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By Tom Chorneau
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
A new wave of conflict over school vouchers has broken out in a number of states where advocates in control of the legislative purse strings are confronting push-back from traditional public school supporters.
Last week, attorneys representing the Arizona School Boards Association and the state’s largest teachers’ union filed papers with the Arizona Supreme Court asking that a new program allowing tax dollars to pay for a parochial school be declared unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, in Green Bay, Wis., local school board members are joining with teachers and administrators in a grassroots campaign opposing plans to offer state support for vouchers in the 20,000-student district.
And in Nashville, Tenn., the two sides are gearing up for an expected showdown inside the state’s General Assembly over legislation that provides state money for vouchers expected to be introduced in the coming weeks.
Today there are 13 states along with the District of Columbia that have voucher programs, generally defined as offering families – typically low-income – tax money to pay all or part of a child’s tuition at a private school, including religious-based schools.
The largest program is in Indiana, where close to 530,000 students are eligible for state-paid tuition while, the latest
A panel advising California on new school performance benchmarks for college- and career-ready students is being asked tomorrow to sign off on a state plan for education staff to conduct literature reviews of the college indicators under consideration.