State Budget Bill Boosts School Choice
Indianapolis— Hoosier children stand to benefit in two ways from a boost to two existing school choice programs contained in the state budget bill.
House Bill 1001, the state budget bill, passed the House in late February and received a March 10 hearing in the Senate School Funding Subcommittee. The school choice portion of the budget bill removes the choice scholarship cap set at $4,800 per child in grades 1-8. The bill also increases the maximum available amount of tax credits from $7.5 million to $12.5 million for donors who give to a Scholarship Granting Organization.
Indiana Catholic Conference Executive Director Glenn Tebbe said that the choice scholarship program offers students from low to moderate income families opportunities to attend a public or nonpublic school of the parents’ choice. Currently, 29,000 students statewide are receiving a choice scholarship.
Tebbe said another program that assists low income families is the tax credit scholarship program. These scholarships are privately funded by donors who receive a 50 percent tax credit for each dollar donated. For the school year 2013-2014, approximately 11,000 students were awarded the privately-funded tax credit scholarships administered by SGOs. Tebbe said the average tax credit scholarship per student was $1,000. The tax credit scholarship is a line item provision in the state budget that limits Indiana to only a certain amount of tax credits per fiscal year. The current limit is set at $7.5 million. School choice advocates are requesting a $5 million increase. Tebbe said donations last year reached almost $15 million, which would have exhausted the tax credit.
Under Indiana law, a choice scholarship awarded a child will always cost the state less than educating the same child in a traditional public school. In grades 1-8, the choice scholarship amount is capped at the lesser of these amounts: tuition at the school – 90 percent or 50 (percent based on family income) of the per-pupil funding the child would have received to attend their neighborhood public school, or $4,800.
Caitlin Gamble, representing Hoosiers for Quality Education, shared an example of the inequity in state funding between students entering a traditional public school (compared to students in a public charter school) and students entering a nonpublic school who get choice scholarships. She told the Senate School Funding Subcommittee that a child in a traditional public school in East Chicago gets $8,500 from the state; a student attending a nearby public charter school gets $7,500 from the state; and a third student attending a nearby non-public school and getting a choice scholarship receives a maximum of $4,800 from the state. Gamble said, “No matter where that student chooses to go to school, that family’s income didn’t change; the only thing that changed was the school building that kid walks into each morning.”
Andrew Currier, principal of St. Adalbert Catholic School in South Bend, testified before the Senate panel and said he supports the governor’s proposal to eliminate the $4,800 choice scholarship cap. Currier said out of his 225 students, more than 90 percent of the families are below the poverty line and 97 percent are of Latino descent. He said many of his Latino students struggle with English language learning needs. Currier said that through a “hard work, no shortcuts” approach, St. Adalbert has had success stories that have garnered national attention as a school that can defy academic odds. “Our students benefit from super-efficient use of extremely limited resources,” he said
John Elcesser, executive director for the Indiana Non-Public School Education Association, also testified in support of HB 1001, which removes the $4,800 choice scholarship cap. “One of the benefits of this job is I get to travel around the state and talk to families who are benefiting from this program,” Elcesser said. “These lives have been changed by this program.”
Dr. Vercena Stewart, principal of Ambassador Christian Academy in Gary, said “I’m a strong proponent of school choice. Parents have the right to choose the best environment for their children.” Stewart said she is a product of the Gary public school system. She had her own children in both public and private schools. In the school community where she serves as principal, families have a median income of less than $25,000. She said that parents would not be able to select a private school were it not for the choice scholarships.
House Bill 1001 is expected to pass the Senate before the end of April. Tebbe said he is hopeful the school choice portions of the bill will remain intact and become law before the April 29 adjournment deadline of the Indiana General Assembly.
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