MONTGOMERY — State lawmakers are planning to take up a bill that would give parents up to $6,900 for education avenues outside of public schools.

The Parental Rights in Children’s Education (PRICE) Act, SB 202, would provide allows the funds toward private, online, church and home schools expenses for grades K-12.

Sponsored by Tuscambia Sen. Larry Stutts, a Republican, the proposal, if approved, would allow a parent to apply for the funds each year beginning in the 2024-25 school year. The amount would be adjusted annually based on the percentage change of the Education Trust Fund’s share of the Foundation Program from the prior year.

In the first two years, only students in the lowest performing 30 percent of schools would qualify, though the bill lists other qualifications. After the third year, all students in Alabama would be eligible. The funds would come from a proposed PRICE Education Savings Account and parents could use it toward an education program outside their child’s assigned public school.

“School choice initiatives that acknowledge and strengthen the role of parents in their innate responsibility to educate and raise their children are a priority for (Alabama Policy Institute),” API stated in a news release. “The ultimate goal of school choice is to give parents agency to educate each of their children as they see fit. … Where there is competition and innovation, there is success; where there is governmental interference and control, there is stagnation.”

API — a nonprofit think tank with interest in preserving “free markets, limited government and strong families” — helped draft the PRICE Act proposal.

If the Act is approved, the legislature, would then have to designate funds to the PRICE ESA account. Such funds would then be deposited in the student’s ESA after the parent/guardian agrees to use the funds for their child’s education related expenses.

Qualifying expenses include tuition, textbooks and fees, online educational services or materials, individual classes, tutoring services, educational therapies — such as occupational, behavioral, physical, speech and auditory therapies — extracurricular activities, computer hardware and technological devices, software and applications, and school uniforms.

Becky Gerritson is the executive director of Eagle Forum of Alabama, a conservative nonprofit that focuses on public policy that parental rights to economic liberty. Gerritson said an ESA program could help reduce teacher shortages, and also improve the quality of public schools through the competitiveness and pressure to improve.

“Most families are happy with their public schools. but there are many families in Alabama who do want the option … whether it’s a safety reason, whether their child is being bullied, whether they don’t like the academics or the values … they’re learning about critical race theory or things that don’t line up with their values …They want they option to be able to pull their student out and use that money to be able to educate them in a different way,” Gerritson said.

Boyd English, superintendent of Albertville City Schools in north Alabama, spoke against the bill during the Senate Education Policy Committee April 26.

“We need more funding, not legislation that would take funding away from public schools in Alabama,” English said, according to an AP report. English said public schools face multiple performance metrics that private schools and homeschool classrooms do not, including standardized testing and graduation rates, the AP reported.

The PRICE Act proposal does not include requirements to audit or assess whether the nonpublic school entities are accredited or how they are regulated.

Allison King, government relations director of the Alabama Education Association — an advocacy group for public education — also spoke against the bill, citing the millions of dollars that would be siphoned from community schools if passed.

{p class=”p1”}Part of the bills states that its intent is to “prevent discrimination against parents who must pay both tuition and taxes if they choose a nonpublic education.”

The Senate Education Policy Committee did not vote on the bill after its public hearing April 26, and instead referred it to the Senate Finance and Taxation Education Committee. The House version of the bill, HB 295, is planned to be heard in the House Education Committee on May 3 at 1:30 p.m.

According to a fiscal analysis included in documents for the proposed PRICE program, the estimated minimum cost to the Education Trust Fund from where funds deposit into PRICE ESAs would come, is $288.2 million in fiscal year 2025 and $576.1 million in fiscal year 2026. The estimate is based on the assumption that 5 percent of eligible public school students enrolled for the 2022-2023 school year would participate in the program.

The bill also requires an annual appropriation from the state’s Education Trust Fund in an amount equal to the lesser of $2 million or 3 percent of the amount appropriated each year to the PRICE ESA Fund.

Gerritson noted that funding would come from schools’ state portion per student, and that local schools would be able to keep their federal and local funding.

The PRICE Act is among a string of efforts by Republicans nationwide to promote “school choice” or efforts that deter against public education.

A similar proposal in Georgia, the “Georgia Promise Scholarship Act” (Senate Bill 23), failed to pass on the last day of the state’s legislative session this year.

The proposal sought to allocate as much as $6,500 per school year per student for education-related expenses for alternatives to public school.

SB 233 had been amended several times between the House and Senate before ultimately coming to an end March 29; The House voted 89-85 to reject the bill, and in a subsequent action voted 98-73 to reconsider the bill at another time. Nearly a dozen House Republicans voted against it, a contrast to 33-23 partisan vote in favor of the bill by Senate Republicans March 6.