TAKE ACTION: Oppose bill that would keep kids in failing private voucher schools
03/20/2017
HB 1384 originally addressed the method of calculating school graduation rates, but an amendment in the House Education Committee drastically changed the bill, which would now allow private and religious schools to remain part of the state’s voucher program, despite two years of low or failing grades.
Under this bill, the new accountability standard for private schools is not student test score performance, as is the case for every other school, but rather, whether a majority of students demonstrated academic improvement from the prior year.
The state’s voucher program is coming under increasing scrutiny for its lack of basic fiscal accountability and research showing voucher students are demonstrating losses in achievement. Now is not the time to give the program more flexibility to continue funding bad private schools. Vouchers were sold to Hoosiers under the premise that they would help get kids out of failing schools, not keep them in one.