BATON ROUGE -- Despite a last-minute effort by a handful of New Orleans lawmakers, the House of Representatives gave final approval Wednesday to Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposed $10 million plan to finance private school tuition grants for certain students in the city's public schools.
The 62-34 vote ratified the Senate's version of House Bill 1347 by Rep. Austin Badon, D-New Orleans, forwarding the measure to the governor for his certain signature.
In its first year, Badon's plan would pay about $6,300 or a participating private school's mandatory tuition -- whichever is less -- directly to a private school for kindergarten through third-grade students coming from households that earn a maximum of 250 percent of the federal poverty level. That is $53,000 for a family of four. The program would grow and cost more each succeeding year, as the initial classes advance and new kindergarten classes are added.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans has committed to at least 500 classroom spots for the program, beginning this fall. It is unclear how many additional spots will be available from other private schools. The program could cover an estimated 1,500 children the first year.
Jindal and supporters champion the idea of expanding the educational choices of parents whose children now attend poorly performing public schools. Opponents argue that the money would be better spent improving existing public schools and the growing charter school network that already offers Orleans parents more choices than those in other parishes.
The debate Wednesday, however, focused narrowly on what requirements the state will set for the private schools that apply to be part of the program.
The original House version of the bill, which cleared the lower chamber May 14 by a 60-42 vote, required private schools to be in existence for at least three school years before they could accept public money through the program.
The Senate version has no time mandate but would require a school less than two years old to get a waiver from the state Department of Education if it wants to fill more than 20 percent of its seats with grant recipients.
Rep. Walter Leger III, D-New Orleans, reminded his colleagues that the House provision was added on the floor by a 96-2 vote. "When you spend public funds on private enterprises, you need to make sure you get what you pay for," Leger said.
House Speaker Pro Tem Karen Carter Peterson, among the most vocal opponents of the plan, chided Badon for not fully explaining the Senate version and telling his colleagues that the Senate changes were "mostly technical" and made no "significant" changes to the bill.
"Why don't you explain each amendment one by one?" she told Badon, who then complied.
Peterson argued that a conference committee would not doom the measure, because legislative leaders would see that supporters of the bill would form the panel's majority. "We're just asking to get some critical elements of this bill addressed," she said.
Still, Leger and Peterson mustered only 34 votes for a conference committee, against 59 votes against that maneuver.
Bill Barrow can be reached at [email protected] or (225) 342-5590.