School Voucher Program Would Expand Under Bill

By TRAVIS FAIN - tfain@macon.com
Macon Telegraph
February 4, 2010




ATLANTA — A small school vouchers program would be expanded to offer taxpayer-funded scholarships to foster children and military families interested in private schools, if legislation under consideration at the Capitol passes.

These vouchers are available now to special needs children. Legislators and Gov. Sonny Perdue approved that program in 2007 after a protracted fight over the state’s role in funding education. That program has been heralded as a success, and now supporters want to expand it in an effort they hope will end with vouchers for all students in Georgia.

“I don’t hide that,” said Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, who will carry this new bill. “How could you ever say that less choice is preferable?”

Rogers was joined at Wednesday’s bill announcement by former state Sen. Eric Johnson, who pushed the existing voucher program for handicapped children through the Legislature a few years ago.

Johnson, a Republican, resigned his Senate seat to run for governor this year, and he’s made vouchers a major plank in that campaign. Rogers repeatedly called Johnson “the father of successful school choice in Georgia” on Wednesday.

“In the 21st century we have got to personalize public education,” Johnson said, calling the existing public school system “an 8-track player in an iPod world.”

Foster children and military families often have little choice about the public school districts they live in, making them natural fits for this expansion, Rogers said. But it remains to be seen whether this legislation will move forward at the Capitol during a highly charged election year.

State Rep. Brooks Coleman, chairman of the House Education Committee, chose his words carefully as he discussed the bill’s prospects Wednesday morning, but it was clear the effort will face several hurdles.

“I think we’ve got such a critical need right now in public education,” said Coleman, R-Duluth. “We’ve got to look to restore what we’ve done to public schools.”

Many Democrats fought Johnson’s voucher effort in 2007, and state Sen. Robert Brown, the party’s minority leader in the Senate, said Rogers’ new effort is another Republican effort to privatize education “one bite at a time.”

“I think we’re moving in the wrong direction with vouchers,” said Brown, D-Macon. “We need to strengthen public schools as opposed to weaken them.”

Rogers and Johnson argue that vouchers don’t weaken public schools, which are funded with state, federal and local taxes.

Only the state money set aside for a child’s education would follow him or her to private school, meaning local taxpayer contributions to public education would stay in place, they said.

State Rep. Jim Cole, R-Forsyth, said Wednesday that “the success of education is going to depend upon the variety of options” parents have. But Cole, who has children in private school, said he couldn’t support a full-fledged voucher system but would support vouchers in specific cases.

That includes vouchers for military families and foster children, as Rogers has proposed, he said. Cole said he’s heard “nothing but good things” about the voucher program for special needs children.

As for the governor, his office took a wait-and-see approach Wednesday, as it typically does on pending legislation.

“We’ll look at anything that comes,” Perdue communications director Bert Brantley said. “The governor signed (Senate Bill) 10.”

The governor has his own education legislation pending this year. He’s calling for a change in the way teachers are paid, wanting that pay based on student achievement as opposed to what sort of advanced degrees teachers may earn.

To contact writer Travis Fain, call 361-2702.

http://www.macon.com/local/story/1009969.html

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