Following five years of unsuccessful attempts by Georgia Republican lawmakers to expand the state’s school voucher program, GOP Senators on Wednesday cast enough votes to send the latest version of the controversial plan to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk to be signed into law.
On Wednesday, several Republican House Majority Caucus members joined their colleagues in the Senate chamber to celebrate the so-called Georgia Promise Schools Act’s passage by a 33-21 party-line vote. The measure allows families with students enrolled in Georgia’s K-12 public schools to remove $6,500 of state funding provided to local school districts in order to attend private schools or to homeschool.
Critics of the vouchers continued the debate on Wednesday whether $6,500 would be enough for cash-strapped families to afford cost of tuition at many of the state’s better private schools.
Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Cumming Republican, said that $6,500 is close to the state’s median private school cost, which should entice parents of students attending low-performing schools to send their children to a private school.
According to Private School Review, the average private school tuition in Georgia is $11,893 per year, and tuition in the state ranges from $1,042 to $57,500.
Dolezal praised the GOP leadership in the House and Senate as well as Kemp for fighting to get Senate Bill 233 across the finish line ahead of the March 29 deadline for this year’s Legislative session.
“I remember my freshman year 2019 when this bill failed on the floor of the Senate,” Dolezal said. “It means the world to me that five years later we united around this tailored bill that we can all agree is a step in the right direction.”
Different versions of so-called school choice proposals failed in recent years as a number of Republican legislators joined the majority Democratic lawmakers to block a plan they contend would divert taxpayer funding crucial to…
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