HARRISBURG — Supporters call them a matter of choice, a lifeline for children stuck in broken schools. Opponents deride them as unconstitutional and unworkable and warn that they will erode conditions in some of Pennsylvania’s most troubled schools.

The debate over taxpayer-paid tuition vouchers to help poor children find alternatives to attending the state’s weakest-performing public schools has emerged as a major item on the legislative agenda for the next six months — perhaps the major item after the state budget.

The voucher issue will come to the forefront in the General Assembly on Feb. 16, when the chairman of the Senate Education Committee will lead a hearing on his bill to establish the Opportunity Scholarship and Educational Improvement Tax Credit Act.

Although some aspects of the proposal would be phased in, by its third year the bill would allow public school students whose families make no more than 130 percent of federal poverty guidelines — about $29,000 for a family of four — to take the per-pupil subsidy that state government sends to their school district and use it to attend a different private, public or religious school.

It also would increase funding from $75 million to $100 million for an existing program that gives tax breaks to businesses that finance tuition scholarships for children in lower-income families.

“This is a freedom issue, an issue that parents find themselves trapped in a district that isn’t serving the needs of their child,” said the prime sponsor, Sen. Jeff Piccola, R-Dauphin.

Piccola said precise figures on the cost are still being worked out.

Both Republican Gov. Tom Corbett and a prominent Democratic state senator, Anthony Hardy Williams of Philadelphia, supported vouchers when they were candidates in last year’s gubernatorial campaign.

Corbett, as a candidate, proposed a school grading system to determine which students are eligible for such vouchers. To get vouchers to pass this year, it may cost him some political capital — vouchers failed in the Legislature twice in the 1990s, despite strong advocacy by Republican Gov. Tom Ridge.

Corbett “is in the process of reviewing the proposal and looks forward to working with his colleagues in the House and Senate to finalize the details of the legislation,” his spokeswoman, Janet Kelley, said Friday.

House Education Committee Chairman Paul Clymer said that while he supports the concept behind Piccola’s bill, he has questions about its finer points and will wait to act until he sees what gets out of the Senate.

“It’s not going to be a two-week foray into the legislative process,” said Clymer, R-Bucks. “It’s going to take time.”