Shapiro and Garrity differ on PA education funding, vouchers, and election administration

This story was originally published by Spotlight PA. Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for their free newsletters.Pennsylvania will spend nearly 40% of its $50.8 billion budget on education this year. The size of that obligation, and its impact on children, teenagers, and college students across the commonwealth, make it an enormous part of annual spending talks.Unsurprisingly, it’s a prominent issue in the 2026 race for governor.Incumbent Democrat Josh Shapiro has spent his governorship threading a needle on education. He has backed big spending increases, particularly for the commonwealth’s most inadequately funded public school districts. At the same time, he’s supported a taxpayer-funded private school voucher program — something many Democrats oppose.Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, like many in her party, strongly supports public school alternatives. On higher education, she also focuses on tuition freezes, transparency, and industrial job creation to retain local talent.Shapiro’s own higher education platform focuses on state coordination, expanded grants, and initiatives aimed at helping more Pennsylvanians earn degrees.The issue can be complex. Here’s a look at where the major party candidates stand on key debates about K-12 and higher education.Higher educationThe governor exercises wide-ranging authority over public postsecondary policy — from proposing higher education line items in the annual budget to sitting on university governing boards.The commonwealth has persistently lagged the rest of the nation in higher education support. Pennsylvania ranks 46th nationally in per-student state appropriations to public colleges and universities, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association.At the same time, its undergraduates face some of the heaviest debt burdens in the country, according to national rankings, leaving the next governor to inherit a system under intense pressure from students, parents, and taxpayers alike.Vision for Pennsylvania colleges and universitiesIn his 2024-25 budget, Shapiro established the State Board of Higher Education, which brings together education, business, and government leaders from across Pennsylvania to improve coordination and ensure public and state-related universities align with workforce needs.The board unanimously approved a 10-year strategic plan for higher education, which aims to increase credential attainment, control student costs, and align academic programs with high-priority economic sectors.“Governor Josh Shapiro believes that if you work hard and want to build your future in Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth should open doors — not put up barriers,” said Sam Reposa, a spokesperson for the Shapiro campaign, in an email to Spotlight PA.The governor’s team noted that his budgets delivered a 6% funding increase for Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, orPASSHE, schools and community colleges, alongside $120 million in expanded funding for student grants and scholarships.“Pennsylvania’s students deserve access to quality higher education opportunities that help them get ahead instead of holding them back with a lifetime commitment to paying off debt,” Reposa said.Garrity focuses her higher education vision on ensuring students have immediate job opportunities after graduating.In an emailed statement to Spotlight PA, Garrity’s campaign said her administration will work to reverse the migration of residents leaving the state, to ensure that “those who attend a college or university in the commonwealth have a place they can build a career, build a family, and build a home.”“One of the best ways to achieve that goal is to ensure job opportunities exist for new graduates,” the campaign said. “For instance, under Josh Shapiro, we are not maximizing opportunities in the energy industry — jobs that can range from blue collar to white collar, engineering to business. And if we were to unleash our commonwealth’s natural gas industry, we can produce 200,000 good-paying jobs during the course of my administration.”Performance-based fundingPennsylvania’s four state-related universities — Lincoln, Penn State, Pitt, and Temple — operate as public-private hybrids. While they maintain independent governing boards and operational autonomy, they receive hundreds of millions of dollars in annual state subsidies.Since 2019, state funding for these universities has been flat, steadily losing ground to inflation.Shapiro has requested increases to these appropriations, but state lawmakers haven’t budged.In his 2026-27 budget, Shapiro proposed a $30 million performance-based funding pool, which would distribute aid to these universities based on student success metrics like graduation rates, in-state enrollment, and workforce alignment.State lawmakers ultimately approved $10 million in the final budget.The Shapiro campaign did not indicate to Spotlight PA whether he would continue to seek increases to baseline appropriations for state-related universities in a second term.Garrity’s campaign did not respond to a Spotlight PA question regarding performance-based funding.Transparency at state-related universitiesSince state-related universities operate as independent, nonprofit institutions, they are largely exempt from the state’s Right-to-Know Law.In 2023, Shapiro signed legislation requiring these universities to publish expanded disclosures regarding their finances, employment, and operations.His strategic plan calls for creating centralized public dashboards that track returns on investment, graduation rates, and institutional spending.Garrity’s campaign said she supports fully subjecting state-related universities to the Right-to-Know Law, to align their disclosure requirements with PASSHE institutions and community colleges.