A Senate leader’s plan to expand a school voucher program to foster children and thousands of others sets up the latest battle over the free-market approach to education.
The bill by Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, would create new vouchers for students with mild to medium disabilities, such as diabetes and vision problems, the children of active military personnel and National Guardsmen, and foster children. Currently, a couple of thousand students with special needs receive vouchers that can be used for their private school tuition.
Supporters say Rogers' Senate Bill 87 would benefit these students by giving them a safer, more responsive learning environment and would also create competition that could help public schools improve.
Opponents say such a big expansion of the existing voucher law would hurt the state's already financially hurting public schools by sending tax dollars to private businesses, which they add are not held to many of the same standards.
"If it were up to me, it would be extended to every student in Georgia," Rogers said during a recent hearing. "Hopefully, we will get to that point some day."
Herb Garrett, executive director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association, argues that the state constitution says "the primary obligation of the state is to provide an adequate public education, not a private one."
Superintendents don't believe tax dollars should go to private schools that don't face the same requirements for certified teachers, student accountability and audits that public schools do, Garrett said.
Rogers hasn't estimated how much the new vouchers sought in SB 87 would cost. The state Department of Education estimates that there are more than 30,000 children with mild disabilities. Senators also have heard testimony that Georgia has about 7,000 foster children and about 110,000 military personnel and guardsmen with an unknown number of eligible children.
Georgia will spend about $15.9 million this school year on vouchers, averaging $6,271, for the families of 2,550 special-needs students.
SB 87 has strong support among Senate Republicans and from private groups promoting school choice and vouchers.
Opposing the bill are state School Superintendent John Barge, the superintendents' and school boards associations and public teachers groups -- all of which carry some clout at the Capitol.
Combat veteran and National Guard Capt. Mike Prieto of Atlanta would love to use vouchers to send his children to private schools. What a wonderful way to thank veterans who make sacrifices to serve, he said.
"And having the freedom to take their tax dollars and apply them to the school of their choice is a wonderful benefit to service families," Prieto said.
Rogers said parents should be free to spend their tax dollars for education where they want. Currently, 5 percent to 7 percent of eligible children take advantage of vouchers, he has said during committee meetings.
"You've got a lot of problems we need to worry about in public schools. Why would [voucher critics] want to go after these few kids exercising choice who seem to be doing well?" he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Rogers knows his critics label him as anti-public schools, but he insists his intent is to have the best public schools possible. "The way I know they can be the best is competition, because everywhere there has been competition the public schools have improved," he said.
Gov. Nathan Deal is not weighing in. "When and if the voucher bill shows up on his desk, he will look at it closely," spokeswoman Stephanie Mayfield said.
During last year's gubernatorial campaign, Deal said he did not favor vouchers.
Ben Scafidi, who served as an education adviser to then-Gov. Sonny Perdue, said Rogers' voucher bill could bolster the state's position in the next round of military base closure hearings.
"With scholarships for military children, Georgia will be able to claim that it cares about the well-being of military families," said Scafidi, a college professor and director of the Georgia Community Foundation.
A study of Milwaukee's voucher program, one of the oldest in the nation, found no substantive differences in math and reading scores between public school students and those attending private schools with vouchers.
The Center for an Educated Georgia backs the bill and is optimistic it will at least get a floor vote in the Senate, said Jamie Self, the group's director of government affairs.
"We hope it could pass this year," she said, "but the legislative process is what it is, so you never know."
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