BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- A $10 million program designed to pay tuition for 1,500 New Orleans public school students who want to go to private schools is being debated by a state legislative panel.
Governor Bobby Jindal strongly backs the bill, which created division among members of the New Orleans legislative delegation during Wednesday morning's meeting of the House Education Committee.
Backers of the measure aimed at low-income families say it would provide them with needed choices to escape failing schools in New Orleans. Opponents say the money should go into improving public schools and note that there are already many choices for families in the form of dozens of public charter and state-run schools established after Hurricane Katrina.
