Education At The Statehouse: School Vouchers

Gov. Mike Pence has called on the Indiana General Assembly to make education a major focus of this year’s current session. To help explain the legislative issues, 90.1 WFYI’s Eric Weddle and Christopher Ayers will discuss a related topic Fridays during "Morning Edition" the next several weeks.

This week Eric and Chris discuss "Indiana Choice Scholarship" school voucher program and Gov. Pence’s proposal to lift the $4,800 voucher cap for grades 1-8. The program has become the largest in the country since it was created in 2011. This school year nearly 30,000 students are using the tax-payer funded vouchers to attend private or religious schools.

As part of the discussion State Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Portage, raises concerns over the costs, and Pence touts the program to Washington, D.C. lawmakers.

For more information: 

• Gov. Mike Pence's 2015-2017 proposed budget proposal
• Sen. Tallian's SB 184 woudl limit the number of vouchers awarded per year to 20,000
• Indiana Department of Education's Choice Scholarship Program Annual Report (June 2014)
• Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice's Properly Counting Indiana Voucher Students  

Listen to last week's discussion about proposed legislation to change the State Board of Education's governance here.

Contact WFYI reporter Eric Weddle at eweddle@wfyi.org or call (317) 614-0470. Follow on Twitter: @ericweddle.