Georgia agency approves rules for new school voucher program

The Georgia Education Savings Authority voted Monday to approve rules for the state’s new school voucher program. The Georgia Promise Scholarship program offers $6,500 education savings accounts to students zoned for any public school in Georgia’s bottom 25% for academic achievement. The money can be also be used for textbooks, transportation and home-schooling supplies. Plus, scholarships can be applied toward therapy, tutoring and early college courses.A student must either has attended a public school for two consecutive semesters or must be a kindergartner about to enroll. Parents also have been Georgia residents for at least a year. Only students in families earning no more than 400% of the federal poverty limit – currently $120,000 a year for a family of four – would qualify.The program will start accepting applications in January 2025. However, Georgia’s General Assembly must determine how many scholarships the state will pay for. The law creating the scholarship program mandates a spending cap of 1% of the $14.1 billion that Georgia spends on its K-12 school funding formula. As a result, $141 million would be spent on the scholarship program, providing at least 21,000 scholarships.“What you have before you is a responsible piece of legislation that will...