Texas Senate approves scaled-back school voucher plan
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Senate on Thursday approved a major voucher plan offering state funding to children attending private and religious schools — but only after slashing its potential cost by limiting the number of eligible families and exempting rural areas, which opponents argue can least afford losing students.
Sen. Larry Taylor's bill creates publicly sponsored education savings accounts for parents while offering tax credits to businesses that sponsor private schooling via donations. It appeared stalled before the Republican from Friendswood agreed to make wholesale changes.
"Our public schools have all the incumbency advantages. They have the facilities, they have the activities and, frankly, for many places, it's the center of the town's activities," Taylor said Tuesday. "But there are some students in those schools that that's not the best environment for them."
His overhauled proposal no longer applies to communities with fewer than 285,000 residents and includes caps ensuring that only low-income families are eligible, except in cases of students with special needs who could get funding to enroll in private schools regardless of their family's income.
Read more: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/texas/article_8b048462-47c3-5498-9124-c197acb75f60.html
