Holding up the adoption of the Pennsylvania budget for 2023-24 is the issue of private school vouchers with most Republicans and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro supporting the concept, but most House Democrats and senators are opposed.

The fact that Shapiro signaled his backing of this proposal to Senate Republicans, then reneged when it failed to get the support of his Democratic House colleagues means the budget might remain in limbo until the General Assembly reconvenes in September.

If the state goes without a budget in place that long, it is likely to cause disruptions in paying bills and other problems.

As far as I am concerned, it comes down to this: We are paying our legislators more than $100,000 a year to do their job. One of the main functions to performing this job competently is seeing that a budget is in place by the annual deadline of July 1. Regrettably, many times so far this century it has not.

We have many faith-based private schools in our area, most notably Marian Catholic in Hometown, Nativity in Pottsville, Notre Dame of Green Pond in Bethlehem Township, Bethlehem Catholic in the City of Bethlehem, Central Catholic in Allentown and Notre Dame in East Stroudsburg. There are also elementary schools in each of the Times News’ five counties, and there are other nondenominational and denominational private schools.

This budgetary sticking point has nothing to do with charter schools, which have their own political sticking points. Charters are considered part of the public school program since they must be approved by local boards of education and the state.

While charter schools are not at issue on this particular budget impasse point, I still thought it would be interesting to find out what the public knows about them. I guess I wasn’t surprised to learn that most people to whom I randomly spoke had little knowledge of charter schools, except two who send their children there.

Charter schools were created to provide opportunities for teachers, parents, students and community members to establish and maintain schools that operate independently of existing public school district structure, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. I maintain, however, that since they are funded by the public schools to a certain degree, they do not operate independently.

The Education Department lists these goals for charter schools: improve student learning, increase learning opportunities for all students, encourage the use of different and innovative teaching methods, create new professional opportunities for teachers, provide parents and students with expanded choices in the types of educational opportunities available and be accountable for meeting measurable academic standards.

The opposition to charter schools comes primarily from the educational community itself. The Pennsylvania State Education Association and its local affiliates and the American Federation of Teachers are all vehemently opposed to the proliferation and growing popularity of charter schools because they believe that they drain valuable financial and other types of resources from public schools. And, realistically, if charters pull public school students and this proposed voucher program pulls students to private schools, all of this leads to smaller classrooms. Fewer students likely means that some teachers might lose their jobs.

Taxpayers who face almost annual real estate tax hikes to support their local public schools wonder why they must pay more to support private and charter schools, too.

Those who support the private school voucher funding believe it gives parents who send their students to lower-achieving public schools an option for their children to have a better education. Those opposed see it as a Catch-22 situation: Take money from public schools to finance these private school programs that diminish the effectiveness of the public schools.

One benefit of public schools is their commitment to inclusiveness and promoting diversity and equal access to education, while one benefit of private and charter schools is that they can offer innovative and specialized educational programs that meet the needs of specific students with fewer bureaucratic restrictions, giving families educational choices.

By BRUCE FRASSINELLI| tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.