A plan to give some students in failing New Orleans elementary schools state-financed vouchers to attend private schools fell one vote short of getting out of a Senate committee Thursday, likely killing it for the session.

House Bill 613 by Rep. Tim Burns, R-Mandeville, had many powerful critics, from Gov. Kathleen Blanco to teachers unions to interim New Orleans schools Deputy Superintendent Ora Watson, who is in charge of the troubled system. Lawmakers on the Senate Education Committee were deadlocked on the issue, voting 3-3 on the legislation, which meant the proposal would not go to the Senate floor.

"This is not the answer; this is instead a signal that we are abandoning the cause," said Kim Hunter Reed, Blanco's policy adviser, who said the governor thinks a better solution is to invest more resources in the public school system.

Frustration fueled bill

Legislation to let Louisiana students pay for private school tuition with public money has been pushed for decades without success.

But Burns' bill had picked up surprising steam, buoyed by widespread frustration with the Orleans Parish school system, where 55 schools are on the state's failing list because of subpar test scores and other problems. The proposal, which was backed by the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, was approved 13-1 by the House Education Committee last week and cleared the House 62-37 in a historic advance.

Sen. Jay Dardenne, R-Baton Rouge, made the same argument as many in the House, saying the dire condition of Orleans Parish schools made the idea of offering vouchers to students in schools deemed "academically unacceptable" worth trying.

"You are all saying, 'Please don't do something different to give a few children a chance,' " Dardenne said. "I'm tired of playing that game in looking at this particular school system."

Sen. Gerald Theunissen, R-Jennings, said he would oppose the legislation if it applied to parishes in his district, but he agreed that something new needs to be tried in New Orleans.

Most of the New Orleans delegation had come out against the bill, with Sens. Ann Duplessis and Edwin Murray and Rep. Cedric Richmond all appearing before the committee to voice their concern. Murray said the Legislature kept making policy changes that affected only Orleans Parish, but that the state hasn't followed through on its part of many reforms.

"What you have in New Orleans is the result of many experiments that have taken place. We don't need another experiment," said Watson, who has been heading the system since Tony Amato resigned as superintendent this spring.

No disciplinary problems

Critics of the bill noted that unlike the public schools, the private schools participating in the voucher program would not be required to accept students with disciplinary records.

The proposal would have created a four-year pilot program to allow any student in one of the city's failing elementary schools to receive a voucher financed by the state's share of the per-pupil spending. New Orleans has more than 20 failing elementary schools.

It was never clear which private schools beyond those run by the archdiocese would want to participate in the program. During committee testimony the Rev. William Maestri, superintendent of archdiocesan schools, said he thought his system would have up to 1,200 openings in the coming school year. If more people applied for the vouchers than openings were available, applicants would go through a lottery process, he said.

Maestri said a small, state program that allows 4-year-olds from low-income households to attend prekindergarten in private schools demonstrates that vouchers can work.

Duplessis questioned some of the bill's details, saying it did not contain an income limit to prevent more well-off families who live in a part of the city with bad schools from entering the lottery to receive a state-subsidized voucher.

A couple of senators on the education committee asked Maestri why the archdiocese did not put up its own money to establish a pilot program for families who cannot afford tuition, or completely take over a failing public school, as a few universities have done.

Maestri said the archdiocese already subsidizes most tuition at Catholic schools and that he is considering applying to the state education board to completely take over a public school.

But he said the voucher program is also necessary. "The children can no longer wait," Maestri said.

Sens. Sharon Weston Broome, D-Baton Rouge, Lydia Jackson, D-Shreveport, and Willie Mount, D-Lake Charles, voted against the bill. Sens. Dardenne, Theunissen, and Chris Ullo, D-Marrero, the committee chairman, voted for the voucher proposal.