BILL CALLS for study of program that uses public funds to pay private-school tuition for students with disabilities.

A House committee has endorsed a bill that would require a legislative agency to study the results of a program that uses public funds to pay private-school tuition for students with disabilities.

The House Education Committee, in a split voice vote Tuesday, approved House Bill 1400 by Rep. Bruce Cozart, R-Hot Springs, the committee chairman. The bill wasn’t on the full House’s agenda for Wednesday.

The study outlined in the bill would be compiled by the Bureau of Legislative Research and include a variety of data about student enrollment in the Succeed Scholarship program, the private schools participating and the performance of students who receive the scholarships. The study would be presented to the House and Senate Education committees every two years with the first report due in October.

Proponents of school choice met the bill with some reluctance, expressing concerns that the study could infringe on student privacy laws or may be aiming to dissolve the program.

Cozart and Richard Abernathy, the executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, who helped Cozart present the bill, assured members those weren’t the goals.

Abernathy pointed out that since the program’s inception in 2015, it has been expanded several times, including legislation this year that extended the scholarships to disabled students already enrolled in private schools. The data will help lawmakers make informed decisions on the program, he said.

“You’ll have the information on the success of the program or not,” Abernathy said. “That’s the whole purpose of the program. We’re not trying to pick on anyone. We’re not trying to identify any kids. We’re just trying to give you some valid data, through [the Bureau of Legislative Research] and the [state Department of Education], that you can make these decisions off of.”

The Succeed Scholarship program, according to the Department of Education, “provides a scholarship to an eligible private school for students with disabilities that have an individualized education program (IEP) and students in foster care living in a group home or facility that meet eligibility requirements.”

The state, under the program, pays eligible private institutions the base, per-student public-school funding rate for each student enrolled under the program — $6,781 per-pupil this school year.

About 250 students receive Succeed Scholarships. The program is funded by $1.5 million from the state’s rainy-day fund, and lawmakers recently increased the program’s spending authority from $1.5 million to $3 million. It won’t be clear until later this year whether that increase will be funded.

Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, who sponsored the bill earlier in the legislative session that extended the scholarships to current private school students, was concerned on Tuesday that Cozart’s proposed study would violate federal student privacy laws.

Courtney Salas-Ford, of the Arkansas Department of Education, said that it would be the responsibility of the Bureau of Legislative Research to release the data to legislators in a way that doesn’t identify individual students.

Rep. Mickey Gates, R-Hot Springs, said some are concerned that the bill is an effort to get rid of the Succeed Scholarship.

“What do I tell them to give them assurance that is not the effort here?” Gates asked Cozart.

Cozart responded that wasn’t the case.

“I would say that was totally negative,” Cozart said. “I don’t know why we’d want to get rid of it if it’s doing a good job. I just think we want to know what it’s doing and how it’s working. And like I said: If it’s working good, why can’t we expand on that?

“We’ve already expanded on it, and we’re continuing to expand on it. Is it doing a great job? Or are we expanding on something that’s not working right? That’s all we want to know.”