Bill would provide universal vouchers in Georgia

ATLANTA - A Republican state senator wants Georgia to become the first state in the nation to offer vouchers to all school children.

Eric Johnson of Savannah introduced legislation on Monday that would allow parents to use roughly $5,000 in state tax dollars to send their child to any public or private school in the state willing to accept the student.

The proposal immediately touched off a battle at the state Capitol, where Democrats pledged to fight the plan they say will siphon cash away from already struggling public schools.

"It's going to be a titanic struggle," state Sen. Vincent Fort, an Atlanta Democrat said. "This would serve to dismantle public education as we know it."

But Johnson argued the state's education system is badly in need of a shake up.

"We are near the bottom of every single ranking in education in this state," Johnson said.

Johnson, who is seeking the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor in 2010, has made school choice a signature issue. He pushed through legislation two years ago to provide special needs students with vouchers. Under that program, about 1,600 students are attending 145 private schools this year on vouchers, according to the Georgia Department of Education. Those students are receiving $5.6 million in state funding.

He predicted that only about 5 percent of parents statewide would use the vouchers.

Under the bill, individual public and private schools could decide whether to participate and which students to admit. Parents would have to agree to provide transportation for their child.

Nine states and Washington, D.C. have voucher programs for low-income or special-needs students, but none are universal, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Education Reform, which supports school choice. Utah lawmakers put a universal program on a referendum ballot in 2007, but voters overwhelmingly quashed it.

In Milwaukee, which has the oldest voucher programs in the country, more than 20,000 students are now using vouchers to attend private schools, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction said. The shift has helped contribute to plummeting enrollment and school officials have been forced to close some buildings and seek new ways of attracting students.

Johnson said such free-market competition is what his legislation is designed to encourage.

"This is good for public schools," he said.

Kevin Chavous, a fellow with the Center for Education Reform said Georgia is the only state he knows where a universal voucher program is being pushed this session.

Chavous said there are real challenges with universal voucher programs, including resistance to the idea that affluent residents could use the state money to help pay for private schools.

"I like means-tested programs myself because those low-income students are the ones who tend to be trapped in the worst schools," Chavous said.