The state Senate finance committee on Tuesday advanced a pro-school school choice bill that would offer an income tax break to parents who send their children to private schools and to those who fund scholarships to private schools. The bill passed on a 3-2 party line vote.

Arguments for and against Senate Bill 39 fell along predictable lines. The arguments will be retread again at the Capitol, this year and no doubt for years to come.

“There’s one question that lies at the center of the discussion,” said bill sponsor Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud. “Who should be in charge of the education of children? Should it be the state setting up a single system and only having policies that move everybody that direction or should we move that authority and that responsibility more in the direction I believe it should go and that is into the control of the parents.

“Senate Bill 39 does not do damage to the public schools at all,” he said. “In fact, I believe that you would see an increase in competition – and competition usually raises the quality of everyone as [schools] strive to do their very best to attract students to their programs.”

“The bill is designed to recognize the fact that parents have the fundamental right and responsibility for the education of their children. I think the bill will improve education in Colorado because it will set things aright on that score.”

Opponents said the bill amounted to a funding cut for the state’s consistently strapped public school system and that it would run counter to the law by, in effect, using tax money – in the form of tax breaks – to promote education in private and often religious schools, which are exempt from key accountability measures put in place in the state – protections for students with learning challenges or minority students, including LGBT kids.

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Lucia Guzman, D-Denver, pushed back against the idea that Coloradans whose students don’t go to public school shouldn’t have to pay taxes into the public education system.

“I certainly don’t have any kids at schools and I never have had kids in schools. I’ve also never had to call the fire department to my home,” she said, arguing that residents need such critical public services.

“Education is one of the finest pillars in that system,” she said. “We have to be very careful to make sure there’s equity.”

Sen. Owen Hill, R-Colorado Springs, a school choice champion and education policy wonk, argued against the idea that the bill would drain money from public education.

“In fact, this bill would boost per-pupil funding,” he said. He explained that fewer students would be attending public schools, in theory, but parents receiving the proposed tax break would still be paying half of the full tax rate to the public education system.

That’s true, argued the bill’s critics, but the tax credit would divert essential funding from public schools, given that fixed costs don’t decrease – costs tied to heating and maintenance, for example.

In his closing remarks, Hill said the focus of so much of debate at the Capitol around education seems off-target.

“The discussion is always about the system and all about the money,” said Hill. “The focus should be on the children and what’s the best education for them, and I have yet to see the parent who wants to make a bad decision for their children.”

Lundberg’s bill now heads to the Senate’s appropriations committee.

– john@coloradostatesman.com