Rep. Kim Hammer, who’s been pushing a school voucher bill for foster children under a program nominally intended only for children with special education needs, got some pushback in committee this week from Sen. Joyce Elliott on “mission creep,” or finding ways to expand vouchers.

Hammer’s bill allows 20 foster children, even without an individualized education program to address a particular disability or problem, to get state money to go to a private school.

Advertisement

This is an expansion of the Success Scholarship program that supposedly had a 100-student cap on students with IEPs who could get a private school voucher payment worth $6,646 this school year to go to a private school. The bill actually has no student cap, other than the amount appropriated for the program, put at $800,000 when we wrote about the bill coming of the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday.

But wait. An amendment was added to the Education Department appropriation bill by Sen. Bart Hester that raised the appropriation by a whopping 62 percent, to $1.3 million. By Thursday, the day after committee approval of the foster child vouchers, the larger amount was engrossed in the legislation.

Advertisement

This raises the number of children who can get private school vouchers to almost 200 . Mission creep? How about mission leap?

Be a part of something bigger

As a reader of the Arkansas Times, you know we’re dedicated to bringing you tough, determined, and feisty journalism that holds the powerful accountable. For 50 years, we've been fighting the good fight in Little Rock and beyond – with your support, we can do even more. By becoming a subscriber or donating as little as $1 to our efforts, you'll not only have access to all of our articles, but you'll also be helping us hire more writers to expand our coverage and continue to bring important stories to light. With over 63,000 Facebook followers, 58,000 Twitter followers, 35,000 Arkansas blog followers, and 70,000 daily email blasts, it's clear that our readers value our great journalism. Join us in the fight for truth.

Previous article Imagine the fun Fox News will have with this Trumpcare quote Next article Jones Bar-B-Q of Marianna has a related outpost in Jacksonville