Senate OKs school voucher bill; some pan vote

[The Northerner]

NASHVILLE - The state Senate on Thursday approved a school voucher bill that allows lower-income students to take half of the taxpayer money spent per pupil in their school district - about $4,300 per year in Knox County - to any private, church-sponsored or other independent school that will accept them.

They may also take the money to any other public or charter school that has room for them.

As written, the bill will initially apply only to students whose household income qualifies them for free or reduced-price school lunches, and only to students in Tennessee's four largest counties: Knox, Shelby, Davidson and Hamilton. School districts in all four counties opposed the bill.

Thursday's 18-10 Senate approval of SB 485 is the first time a school-voucher bill has been approved by either legislative chamber. The House Education subcommittee is scheduled to review the bill Wednesday, and to become law, the bill must also pass the House. Its sponsor, Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, calls the measure the "Equal Opportunity Scholarship Act" and declared on the Senate floor that it's a "windfall" for school districts because they retain half of the per-pupil expenditure from state and local taxpayers for each student who leaves.

Read more: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/apr/22/senate-oks-school-voucher-bill-some-pan-vote/

[secondwind]

1. I think this is all about indoctrination. Most charter schools are backed by

Christian Evangelicals (in one way or another).

[DCKit]

2. "...allows lower-income students to take half..."

Sounds like a real money-maker.

Who's going to pay the other half?

[fasttense]

3. Too bad you can't use those vouchers within the public school system.

TN allows kids to attend schools outside their district if the parent's pay a tuition cost. The county schools in may area were terrible and I paid about $1,500 a year to send my 2 kids to the city school which was much better (this was about 5 years ago). If you could use those vouchers in the public school system, it would reduce the price families have to pay.