Legislative chicanery on school vouchers

That phrase, "legislative chicanery," comes from Jay Bookman writing in today's AJC about the scam that the Republican legislative majority has pulled off in Georgia.

The reason it's appropriate to call it a scam is that the bill was sold as a benefit to low-income families in Georgia by providing tuition vouchers for private schools.  In fact, the 2008 bill has wound up being used mostly by families with kids already in private schools.  One of the bill's sponsors, Rep. David Casas (R-Gwinnett), has said that was their plan all along.  Here's how Bookman describes it:

Under the law, a taxpayer or corporation can donate to a "student scholarship organization" and then deduct that same amount directly from what's owed in state taxes.  In effect, dollars that otherwise would be collected as state income tax are diverted into coffers of private schools.  By one estimate, it has provided a subsidy worth some $143 million to private school parents in the state.

But it's for a good cause, right?  Helping poor kids escape bad public schools?

Well, no.  That turned out to be a lie, one of several used to ease passage of the bill.  Instead of serving as a bridge to move low-income students out of troubled public schools, the program is actually an underhanded taxpayer subsidy for middle-class and upper-class parents whose kids were already in private school.

According to [Rep. David Casas, Republican sponsor of the bill] that had been the plan all along.  As he explained in a presentation captured on a YouTube video, he and others wrote a trick into the law that allows parents to donate money to the scholarship fund, take the tax credit, and then arrange for their child to receive a voucher or "scholarship" in that same amount.

Even for the Republican culture of "rob the poor to benefit the rich," this is a low-down deal.   They weren't even man enough to be honest about what they were up to.  Some states have similar laws, except that the benefits are limited to those under a certain income level.   But the Georgia Republicans deliberately wrote the law without income limits on who can benefit.   Since it's possible to have a donation used by a specific child, it's a cozy arrangement to benefit those who least need it -- and thus excludes those the plan was supposed to benefit.

Further, the law lacks any kind of accountability of schools that receive the "scholarship subsidies."   It even forbids any kind of oversight regarding what the schools teach or the effectiveness of their teaching or how they spend the state money.

In contrast, accountability requirements for public schools have been increased.  You get the picture.  This is part of a larger plan to set up the public schools to fail.

Have you no shame, you Republicans?

Ralph