“The Garrity-Richey administration is committed to ensuring that transparency is a part of all levels of Government,” the campaign said in an emailed statement to Spotlight PA. “As Governor, Stacy Garrity would support submitting state-related universities to the RTK Law, similar to how the PASSHE schools operate.”Affordability and debt reliefThe two candidates offer competing models for controlling college costs.Garrity proposes a mandatory five-year tuition lock for every incoming undergraduate.“As soon as a student pays their first tuition bill, that price is locked in for five years and cannot be raised on a year-to-year basis,” her campaign said in an emailed statement to Spotlight PA. “Students should not be burdened by unpredictable tuition rates; this will help them with their plans after graduation.”Shapiro favors income-targeted caps, proposing to limit out-of-pocket tuition and fees to $1,000 per semester at PASSHE state universities and community colleges for families earning $70,000 or less.His campaign pointed to his record as governor and his previous tenure as attorney general.“As Attorney General, Shapiro cracked down on predatory lenders and delivered millions in student loan debt cancellation to Pennsylvania students,” Reposa said. “As Governor, he invested millions into scholarships and grants to make college more affordable.”K-12 educationIn 2023, Commonwealth Court ruled that Pennsylvania’s system for funding public schools was so inequitable it violated the state constitution. The court ordered lawmakers to fix it, though it did not provide an exact remedy.That ruling has shaped debates over K-12 education since, often centering on what policies can truly make education equitable. Is it more aggressively funding struggling public schools with poor constituencies, an approach many — but not all — Democrats favor? Or is it offering students resources to leave those districts and attend private school, a method many Republicans prefer?Or is it some combination?Adequacy and overall fundingAfter the Commonwealth Court order, lawmakers assembled a commission to study the state’s education funding system and issue an action report. They settled on trying to fix it using a concept they call an adequacy formula, which directs money to the most inadequately funded schools.Lawmakers argued over the size of this adequacy gap. The initial report lawmakers put together estimated it was $5.4 billion, but only Democrats signed off on that number; Republicans balked at the size, and also argued non-monetary reforms could help.But in 2024, the legislature passed a budget with a new funding formula and an initial adequacy payment. The budget’s fiscal note calculated the total gap as being a bit smaller than the report’s estimate, $4.5 billion. As of this year, they’ve put $1.9 billion toward closing the gap.All told, the state has added more than $3 billion in education funding during Shapiro’s tenure, his office said after the most recent state budget passed.“Governor Shapiro delivered four balanced, bipartisan budgets that have put money back in hardworking families’ pockets,” his campaign said in a statement, noting that these have included the continuation of a free breakfast program started by Shapiro’s predecessor and the introduction of a program that gives stipends to student teachers.The campaign said the “work isn’t done, and the fight to continue delivering for our kids is a fundamental question in this election.”Garrity has criticized the state’s education spending, telling the Center Square that “obviously, throwing money isn’t working.”Her campaign said in a statement that she wants to reexamine the adequacy formula to “ensure that money is being spent effectively.” It didn’t say what changes she might consider, though it said she would still comply with Commonwealth Court’s order.The Shapiro campaign’s statement, citing Garrity’s criticism of the state’s education spending, said that her “extreme agenda would set our Commonwealth back.”Garrity’s campaign also said she would enact “third grade promotion,” which blocks students who aren’t meeting reading goals from moving to fourth grade. It said her vision is that these students would receive monitoring and core reading instruction from a trained teacher.Also called third grade retention, this practice is mandatory in 10 states and optional in more than two dozen. Studies have shown mixed impacts on student reading.Funding alternatives to public schoolsA perennial conflict in Harrisburg is whether to allocate more state funding to public school alternatives.This debate, which doesn’t break neatly down partisan lines, primarily concerns two financial instruments: existing education tax credit programs and proposed school vouchers, which the state has not implemented, though lawmakers have come close.Voucher programs use public money to pay for students’ tuition at private and religious schools. Supporters say this gives important options to kids who live in struggling public districts. Critics argue vouchers weaken public schools by siphoning funds.Shapiro has been more open to funding public school alternatives than many Democrats — vouchers in particular.He first voiced support for them during his 2022 bid for governor, and actively pursued a voucher program during his first budget negotiation the following year. At one point during talks, he appeared on Fox News and said, “I believe every child of God deserves a shot here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and one of the best ways we can guarantee their success is making sure every child has a quality education.”At the time, he said he’d support a voucher program as long as it didn’t take any funding away from public education.That voucher push ended in a debacle. After the GOP-controlled state Senate passed a spending plan that included a $100 million voucher program, the Democratic-led state House balked. Shapiro, under pressure from his party, line-item vetoed the voucher program. Senators said he’d betrayed them, and talks broke down. Shapiro’s relationship with top Senate leaders has never quite recovered.Shapiro described the voucher program as “unfinished business” after that budget cycle, and said he still supported it.In recent talks on state spending, the issue has been much less prominent. Shapiro’s campaign didn’t respond to questions about whether his stance has changed, though he has never indicated publicly that it has.Garrity is definitively in favor of vouchers and has accused Shapiro of flip-flopping.