With the Georgia School Voucher List, More Than 400,000 Kids Can Get One

IN ATLANTA — A list of Georgia’s worst schools didn’t change much after two months of recalculation. This means that more than 400,000 students will be able to apply for $6,500 vouchers to help pay for private school fees or homeschooling costs.

The new list was released by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement on Friday. In December, two other lists were released and then taken down. Only a few things were added or taken away from the new list.

Students who are zoned for Georgia’s academic rating system’s bottom 25% of schools can apply for what the law calls “promise scholarships.”

For the Georgia Education Savings Authority, which was set up by law, the measure meant that any student who lives in a school’s attendance zone is qualified, even if they don’t go to that school. Like, if a middle school is on the list, then kids in grade and high school in that area can also apply.

According to the Associated Press, all students in 65 of Georgia’s 180 regular school districts can apply. This includes all students in the Richmond County and Bibb County districts in Augusta and Macon. Most of the districts where all kids can go are, however, small and out in the country.

An AP study finds that most kids in DeKalb County, Clayton County, and Atlanta will also be able to apply.

Republicans like Chris Erwin of Homer, who is the chair of the House Education Committee, said that the idea that all kids in an attendance zone are eligible is not what lawmakers meant.

He said on Tuesday that he’s still thinking about presenting a bill this session that would only allow students who would be going to low-performing schools to be eligible and not students who would be going to other schools in the attendance zone. But it’s not clear if the Senate, which is more in favor of vouchers, would agree to such a bill.

The list came out right before the first round of applications, which ran from March 1 to April 15. The government is planning to add more application times in June and September. But the dates to apply to many private schools for the 2025–2026 school year have already passed. Students could get in if they applied before they were sure they were qualified or if the school lets people apply late.

The law said that the most that could be spent was 1% of the formula for paying public schools, which is $141 million. That’s enough to give out more than 22,000 coupons. That’s how much Republican Gov. Brian Kemp suggested being spent, but lawmakers haven’t decided on the exact amount yet.

Georgia has to fully fund its public schools before any money can be given to options. The money for grants is set aside separately from the money for public schools.

Georgia has 1.75 million kids in public schools. If you make it easy for a lot of people to apply, the number of applications could be huge, and the spending cap could be pushed up. Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Republican, has already backed a plan to let all foster children apply.

Voucher schemes are growing all over the country. Many supporters want all kids to be able to apply, no matter how well they do in school or how much money their family makes. States like Arizona, Florida, Iowa, and Ohio that have implemented these kinds of universal grants have seen more applications than expected, which has caused costs to rise.

Georgia’s law is not as broad. Kids who are zoned for a bad school and have been admitted for two semesters or are starting kindergarten next year are the only ones who can apply. If there are more students who want vouchers than there are vouchers, students from families whose incomes are less than four times the government poverty level are given priority. That’s about $100,000 for three people. If there are still too many applications, the money will be given to someone at random across the whole state.

The money can be used for private school tuition, books, transportation, school supplies for homeschooling, therapy, tutoring, or early college classes for high school kids.

Seven rural Republicans and a Democrat changed their minds this spring after Gov. Brian Kemp, House Speaker Jon Burns of Newington, and other Republicans put pressure on them to do so. The House passed the program with no extra votes.

After officials decided to leave out some schools, like private schools and alternative schools, the list had to be worked on again twice.