A slimmed-down version of last year’s tuition tax credit push could be introduced today in the S.C. House of Representatives.

Rep. Tracy Edge, R-Horry, is gathering support for a bill that would offer taxpayer-funded scholarships for students to escape failing schools and up to $1,000 in tax credits to almost every parent in the state.

Edge said Wednesday he had nearly 40 co-sponsors for the bill.

The bill has a different name than last year’s tuition tax credit bill, the Put Parents in Charge Act. That bill galvanized much of the 2005 legislative session and split the House Republican Caucus, the body’s ruling class.

Put Parents in Charge ultimately died in the House. This year’s version — called the South Carolina Educational Opportunity Scholarship Act — has several key differences from the 2005 effort. The new bill:

• Offers tax credits of up to $1,000 to parents with children in private or public schools, or who home school. Put Parents in Charge offered larger tax credits.

• Provides up to $4,500 in taxpayer-funded scholarships to students who attend failing schools. Last year’s version included scholarships funded by private donors.

• Requires private schools that accept scholarship students to administer nationally recognized achievement tests and to publicly release results.

Like Put Parents in Charge, this year’s bill is backed by South Carolinians for Responsible Government, a private interest group that supports school choice.

The organization’s spokesman, Denver Merrill, said Edge’s bill “is a good first step.”

“It provides some assistance to everybody in South Carolina, which is what we want,” Merrill said. “We want to at least provide some options to people or some financial means to as many people as possible, and in particular, it helps low-income children, special needs children stuck in failing schools.”

Merrill said parts of last year’s bill were scaled back to answer concerns from both supporters and opponents of Put Parents in Charge.

One of those opponents, Rep. James Smith, D-Richland, is not mollified by the changes.

“We need to end this,” Smith said. “I think we were successful in the House last year, and I think we’ll be successful this year. Plus, this year, it will be foremost in the minds of voters (in November).”

Another major difference from last year is that Gov. Mark Sanford is no longer the bill’s most prominent public champion.

Sanford made Put Parents in Charge his signature education proposal of 2005. In 2006, however, Sanford is more keen on advancing charter school reform.

While Sanford said he still supports tuition tax credits, he has said he does not think it will pass this year.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said he has not seen the bill and could not comment.

His spokesman, Joel Sawyer, said Sanford “has consistently advocated giving parents more choices. That being said, we have not seen this particular bill, but we will certainly take a look at it.”

Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com.