“Josh Shapiro has been all over the map,” she said in an appearance before the Pennsylvania Press Club last winter. “Josh Shapiro has held not one, not two, but three positions on school choice. I hold one position: parents, not bureaucrats, make the best decisions for their child’s future.”Garrity’s campaign told Spotlight PA in a statement that she is “committed to putting Pennsylvania students first,” which it said would include making it a priority to “enact a scholarship program, like Lifeline Scholarships.” That proposal, introduced by legislative Republicans but never enacted, would have required districts with schools categorized as “low-achieving” to annually notify families that their kids qualify for first-come, first-served state-funded scholarships.Pennsylvania also has two long-running tax credit programs that work like vouchers — they provide tax breaks to businesses and individuals that donate to scholarships that help students to attend private schools.The EITC, or Educational Improvement Tax Credit, is currently available to any student whose household makes a maximum of $122,322, plus $21,531 for each dependent. The OSTC, or Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit, is much smaller, limited to students in the commonwealth’s poorest-performing schools.The programs have ballooned over the past few decades. The EITC was created in 2001 as a program capped at $30 million; the current cap for EITC and OSTC combined is $680 million.Debates about these programs center on their size and transparency.Currently, scholarship organizations must report to the state the size of awards, which school districts students previously attended, and which private schools they switch to. They don’t have to track awardees’ household income or how much tuition they still pay after the scholarship. Critics say those pieces of information would allow better assessments of the programs’ effectiveness.During Shapiro’s tenure as governor, funding for EITC and OSTC has increased by more than $200 million. When he entered office in 2022, the combined cap for EITC and OSTC was $465 million. However, the 2026-27 budget that Shapiro signed in July did not include spending increases for either program — a shift from prior years.Shapiro’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment about his vision for future spending on or reforms to those programs.Garrity’s campaign told Spotlight PA she wants to strengthen and preserve EITC and OSTC, and that she would raise the dollar cap on EITC by another $60 million, “allowing for more scholarship opportunities.”The federal government has also launched an educational tax credit program that works like Pennsylvania’s. States must decide whether to opt in.Shapiro’s administration has said he hasn’t yet decided whether Pennsylvania will join, and that he’s awaiting more details. He has until the end of the year.Garrity supports joining the program, and her campaign said she would do so “on day one.” She has accused Shapiro of dragging his feet.Charter and cyber charter oversightPennsylvania charter schools are funded through a system in which public districts pay tuition for any students who live within their borders and opt to attend a charter. Rates are calculated based on the district’s per-student spending, with some deductions.It’s an old system, and public school advocates have argued for years that they’re paying too much — particularly for cyber charter schools, which have recently ballooned in popularity and have much lower overhead costs. Some cyber charters have accumulated large surpluses.Last year lawmakers made a few updates aimed specifically at cyber charters, including letting public schools deduct more expenses from their cyber tuition, tightening language around student wellness checks, and requiring families to prove district residency more often.GOP leaders say those adjustments should close the issue; Democrats have argued there’s more to do, including further cutting public schools’ payments to charters and capping cyber charters’ surpluses.Shapiro has repeatedly proposed funding cyber charters using a per-student base rate of $8,000, rather than the current, widely variable district-based spending. In his most recent budget pitch, he shifted gears, instead pitching a system in which public schools could deduct more expenses before calculating their cyber charter payments, and cyber charters’ funding formula would be tweaked to functionally cap their tuition rates.Neither of these reform styles has made progress in the GOP-controlled state Senate.Shapiro’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment on additional charter school reforms he supports, either on funding or transparency. However, he has frequently promoted last year’s cyber charter changes, which were estimated to save public school districts about $178 million cumulatively.Garrity’s campaign called both brick-and-mortar and cyber charters “a great option for students” that lets them “learn in an environment that best suits them.”It said that instead of passing flat tuition rates or any other new reforms, Garrity would wait to see the impact of the state’s recent changes.“As Governor, Stacy Garrity would look at the surplus accumulation and look at the balance sheets of all school districts as well as charter schools and cyber charter schools to ensure the fiscal stability of the districts,” the campaign wrote.