The Office of Governor Joe Lombardo is getting pushback from Nevada democratic leadership, and it showed during this past week's Assembly Ways and Means Committee, when the governor's office pitched their expansive k-12 education omnibus bill.
The bill AB400 has four major policy areas:
1. School choice expansion
2. Childhood literacy by third grade
3. Teacher pipeline
4. Accountability proposals.
Among the most controversial policy areas was school choice expansion. Democratic Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager probed Governor Joe Lombardo's Chief of Staff Ben Kieckhefer during the hearing.Â
"How do we justify that choice unless and until we get to a point where we have adequately funded public education in this state," asked Yeager.Â
"The answer to your constituents is that you trust them, right, and that you're not funding public schools, you're not funding private schools, you're funding their children's education - and you're giving them the opportunity to choose the educational environment that is best suited for their child," replied Kieckhefer.Â
Proponents of school choice argue that charter and private schools should not be limited to people who have the money and means, and that it would help families on the lower socio-economic spectrum afford to send their children to private school, particularly if the public school in their district is failing.
Opponents argue that expanding school choice would divert public funds into private schools, and that lawmakers should not be investing tax dollars in private schools before meeting existing public education goals - which Nevada does not meet. Thereby, ultimately syphoning funding and resources away from public schools that are already underperforming.
"We can do both, this is not an either/or proposition. And, i think the governor's budget reflects that i think this policy document in front of you reflects that. The vast majority of this bill addresses public traditional, public education in tradition. It addresses opportunities for families within traditional public education, within charter public education, and within opportunities to achieve private education for lower-income and middle income families," said Kieckhefer.Â
Ab400 would increase access to "opportunity scholarships" to higher earning families to use public funding to send their kids to the school of their choice.
Under existing guidelines, "opportunity scholarships" are only available to families earning under 300% of the federal poverty line, that equates to families making roughly $83,000 per family of four.
AB400 would lift the qualifying threshold to 500 percent of the federal poverty line, or families making $150,000 per family of four.
In other words, families with higher incomes would now have access to opportunity scholarships.
But, Assembly Speaker Yeager argued that the proposed threshold is roughly more than double the median Nevada household income.
"I have the annual median income of a Nevadan in 2020 at about $32,000Â for the average Nevadan, so it looks to me if we said two working parents, the average income would be about $62,000, so it looks like the 500% would basically be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 times to 2.5 times the median income of if you had two working parents, just as an observation, I don't know that I'm comfortable increasing that," said Yeager.Â
AB400 would allow charter schools to apply for transportation funding which would help kids further away get to the private or charter school of their choice.
