A proposed budget amendment would allow parents to use public money to fund additional education opportunities to offset the lack of services provided by Virginia schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The amendment, proposed by Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, would allow parents to spend the public money on tutoring, increasingly popular teaching pods and hardware or software for computers.
Speaking to the amendment in a House Appropriations Committee meeting Tuesday, Cox said parents want to provide these services to their children but some of them do not have the money to do so.
Funding would be split between the state and localities. It would cost the state about $100 million, all of which would come from unspent federal COVID-19 relief funding. Local governments would be allowed to use funding from their general fund or remaining CARES Act funding.
In a phone interview with The Center Square, Cox said some children are unable to get the resources they need with schooling in some districts happening entirely online for the upcoming semester. In some cases, he said, it’s not the school’s fault. Many families, he said, have two working parents or do not have high-speed internet access.
Some families, Cox said, can afford to pay for teaching pods or tutoring services to offset the lack of in-person instruction students normally would receive in school. Without the funding coming from his amendment, he said some children in low-income families might fall behind.
The flexibility provided in the amendment would allow parents to make smart decisions to help their children, according to Cox. He said he hopes it does not get “caught up in politics.”
Cox’s amendment is being considered with other K-12 funding proposals in the House Appropriations Committee, the office of committee chairperson Del. Luke Torian, D-Dumfries, confirmed with The Center Square.
Torian’s office said the delegate has prioritized broadband expansion and greater access to technology to help ensure children are not left behind because of disparities in access.
Corey DeAngelis, the director of school choice at the free-market Reason Foundation, told The Center Square the legislation would be good for students.
“This would be a step in the right direction towards funding students instead of systems,” DeAngelis said. “This would help children by giving their families educational options when they need them the most. And funding students directly would lead to more equity by allowing less advantaged families to have meaningful educational choices.”
According to a poll conducted by the free-market, Virginia-based Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, 60 percent of likely Virginia voters surveyed support state funding for these programs, including 71 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Black voters. Less than a quarter of respondents said they would be opposed to such funding.
