(The Center Square) — Georgia lawmakers missed a chance to expand educational opportunities for Peach State scholars once they failed to move a invoice to identify state-funded schooling financial savings accounts, a nonprofit mentioned Thursday.
The Georgia Center for Opportunity pointed to Indiana and South Carolina, which handed measures not too long ago to create schooling scholarship accounts. The accounts typically permit recipients to use the cash for educational bills, together with tuition for personal colleges.
“We’re seeing an increasing tide of states choosing to give all students access to the best education for their unique needs,” Buzz Brockway, GCO’s vp of public coverage. “It’s a shame that Georgia didn’t join that list this year.
“If Georgia lawmakers had handed Senate Bill 233 this consultation, eligible households would have had get entry to to $6,500 to to find the most efficient educational possibility for his or her kid,” Brockway added. “As it stands, those children will stay caught in colleges that don’t seem to be the precise have compatibility for them. Even so, we’ve hope for the 2024 quick consultation with lawmakers can have some other chance to advance schooling alternative for all.”
A report from Public Funds Public Schools, a mission through the Southern Poverty Law Center and Education Law Center, finds that Georgia has two education schemes: the Special Needs Scholarship Program, which began in 2007 and is a conventional voucher program, and the Qualified Education Expense Tax Credit program, which started in 2008.
In fiscal 2009, the state’s spending at the voucher methods totaled $11.1 million, whilst per-pupil investment for public schooling was once $10,536, the gang mentioned in its research. In fiscal 2019, the state’s spending on vouchers greater to greater than $109.1 million, whilst per-pupil investment for public schooling was once $10,336.
Separately, a contemporary index from the Heritage Foundation discovered Georgia ranked 14th within the country for its educational freedom.
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