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.Two candidates with vastly different visions for elections are competing for Pennsylvania’s governorship this year.On one side, incumbent Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has staked many of his policy stances on elections in opposition to President Donald Trump, while struggling to pass new election laws through the state legislature. On the other hand, state treasurer Stacy Garrity, Shapiro’s Republican challenger, has indicated she would defer to Trump’s election priorities, but her state-level legislative priorities are less clear.And in the background, questions about Garrity’s views on the legitimacy of the 2020 election still loom.Garrity has walked a fine line on the 2020 electionGarrity was first elected as state treasurer in November 2020, when Trump lost his first reelection bid and falsely claimed the contest was marred by fraud. Garrity went on to echo that rhetoric.“The election from this November is tarnished forever,” she said at a Jan. 5, 2021, rally at the state capitol.At a 2022 rally with Trump and Mehmet Oz, who was then a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Garrity was more direct.“We know that he won,” she said, referring to Trump’s 2020 race.Since then, Garrity has attempted to walk back those and other comments, but she hasn’t ever fully refuted Trump’s claim that he lost the election due to fraud or acknowledged that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner.When she was up for reelection in 2024, a campaign spokesperson said her January 2021 comments were not about Trump’s election, but rather only about “inconsistent application of ballot counting rules that directly affected the outcome of a state senate race in the 45th District.” However, rally organizers told reporters at the time that the purpose of the event was to ask state legislators to decertify Pennsylvania’s November 2020 votes.As for her 2022 comments, Garrity said earlier this year those remarks were made at a Trump rally, which are “kind of fun things” that are “easy to get caught up in.”During a recent sitdown interview with Dennis Owens, the ABC27 anchor asked Garrity if she believes Trump lost the 2020 election.“Yeah, I mean, I won, and that’s what I’m most concerned about,” Garrity responded, though she added there were “irregularities” in the election. In an interview with Spotlight PA earlier this month, Garrity said that her use of the word “irregularities” referred “very specifically” to guidance issued by then-Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar in 2020.While Garrity told Spotlight PA she is “painfully aware” Biden was the president after the 2020 election and that she “agree[s] that he was the elected president,” Garrity has not said Biden won legitimately.Did Shapiro keep his 2022 campaign promises?When he first ran for governor in 2022, Shapiro put a heavy emphasis on democracy and voting issues, and the first policy plan his campaign released was focused on those subjects. It laid out a wide range of policy ideas he said he would pursue, including new legislation and administrative changes.During his first term, Shapiro has successfully enacted some of those plans, but not others.In September 2023, he unilaterally brought automatic voter registration to the state, directing PennDOT to change its voter registration process from one where prospective voters had to affirmatively opt in to one where they are automatically taken through the process unless they opt out. State data shows the switch has achieved its goal of registering more voters. Shapiro also promised to appoint a secretary of the commonwealth who would “run elections fairly and uphold democracy.” That appointment would fall to Al Schmidt, a Republican and the former Philadelphia city commissioner who stood up to Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020. Under Schmidt, the Department of State has redesigned mail ballot return envelopes and provisional ballot envelopes to reduce the number of ballots rejected for technical errors. Analysis from Votebeat and Spotlight PA found that both of those changes have achieved their goals.In keeping with Shapiro’s promise to “make more resources available in different languages so that every eligible voter can make their voices heard,” in 2023 the Department of State created Spanish and Chinese versions of its website. During Shapiro’s term, the department has also translated voter registration and mail ballot application forms into additional languages.But there are some promises Shapiro hasn’t delivered on. For instance, his 2022 plan said he would create a centralized website where election results for all races, including local races, could be found. But the state’s current project to upgrade its Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors, or SURE, program, which includes a revamp of its election night reporting system, does not include a plan to have it also display local results.Additionally, he said he would “provide funds in his first budget” so that all counties could participate in a risk-limiting audit of elections, a type of statistical test done to ensure the accuracy of results. By the time Shapiro entered office, all counties were already participating in the risk-limiting audit, and his first budget kept funding for county election expenses flat. Counties are not currently reimbursed for the costs of these audits.This, and other policy struggles also reflect the reality of Pennsylvania’s divided legislature.A divided legislature impedes election lawmakingShapiro made many other promises during the 2022 campaign that required the legislature’s help to pass. Those included allowing people to register to vote on Election Day, preregistering 16-year-olds to vote, establishing true early in-person voting, and allowing counties more time to process mail ballots ahead of Election Day.But election legislation of all types has effectively ground to a halt during Shapiro’s term. The Republican-controlled state Senate has said any election legislation needs to be paired with expanded voter ID requirements, which they prefer in the form of a hard-to-pass — and hard-to-challenge legally — constitutional amendment.But Shapiro himself has also been relatively quiet on election legislation. He has issued few statements urging passage of specific proposals, even those that he touted during that 2022 campaign.In 2024, when the state House passed a bill that would have provided more time