The Georgia Senate approved legislation Tuesday to let more students use a pre-existing, taxpayer-funded private school scholarship program.
Currently, only students identified by public schools as having special educational needs are qualified to get the direct state funding to attend private school, which has been available since the fall of 2007.
The state pays an average of about $6,300 for each of the nearly 5,000 students who use the special needs scholarship program.
The students would qualify under this legislation, Senate Bill 386, would get less — an estimated $3,324 each. That is because those who now have a scholarship must have been identified as special needs through a federally-mandated vetting process that ends with what's known as an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, and those students cost more to educate.
Supporters say public schools can be frustrating for a subset of parents who have obtained a diagnosis for their child and feel their public school has not addressed it. Critics fear it is a move to “siphon” tax dollars from public schools to private, benefiting the upper class and mostly in metro Atlanta.
A fiscal analysis by the Department of Audits and Accounts estimates the cost at between $9.5 million and $28.5 million, depending upon the number of students who use the program.
SB 386 lowers the qualifying threshold to include students who lack an IEP but have a diagnosis from a licensed physician or psychologist or an education plan under the federal Rehabilitation Act.
Students with 504 plans have a disability that does not require the interventions given to students who have been formally identified with an IEP. The 504 plans typically include accommodations such as extended testing time.
Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, the primary author, said the students are disabled nonetheless. “This bill does not expand the current program beyond students with special needs,” she said, adding that it can help students who aren’t getting the attention they need.
But Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, said it’s mostly well-off parents like herself who would benefit. Parent said she and her husband were able to afford private school for a son with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Most families couldn’t, even with a few thousand dollars from the state, she said. “It can only be used by families that already have a decent amount of disposable income.”
Credit: Alyssa Pointer
Credit: Alyssa Pointer
In addition to tuition, they can afford to pay for a private diagnosis leading to a 504 plan, something she said was typically achieved by “wealthy families that know how to work the system.”
Sen. P.K. Martin, R-Lawrenceville, chairman of the Senate Education and Youth Committee, which previously vetted the bill and recommended its passage, spoke in favor, saying amendments had strengthened transparency and limited access to those with legitimate needs.
But Sen. Lindsey Tippins, R-Marietta, the former chairman of that same committee, spoke against it, saying it was yet another attempt over many years to expand the special needs scholarship program to children without an IEP.
Prior attempts included giving access to students who couldn’t speak English, he noted, adding that under this new bill students who qualify once would continue to receive the subsidy even if their disability was eventually remedied.
Last year, lawmakers narrowly defeated a measure that would have created taxpayer funded education "scholarship" accounts to pay for private schooling expenses. That measure was estimated to cost as much as half a billion dollars.
Lobbyists for teachers and public schools opposed that one, and they oppose this one.
SB 386 passed the Senate 33-22 anyway, on largely partisan lines. Republicans with two exceptions — Brandon Beach of Alpharetta and Ellis Black from Valdosta — were for it. Democrats except for Atlanta’s Donzella James voted against it. Tippins didn’t vote.
The legislation now goes to the state House of Representatives.
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