June 12, 2008 12:56PM # Louisiana Moving on School Choice By [Adam B. Schaeffer](https://www.cato.org/people/adam-b-schaeffer) --- SHARE The Louisiana Senate [passed](http://www.nola.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/news-39/1213223943154100.xml&storylist=louisiana) a voucher program for New Orleans that looks set to become law soon. The House already passed the bill and Gov. Jindal is a strong supporter. Here’s more from the AP: > The plan would cover children in kindergarten through third grade in the 2008-09 school year, with subsequent grades added each year thereafter. Children from families earning up to 2.5 times the current federal poverty level (or about $53,000 for a family of four) would be eligible. If there are more applicants at a school than there are available seats, the school would choose participants randomly. > > > Although the bill is aimed at up to 1,500 students, backers say there may be only a few hundred slots available at private schools in the city next year. It’s great that Gov. Jindal is pushing for more school choice in a state that sorely needs it, but his administration and state lawmakers should [take a look](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8812) at a more powerful and more popular way of promoting educational freedom; a broad-based program of personal-use and donation tax credits. The small tax [deduction](http://blog.heritage.org/2008/03/18/jindal-scores-big-for-school-choice-movement/) passed earlier this year was a great first step, but Jindal can and should think much bigger on education tax credits. ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).