for counties to prepare mail ballots for counting, he urged the state Senate to do the same and send it to him to sign. But in other instances, Shapiro has not responded to questions on specific election legislation, and he has avoided weighing in or declined to comment on competing proposals, even when he has supported the underlying policy.Last year, when a comprehensive election reform package supported by Democratic state House Speaker Joanna McClinton passed the lower chamber, a spokesperson for Shapiro did not directly answer a question on whether he supported the bill, which included some elements he campaigned on. Recently, his campaign also did not respond to questions on what his election priorities would be if Democrats were to win full control of state government this fall. Shapiro has also failed to appoint several members to a state board meant to advise the legislature on election policy, which has contributed to the board now sitting idle. Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro’s campaign, defended his record on elections and noted that the fact that control of the legislature is split between parties makes it more difficult to pass legislation. “Governor Shapiro has a long record of protecting our democracy – from standing up to Trump and his allies when they try to undermine it, to implementing commonsense reforms to protect and improve our free, fair, safe, secure elections,” he said in an email. Beyond voter ID, Garrity’s election priorities are unclearIf Garrity is elected governor, she could have tremendous influence over election policy in the state. But she hasn’t released an elections policy plan of her own, and her campaign has not responded to several requests for an interview on the subject. What is known about her stance on election issues comes from the few questions she has answered on the campaign trail and in more broadly-focused interviews with Spotlight PA.First and foremost, Garrity would be able to appoint a new secretary of the commonwealth, who can influence how elections run through approving what equipment can be used and making sometimes binding guidance on issues of state law. It’s not clear who, if anyone, Garrity has in mind for this position.Garrity could also make, or direct her cabinet members to make, administrative decisions that would impact voting. For example, several Republican-led states have recently withdrawn from the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, a data-sharing consortium of states that works to identify inaccurate or duplicate voter registration records. The program has faced attacks from conservatives in recent years. Garrity has not said how she would handle ERIC. Both state Republicans and President Trump have also heavily criticized Shapiro’s implementation of automatic voter registration. As governor, Garrity would be able to reverse the policy, but she has not said whether she would.One point on which Garrity has been more definitive is that she would like to require more voters to show identification at the polls. Currently, voters are required to show ID only when voting for the first time or when voting at a new polling location. Republicans in the state have for years been trying to expand those requirements. During the recent interview with Spotlight PA, Garrity said she supported implementing enhanced voter ID requirements in the state.“That’s where I would start,” she said. “You have to have an ID to do anything.”Garrity did not specify what forms of identification would be acceptable, or other details such as whether she would be open to exceptions. For instance, some other states have an affidavit system where someone else can vouch for a voter’s identity if they do not have ID with them at the polls. Shapiro has also indicated an openness to voter ID, though no proposals made it to his desk during his first term.Shapiro, Garrity would handle Trump differentlyApart from their policy differences at the state level, Shapiro and Garrity would bring very different approaches to Pennsylvania’s relationship with the federal government, including as it pertains to elections.As state attorney general in 2020, Shapiro represented Pennsylvania in numerous lawsuits involving Trump’s election fraud claims, a fact he still makes note of even today. “Every time Donald Trump and his enablers have been forced to produce evidence to back up these ridiculous claims, they’ve failed,” Shapiro said in response to Trump’s July primetime address on elections. “And in 2020, when they took us to court and tried to undermine the will of the people here in Pennsylvania — I went 43-0, Trump went 0-43.”This year alone, Shapiro has joined two lawsuits against the Trump administration in his capacity as governor. The first, from April, challenged Trump’s executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service to only deliver ballots to individuals on preapproved lists provided by the states.In July, he also joined a suit challenging the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s withholding of grant funds, which the plaintiffs argue is being done to coerce the states into compliance with the administration’s preferred elections and immigration policies. By contrast, Garrity is likely to cooperate with the federal government on election policies. In response to Trump’s call this past February to nationalize elections, Garrity said she would “work with the Trump administration” to “turn our state around.” The Shapiro administration has also rebuffed the U.S. Department of Justice’s demand for a version of the state’s voter roll that includes driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers.By contrast, Garrity has said she would provide the records.“If we think there’s not voter fraud, then why not hand over the rolls and prove him wrong?” she told ABC27. Clarification, Aug. 20: This article has been updated to specify that Garrity has not acknowledged that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.Katie Meyer of Spotlight PA contributed reporting.Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.