A House panel on Tuesday narrowly approved a revived attempt to provide education funds to parents looking for options other than traditional public schools for their children.
Senate Bill 746 by Sen. Blake Johnson, R-Corning, will now head to the full House for further consideration after an 11-5 vote in the House Education Committee.
The bill closely mirrors a bill to establish "education savings accounts" by Rep. Jim Dotson, R-Bentonville. The House rejected House Bill 1222 earlier this month in a 37-47 vote after it passed out of committee.
Dotson presented SB746 on Tuesday.
"This puts the parent in the driver's seat for their child's education," he said.
Supporters of the bill included Molly Dunaway of Alma, who homeschools her children.
"I have eight intelligent and articulate and talented children, but those children also have costly needs, including not just curriculum but speech therapy, concurrent classes, ACT prep classes," she said.
Dunaway is the daughter of House Education Committee Vice Chairman Charlotte Douglas, R-Alma.
Opponents included Candace Williams of the Rural Community Alliance.
"I just want us to really think about how this bill will affect us -- not next year -- but down the line," she said. "We're deciding now to siphon off more public dollars to private entities."
Williams said she was from an impoverished community and her peers could not use the bill because private options aren't available and driving long distances is not possible because poor people often do not own cars. The alliance's website says Williams is originally from Elaine.
SB746 would establish education savings accounts, each worth about $6,700 per year per student. Covered expenses would include private school tuition, textbooks, college testing, summer programs, speech pathology, transportation and uniforms.
Poor children would receive first priority to receive the money.
Even though parents would decide how to spend the money, the payments actually would be made by nonprofit organizations to education providers. The accounts allowed by the bill would be managed by those nonprofit organizations.
Funding for the accounts would come from individual and corporate taxpayers diverting their income-tax dollars to the nonprofit organizations. Those taxpayers would receive a tax credit. The tax credits would be limited to $3 million a year in state funds in fiscal 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Dotson said the bill is a limited pilot program. He made changes aimed to prevent private schools from discriminating against children using the money and to stop parents from stockpiling the funds to save for college.
Rep. Jana Della Rosa, R-Rogers -- who had voted the House bill out of committee -- voted against SB746 on Tuesday because she said she realized there's no such thing as a pilot program.
"I keep hearing from my side of the aisle that everything would be better if schools were just run like businesses and the students were the product," she said in an interview. "But I think that's a misconception because businesses are not about turning out a product. Businesses are about generating profit. I have an autistic son. They will never make a profit off my son and there's only one entity in the state that has to take him -- regardless of his costs -- and that's public education."
A Section on 03/29/2017