Laura Meckler, Beth Reinhard and Clara Ence Morse:
“I have come across what I think is a great way to relieve the suffering of tens of millions of kids,” Yass said in an interview with The Washington Post in the offices of Susquehanna International Group, the behemoth trading firm in the Philadelphia suburbs that he co-founded. “To most people it’s like if you’re a libertarian billionaire, you must be Lex Luthor trying to do something nefarious. If I gave to a hospital, you wouldn’t be saying that.”
To Yass, political spending when it’s on behalf of pro-voucher candidates is akin to charity, benefiting children and families who need a champion to face down teachers unions. “They needed a philanthropist,” he said. “I felt it was my role to be that philanthropist.”
But teachers unions and other critics see vouchers as an assault on public schools, which serve the vast majority of children. They complain that private schools face little accountability for the money they are given or their academic results. They also are allowed to pick and choose their students. In several states, critics note, most of the beneficiaries were already attending private schools when they joined the voucher program; some of those families may have struggled to pay tuition on their own, but for wealthier parents, it was a windfall at taxpayer expense. (Yass, for the record, thinks vouchers should go to all families — even those as wealthy as his.)
Critics say his giving represents an absurd amount of influence for one person, who can press his political agenda simply because he is rich.
“If you picture a man spraying a fire hose at the political system, that’s how he has reshaped how Pennsylvania politics work,” said Arielle Klagsbrun, a liberal activist who helps run a coalition of groups that oppose Yass, and who co-wrote the essay Yass was emailed about in January 2023. “This is the agenda of one billionaire trying to push his beliefs and whims on the rest of the state.”