Georgia
A broken Promise? Georgia school voucher program could have vastly inflated eligibility
Public education in Georgia will likely see sweeping changes in 2025, as the Georgia Promise Scholarship, a program that allows families to divert public education funding towards private school tuition and other educational expenses, takes effect.
However, the pool of eligible students may far exceed what many legislators anticipated when passing the bill, SB 233, during the 2024 legislative session.
The Georgia Promise Scholarship, authored by state Sen. Greg Dolezal (R-Cumming), was intended to allow students enrolled in the lowest 25th percentile of Georgia schools (based on the last two school years’ averages of the College and Career Ready Performance Index) to receive up to $6,500 each year to put towards private school tuition, school supplies, tutoring and other educational expenses. However, rules adopted by the Georgia Education Savings Authority on Nov. 18 expanded the eligibility to all those who live in such a school’s attendance zone, even if they do not attend the school.
Multiple legislators said they didn’t realize how broadly the law could be interpreted, and plan to reign in the eligibility requirement for the Georgia Promise Scholarship during the upcoming session.
“That wasn’t my understanding,” House Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones (R-Milton) told the Associated Press.
Voucher programs have been criticized by public school advocates, who say that voucher programs divert funds from struggling schools. Though the funds would not come out of Quality Basic Education (QBE), the formula that determines how much money public schools across Georgia receive from the state each year, QBE is calculated using full-time equivalent (FTE) student counts, meaning that public schools receive less money when their enrollment drops.
In Savannah, students enrolled in one of 18 approved schools in the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System (SCCPSS) could soon be eligible to apply for the Georgia Promise Scholarship. The application window is expected to open in January 2025.
Maya Homan is a 2024 election fellow at USA TODAY who focuses on Georgia politics. She is @MayaHoman on X, formerly Twitter.