The Louisiana House has approved a budget proposal that doubles the funding of the LA GATOR scholarship program. It is the state’s voucher program that mainly serves low-income families, providing state tax dollars for children to attend a private school. Senate President Cameron Henry continues to oppose doubling the size of LA GATOR.
“We’re going to hold off before we expand the program. We’re going to kind of wait and see the outcomes. You don’t just expand a program after one year just because,” Henry said.
But Governor Jeff Landry said on WRKF’s Talk Louisiana that the public wants to see the program expand, because it will give more parents, more options.
“Children that are stuck in poor, failing schools shouldn’t have to remain in those poor, failing schools because of a zip code,” Landry said.
Henry says LA GATOR is only a year old, and the state should see whether the students in the program are improving academically and whether the state is receiving what it’s spending on the vendors who run the program.
“Let’s go back and make sure we’re doing everything we can to make sure we’re getting the best price for it, whether it’s the contract to run the program, which is done by Odyssey,” Henry said.
Landry says one of his main objectives is to provide more options for parents who have children with disabilities.
“Parents who have children with disabilities struggle to find programs for those particular kids. And they deserve to be in schools that have a program that fits whatever that disability is. So, we’re going to continue to make small steps or big steps; we’ll see what they decide to do,” Landry explained.
The Senate will spend the next several weeks discussing the budget.
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