Democratic governor nominee John Gregg and state school superintendent Glenda Ritz are proposing to narrow Indiana’s school voucher program, and use the savings to help fund universal preschool.
Gregg and Ritz separately announced in the last several days they’ll push for state-funded preschool in every school district if they’re elected. They appeared together to detail how they’d pay the estimated 150-million-dollar cost.
About a third of the money is already in the budget. Gregg says the state could close nearly half the remaining gap by limiting voucher eligibility to students who want to transfer out of a public school. That’s how the program was originally designed.
The former House speaker says there’s 53-million dollars in unspent money for child-related programs at several agencies. He’s also counting on federal grants, and on saving 32-million dollars in kindergarten remediation costs, because students would start school better prepared.
And Gregg says the coming switch to a shorter statewide test will save an undetermined portion of the 25-million dollars it now spends on ISTEP.
The total: 209-million dollars, plus whatever the ISTEP savings are. Gregg says that’s enough to fund the program even if some of his estimates turn out to be too high.