her grandson, Matthew, who is 14.
When it came time for high school, she couldn’t afford tuition at West Catholic High School, even with a generous aid package. And every charter school they can think of has a waiting list. So Matt attends Strawberry Mansion High School.
Strawberry Mansion High School is a parents’/grandparents’ worst nightmare. The high school has shocking proficiency rates. Approximately 81% of students can’t do grade level math. A few years back, reports suggested that almost 99% couldn’t. Reading is slightly less horrifying: 75% can’t read at grade level.
When it comes to safety, Strawberry Mansion is one of the most dangerous schools in the state – even the nation. It was so bad that ABC national news did a profile years ago.
Each morning, Matt Bradmore goes off to Strawberry Mansion, where 81% of the students can’t do grade-level math, and 75% can’t read at grade level.
And Martha has no choice. Can you imagine sending Matt to that school each day?
There are answers, of course. Yes, those schools must be fixed – or closed.
But what needs to happen is that these hypothetical families – real families they represent – should get to use their educational dollars to find a school that’s better.
If you don’t support school choice for everyone, how about when the local public school is failing academically?
If not then, how about when it’s among the most violent – as federal law is supposed to require?
If nothing else, doesn’t your heart and your head demand that we rescue the students forced to attend schools that are failing academically and dangerously unsafe?
Who’s stopping this moral imperative? Consider our state’s political leaders.
Gov. Shapiro attended a Jewish Day School, as do his children. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton attended Grace Temple Christian Academy. And House Majority Leader Matt Bradford decides which bills are to be voted in the State House. He graduated from the 16th best public school district in Pennsylvania. His children attend a district that just misses the top 10% in our state.
They are beneficiaries of school choice.
Why won’t they allow other children – especially those forced to attend the Strawberry Mansions of Pennsylvania – to be rescued?
Gov. Shapiro once preached: “I believe that every one of God’s children deserves a shot in Pennsylvania … to make sure every child has a quality education.”
Amen, Governor.
