Parents relying on Louisiana’s voucher program to put their children through private schools are in the same predicament as others who depend on state services: uncertain where next year’s budget will leave them.
The Associated Press reports the $36 million for vouchers included in the budget proposal for the financial year that begins July 1 may—or may not—fully cover the costs of all students currently in the program. That’s the inexact assessment of the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Office, and that was the news that Superintendent of Education John White delivered to state senators.
The issue is an annual flashpoint in Louisiana’s education debate, but this time the question marks are driven as much by the state’s deep budget problems as philosophical disputes.
About 7,100 students from low- to moderate-income families are receiving taxpayer-financed tuition from the Louisiana Scholarship Program to attend 119 private and parochial schools. The program received $42 million this year.
The House-approved budget proposal includes $36 million for the program in the upcoming 2016-17 school year.
It “could potentially mean that we have enough money for the current kids, or it could not mean that. It just depends on how many kids come back and we just don’t know,” White told the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday.
A budget analysis from the Legislative Fiscal Office agrees, citing statistics that about 20% of students leave the program each year and 26% of the participating schools won’t take new students next year.
“It is very possible that the number of participants in the program will remain sufficiently low enough to maintain the seats for remaining students at the current tuition rate,” the fiscal office wrote.
Just what the $6 million cut would mean has become a dispute between Gov. John Bel Edwards, a voucher critic, and program supporters.
