Panel OKs voucher funding

• By MICHELLE MILLHOLLON AND SARAH CHACKO
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: May 23, 2008 - Page: 4A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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A Senate committee advanced House-passed legislation Thursday that would create a $10 million private and parochial school scholarship program in New Orleans.

State Rep. Austin Badon, D-New Orleans, said the idea behind his House Bill 1347 is that poor people love their children just as much as rich people do.

He said people hear the word “voucher” and immediately throw up their hands.

“You can call it a scholarship. You can call it a voucher,” Badon said. “It doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter to the families who will be able to benefit.”

The Jindal administration-backed proposal is sparking fierce debate at the Legislature about the use of public funds for private or parochial education.

Gov. Bobby Jindal included $10 million for the program in his $30 billion proposed state operating budget for the spending year that starts July 1.

Jindal’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Waguespack, sat at the witness table throughout testimony on the legislation he and other Jindal deputies have lobbied hard this session.

HB 1347 would apply to about 1,500 New Orleans schoolchildren. It would affect children in kindergarten through third grade from families earning no more than 250 percent of the federal poverty threshold, or about $53,000 in annual income for a family of four.

The children would be able to receive scholarships if they are entering kindergarten or if they attended a failing school for kindergarten, first or second grade.

Before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the New Orleans public schools were criticized. After the storm, the state took over the city’s school system.

The program is designed to grow by continuing to give the children scholarships through their senior year of high school.

Critics are concerned the program will grow even further by expanding into other areas of the state, leading to broad vouchers.

Any choice benefits the consumer, says Brigitte Nieland, director of education issues for the business lobbying group, and other issues for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry.