A key House committee approved a plan Monday to let parents use state tax money to pay for private school tuition or home-schooling.
The House Ways & Means Committee voted largely along party lines for House Bill 243 by Rep. Mark Hamilton, R-Cumming, which would let parents take what the state now pays for a child’s public school education and put it into a “savings account.” That $3,500 to $5,000 annually, Hamilton said, could be used to pay for private school tuition or other alternatives to public schooling.
School and teacher groups have argued that Hamilton’s bill is nothing more than a private school voucher that would siphon money from public schools. Democrats on the committee largely opposed it.
Hamilton called it “parental choice.”
“We are giving a menu of choices to parents,” Hamilton said. “This is not an anti-public school system bill.”
Hamilton’s bill had been originally assigned to the House Education Committee. It was later shifted to the House Ways & Means Committee, which typically handles bills on taxes. Hamilton’s bill isn’t about taxes, but one of its co-sponsors is Ways & Means Chairman Jay Powell, R-Camilla.
Several education groups spoke against Hamilton’s bill in subcommittee meetings, as did Democratic lawmakers, who see it as an extension of past attempts by Republicans to use public tax money to support parents who want to send their children to private schools.
Hamilton argues that school districts would still retain local tax money that would otherwise go to pay to educate ex-public school students benefiting from his bill. Only the state portion of school funding would go into Hamilton’s “education saving account.”
He said the number of students eligible to benefit would be capped at 8,500 the first year and 17,000 the second year. By the third year, the cap would be eliminated. Hamilton has said experience in two other states with similar Education Savings Accounts, Arizona and Florida, suggests the number who use it will likely be closer to 1,000,
Rep. Mickey Stephens, D-Savannah, a member of the House panel and a retired public school educator who sent his children to private school, said private schools can be selective and don’t have to accept every student, like public schools.
“I think we are dressing up a voucher and making it look like a scholarship,” Stephens said. “If you can afford to send your kids to private schools, you don’t need a voucher.”
Hamilton's bill isn't the Republican-led General Assembly's first attempt to aid parents who want to send their children to private schools. The state allocated $58 million this year to a long-running program that allows Georgians to get a tax credit for donating to private school scholarship groups. The tax credits were used up on Jan. 1 and the longtime legislative patron of the program, Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, has pushed for the cap to be increased from $58 million to $250 million next year.
His bill never went anywhere this session.
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