Alabama lawmakers are discussing accountability measures for private schools that accept education savings accounts — and how much a new school choice option can and should cost.

During the first public hearing of Gov. Kay Ivey’s school choice bill, called the CHOOSE Act, during the Senate education budget committee meeting Wednesday morning in Montgomery, officials questioned the $100 million cost and the lack of a fair and comparable measure of public and private schools.

Committee Chair Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said lawmakers are still working to address concerns around the lack of a cap on the amount that will be available for ESAs and the lack of a triggering mechanism that would say when that cap increases.

Ivey’s education policy chief Nick Moore answered questions from Democrats on the committee about the lack of a cap and the lack of comparable assessments between public and private schools.

Moore told lawmakers that in order for private schools to use the state’s test, called ACAP, and for that measure to be a fair comparison, private schools would have to change their standards and curriculum to match what Alabama public schools teach.

“So the true comparison of apples to apples,” Moore said, “is to make sure that a school has an assessment that’s aligned to their standards.”

Alabama currently does not have any authority to regulate or tell private schools what to teach.

But using a comparable test is important to school superintendents, opponent Ashley McLain said. “From a superintendent’s perspective,” she said, “the reason that that’s so important is we are constantly being attacked on our academic performance.”

Private schools should be required to either give the ACAP or at the least, post their test scores publicly, she added.

“If competition breeds improvement,” which is what school choice proponents claim, she said, “then we need to know that we’re in a head to head [with private schools] and what does that look like when we’re making that comparison? We can’t do that if we don’t know what their test scores are.”

McLain was one of five opponents who spoke against the bill.

Terry Lathan, former chair of the Alabama Republican party, was one of four people who spoke in support of the bill. “It’s about a parent’s choice with their dollars that we all pitch in,” she said. “Government does not make money. It disseminates money to decide what their student needs.”

Orr said he’ll bring a substitute bill for the committee to consider next week.