National News

How Public Money is Funding Private, Religious Schools in Georgia

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2012-05-22 09:55:51

-by Jennifer Monteagudo, Staff Writer; Image: Gwinnett Christian Academy, a private, religious school in Georgia that taught parents how to ‘game’ the system to get scholarships for their non-needy children (Image Source: CaptureGwinnett.com)

In the state of Georgia, public funds that should be going to public schools are being diverted into private institutions, and often, religious ones, for children who aren’t always needy, the New York Times reported yesterday.

According to the paper, Georgia’s “private school scholarship program,” which began in 2008, has been misused.

Although originally intended so that children of lower income bracket families would not be forced to attend failing public schools, and could receive financial aid to go to private schools, what is happening instead is parents of children already enrolled in private schools are applying for scholarships after contributing to the scholarship program. When contributing, parents “receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits, up to $2,500 a couple.”

The outcome, is that public money is being diverted from public schools, to help non-needy children and families receive scholarships to schools that they’re sometimes already in. “Spreading at a time of deep cutbacks in public schools...” the paper notes, “the programs [operating in eight states] redirected nearly $350 million that would have gone into public budgets.”

Though these scholarship programs are still used to help needy children, “the money has also been used to attract star football players... and spread the theology of creationism.” The Times also notes that “most of the private schools are religious.”

It is “nonprofit scholarship groups,” not the state, through which money exchanges hands, meaning “the programs are insulated from provisions requiring church-state separation.” These nonprofit groups may not always be ethical, as well, since some collect “hundreds of thousands of dollars in administrative fees.”

Critics of these programs say they are political, and specifically, conservative in nature, funneling money away from public schools to religious private schools; some have even implied that the intention of these programs was never to help needy children, but to promote religious conservatism while crippling public education.

In Florida, the issue has divided state legislators along political lines. In March, according to the Palm Beach Post News, the “Republican-ruled House” expanded its “corporate-tax-credit private-school-voucher program, with Democrats decrying the move to pull dollars from the state treasury that could go to public schools.”

According to the Post News, “as of November [2011], 1,181 private schools participated” in the program, with scholarships going to over 37,000 students. Like in neighbor state Georgia, Florida’s education budget has been drastically decreased in the last few years. In 2011, Governor Rick Scott and the state legislature cut $1.3 billion from Florida public schools.