Jay-Z’s Roc Nation announced Friday it will lead a campaign aimed at promoting a new school voucher program for Philadelphia-area students in grades K-12 from low-income households.
The entertainment company will host several events in the Philadelphia area in June seeking to inform residents about the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success (PASS), a Republican backed senate bill also known as the lifeline scholarship program that aims to provide “low-income students in low-performing schools with scholarships to attend the school of their choice.”
“We have enjoyed such a special connection with Philadelphians, so we’ve made it our mission to invest in the long-term success of the city’s changemakers,” Dania Diaz, Roc Nation managing director of philanthropy, said in a statement. “Impact starts with the students and with awareness. We want to empower the youth and families with the knowledge to pursue their scholastic dreams, make their voices heard and become the leaders of tomorrow.”
Several headlines claimed that Jay-Z and Roc Nation were rolling out a $300 million scholarship for students. That’s not correct — this is a taxpayer-funded program, and Roc Nation is hosting events to lobby support for the bill. Senate Bill 757 is at the center of a fierce fight in the Pennsylvania Capitol as the budget deadline of June 30 nears, and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has Voiced support for vouchers.
It’s pitched as another avenue for low-income students to pursue schooling that might otherwise not be affordable. However, critics claim the campaign is just another attempt to gut public education by diverting funding from public schools.
“This ain’t it. The answer to the inequity plaguing our PA public schools is not a celebrity campaign for a GOP proposal to take public dollars to send a few ‘lucky’ kids to private schools,” Pennsylvania Rep. Summer Lee posted in response. “The answer is to make sure our public schools are actually properly funded.”
The American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania shared a photo of Jay-Z and Jeffrey Yass, an ultrawealthy Republican megadonor who has donated tens of millions of dollars toward the school choice movement in Philadelphia. “This ain’t it,” they posted.
“He’s putting his name and organization behind an effort to get $300 million in tax dollars to fund these schools,” said Josh Cowen, professor of education policy and author of “THE PRIVATEERS: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers.”
On the PASS website, the program insists that it does not direct money away from public schools: “The PASS program budget will be fulfilled by government funds from a separate line item and will not reduce the overall budget to public education programming.”
However, journalist Nikole Hannah Jones pushed back against that statement. “It is a lie that these programs do not take from public school funding. Fewer kids in the classroom means fewer dollars to the school,” she posted on social media. “This is a windfall to the city’s private schools at the expense of the public ones that most kids attend.”
