School choice up for debate again in Nebraska

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (KSNB) - School choice and scholarship programs are currently nowhere to be found the Nebraska, but some in the Unicameral are working to fix that.

Legislative Bill 753, or the Opportunity Scholarship Act, was introduced by Senator Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha, and she has the support of 30 other senators from the Legislature. That list includes Senator Ray Augilar, Senator Steve Halloran, Senator John Lowe.

Senator Linehan said the bill would work to help give parents the most options for educating their children.

“A downside to giving kids an opportunity to go to the best institution for them? No I don’t see a downside,” Senator Linehan said. “I see a lot of if we don’t give every child an opportunity to do the best they can.”

Superintendent of Grand Island Central Catholic Jordan Engle said there is space available for the students, but he said space was never the concern.

“The biggest hurdle for a lot of these individuals is just what this bill is aimed to alleviate and that is resource. Right now, we do a great job of educating our students, it costs us about $10,000 per students per year to educate, and in turn we are charging most families less than half of that per student and the rest of that is coming from third party donated funds,” Engle said.

Not all that glitters is gold, and LB 753 opponent Danielle Helzer said worries this bill is a voucher scheme bill, and while it has large amount of support from the Unicameral, she questions who supports it outside of that.

“Who else in the education world are sponsoring this bill, right?” Helzer said. “Obviously we have private schools who are going to be excited about this bill. How many public institutions are excited about this bill? I think that speaks volumes too.”

Helzer said a culture war against public schools could be the reason LB 753 is gaining steam in the Unicameral.

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