This school year about 108,000 Pennsylvania students from poor and working-class families received K-12 tuition assistance scholarships to find a non-public school that works — funded entirely by charitable contributions from individuals, small businesses and corporations. About 80,000 more students wanted this tuition assistance, but the funding ran out.

Seeing this truly successful, overwhelmingly popular program deserving even more support, Pennsylvania House Democrats responded by voting to cripple, then slowly kill this life-changing student program. (Even worse: they tried to lie about it.) 

They voted unanimously to destroy this program. Because it works. 

If you’re a teachers union boss, you hate all competition. But you have three additional headaches. A Commonwealth Foundation report details Pennsylvania’s shrinking public school student population, and stagnating or falling test scores — deposits historic spending increases. Plus, education choice has never been more popular. 

Last week when Democrats were about to vote on the original bill destroying the program, Democrats learned just how popular. Thousands of parents, students, and donors flooded legislators with calls, emails, and personal visits. 

Sadly, as dutiful toadies of the teachers union, legislators tried to fool parents. While appearing to remove the language reducing the money for tuition assistance, they kept the other cuts, program reductions and new red-tape crushing the program. Instead of the “death penalty,” they decided “merely” to put on handcuffs and starve the program. 

Worse — they’re cowards, and fools — or they think parents and principals are.

House Democrats have spent the last week denying what they did — some angrily — in phone calls to school principals, donors, Catholic bishops and pastors, Jewish Day school leaders, and parents. Some have taken their vitriol to social media with lengthy, arrogant, angry posts — fighting with supporters and parents.

For the benefit of legislators who may not know any better — and to underscore how the Danielle Friel Ottens (D-Chester) and Frank Burnses (D-Cambria) of the House have been lying to parents, donors and clergy, here’s a sample of how they voted to ruin the program serving 108,000 students.

They imposed a tax on the money raised — taking away $15 million in tuition assistance annually. The program has two tiers (one for all students, plus one for the poorest students in the poorest communities): the bill would prohibit poor students from getting the extra aid, effectively forcing them to leave their schools — and putting those lifeline schools in danger of closing. 

And they would require the Auditor General to audit every non-profit scholarship organization and every participating school — every single year. That does not happen to one public school district, where taxpayers spent $41 billion this year.

Suppose the issue wasn’t charitable donations for students; but fighting cancer. Imagine if House Democrats changed Pennsylvania laws so the Cancer Society had to start paying taxes on money raised; could only offer poor families medical or rehabilitation support — not both; and told middle-income families they were no longer allowed to be helped. Imagine if every Cancer Society chapter, every hospital, clinic, research facility, doctor and every support center had to undergo costly government audits every year.

Then, imagine telling constituents in calls, emails — and vitriolic posts on social media — that your vote didn’t do anything to “harm” the Cancer Society or patients; rather, your goal was to “strengthen” fighting cancer. 

Ask yourself: Are the House Democrats clueless as to what they did? Do they think parents, donors and principals don’t know how the plan works? Or are they so brazen that they think they can get away with lying to us?

Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit program (EITC) is in its 25th year. Donors have assisted over one million Pennsylvania students. Because of these income-based scholarships, those families have been given the gift of school choice — the gift of being able to find a non-public school that works for their children. 

Parents, students and taxpayers all win. In 2001 when the EITC became law, it was overwhelmingly bipartisan legislation — passing the House 135-64. Now, the teachers union wants to stop school choice for many families. 

The reality is that families who are economically successful already have school choice: they can afford tuition for non-public schools. Those families can move out of “bad districts” with failing or unsafe schools and move to a “good district.” And the kids of the politically connected  get in to good schools.

After all the vitriol, double-speak, and misdirection, the truth is clear.

The success of Pennsylvania’s program — the model for the new federal “education freedom tax credit” — is why the teachers union is so selfishly against it. And they’ve used their outsized influence to pressure Democrats to hurt students and the schools whose mission it is to serve them.

Governor Shapiro has school choice for his kids.

You can put an end to this cruelty, Governor. Or your silence will tell us where you honestly stand.

Guy Ciarrocchi is a Senior Fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation. He writes for Broad + Liberty and RealClear Pennsylvania. Follow Guy at @PhilaFreedomGuy.