What do you think of when you hear the term “school choice”? Roxanne Patel Shepelavy of The Philadelphia Citizen profiles a CSFP family and examines what private school can mean for Philadelphia children.

Nathan Benefield, Vice-President of Policy Analysis for the Commonwealth Foundation, criticized Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf for using the budget impasse as a reason to not approve corporate tax credits that go to fund student scholarships. He insisted that the dispute over the budget does not have to be solved for these credits to be approved and move forward. Benefield stated that time is running out to get these funds in place.

Nonprofits around Pennsylvania are raising the alarm that millions of dollars of tax credits towards PA organizational programs could be lost if the state doesn’t soon approve them, something the governor’s office says is being held up by the budget impasse.

A crowd of parents, students and educators held up signs and chanted, “Scholarships, not politics,” outside Gov. Tom Wolf’s Philadelphia. Scholarships for low-income students are at risk of disappearing because of a holdup in tax credit approvals. Listen below.

CSFP joins other scholarship organizations for a rally at Governor Wolf’s office on November 23. Organizers hope to urge lawmakers into action for the release of approval letters necessary to provide educational tax credit funding to hundreds of organizations across the state.

CSFP released applications for its school year 2016-2017 random lottery on November 18, but may not be able to issue as many awards as planned due to complications with the PA budget impasse. What does this mean for low-income Philadelphia families?

CSFP distributes scholarships to families, who then choose from over 160 private and parochial schools to which they send their children with our support. Like CSFP did, this week Philadelphia Archbishop Chaput made a call to action for Philadelphia families to tell Governor Wolf how PA tax credits affect their children’s education.

On November 18, over 700 supporters, parents, children, and school administrators joined CSFP at the National Constitution Center (NCC) to mark the release of new applications for CSFP’s random scholarship lottery. The event also served as a call to action for those in attendance: vital scholarship funding provided by Pennsylvania corporate tax credits is in…

Read Ina Lipman, Executive Director of CSFP, speak about the budget impasse endangering $75 million for Philadelphia including Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia and other organizations, such as Big Brothers Big Sisters and Philadelphia Futures.