HARRISBURG — A Republican-penned bill that would pave the way for state takeovers of Pennsylvania school districts veering toward financial collapse has the support of Gov. Tom Corbett and is advancing in the Legislature over the objections of Democrats.

The Senate Education Committee voted along partisan lines to send it to the full Senate in the hopes that the bill will reach the governor’s desk before the Legislature takes its traditional two-month summer break from Harrisburg.

The legislation is being spurred by fears of a wave of collapsing districts and is being fast-tracked so it can receive quicker consideration in the House if it passes in the Senate.

It would replace a piecemeal approach used in the past for struggling districts, and would immediately affect four districts: Duquesne, Harrisburg, York and Chester-Upland, which sued the state in federal court in January after it threatened to shut down due to lack of money.

Democrats attacked the bill as a backdoor move to bust teachers’ unions and hand schools to private operators in districts already hamstrung by cutbacks in state aid and threadbare local tax bases. But Education Committee Chairman Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, defended it as the only alternative.

“It is taking on the responsibility ... the constitution gives to this General Assembly to provide ‘a thorough and efficient system of public education,’ and I don’t know how else to do it,” Piccola told committee members.