Indiana Takes a Stand for Private School Choice

June 30, 2009 was a GOOD day for thousands of Indiana children in the home state of the Friedman Foundation and the GEO Foundation, two long-time school choice advocates. Governor Mitch Daniels signed into law a 2.5 million corporate and individual scholarship tax credit program.  The program gives companies and individuals a 50 percent tax credit in return for their donation to a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships to low-income children to attend private schools.  Obviously, the state of Indiana has recognized that it needs the private sector to play a greater part in the education of Indiana’s low-income students.

ACE, Parents Challenge, and Seeds of Hope are Colorado’s three major nonprofit organizations that have helped thousands of low-income children obtain a high quality education in private schools.  A tax credit law in Colorado would increase the numbers of children these organizations could rescue from the BAD situation in many public schools.

Also in June, the Colorado Children’s Campaign, A+ Denver, and the Metropolitain Organizations for People released a new report showing that even though the Denver Public School system has implemented several new reforms Denver’s schools still do not perform adequately. Only about half its ninth-grade students graduate from high school in four years. 

The anti-private school choice special interest groups need to drop their weapons of mass destruction and recognize that a tax credit for donations to scholarship programs would allow for thousands more Colorado children to receive a high-quality education and at the same time save the state millions!