Lawmaker: Hold private, public schools to same requirements

Proposal calls for rules on teacher degrees, letter grades, standardized tests

Florida’s public charter schools and their private peers, including those that don’t participate in state-backed scholarship programs, should have to adhere to the same requirements as the traditional public schools, according to an Orlando lawmaker’s proposal.

Private schools would be required to hire teachers who have bachelor’s degrees or prove they have special skills, administer the state’s standardized tests and receive A-to-F letter grades just as their public counterparts do, according to the bill filed last week by state Sen. Linda Stewart, DOrlando.

Similar efforts in the past have been unsuccessful, with state lawmakers declining to demand college degrees for teachers in private schools that take vouchers while adding two additional scholarship programs that are open to students from middle-income families or who have been bullied on public campuses.

“There is considerable support in the nonpublic school community for allowing parents to make determinations about the schools — with certified teachers or otherwise — that best meet the needs of their children.” James Herzog, associate director for education for the Florida Catholic Conference and the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops

“We have been trying to get this parity for at least three years now,” said Stewart, whose proposal doesn’t have a House companion.

Proponents of public charters and state-funded vouchers that can be used to pay tuition at private schools contend that freeing those campuses from some of the requirements that bind traditional district-run schools allows them to innovate and better serve some children’s needs.

They also say parents provide accountability for those programs because they can withdraw their children from sub-par schools.

The testing requirement for private schools would be “duplicative and unfunded,” because many already administer standardized tests, said James Herzog, associate director for education for the Florida Catholic Conference and the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, the nonpartisan public policy voice of the Catholic Church.

At many Florida private schools, including Catholics ones, classroom instructors must have teaching certificates from the state, for which a bachelor’s degree is a requirement, he added.

“There is considerable support in the nonpublic school community for allowing parents to make determinations about the schools — with certified teachers or otherwise — that best meet the needs of their children,” Herzog said in a statement to the Orlando Sentinel.

Other bills filed over the summer propose changes for private schools, at least those that take vouchers.

A pair of proposals, one in the House and the other in the Senate, seek to prohibit discrimination against gay, transgender and disabled students in Florida private schools that participate in state scholarship programs.

Some school handbooks say they won’t serve students with specific special needs or, because of their religious beliefs, they will expel or refuse to admit children who are gay or transgender.

Charter schools, which are publicly funded and privately operated, already have to meet most of the requirements spelled out in Stewart’s bill.

But Stewart’s proposed changes would be profound for private schools, which don’t have to hire teachers with college degrees, administer the state tests or teach the same standards as public schools, including charters, do. The number of Florida children in private schools, about 380,000, is a fraction of the more than 2.8 million students enrolled at public campuses across the state.

The Sentinel reported in 2017 that private schools collect about $1 billion in state-backed scholarships annually with little oversight through a handful of programs, also known as vouchers. Many schools hire teachers who don’t have college degrees and they’re not required to administer the state’s standardized tests even if they receive public money.

Florida’s voucher programs serve children with a variety of needs, including those from lowincome families or have a range of disabilities.

Most of the roughly 140,000 students in those programs attend religious, mainly Christian, schools.

Stewart’s proposal offers an exemption for private school teachers who don’t have bachelor’s degrees but “have special skills, knowledge or expertise” in their subject areas, as state law currently allows.

However, Stewart said she’d want to require teachers without degrees to get clearance from the Florida Department of Education, which is not mandated now.

Other changes folded into Stewart’s proposal include requiring private and charter schools to set aside time each day for recess, as traditional public schools do; ordering private schools to use curricula that comply with “specified standards,” demanding private schools comply with Florida school building codes; and adding private schools’ graduation rates and standardized test scores to a statewide database.

Stewart said she realizes her colleagues may not agree to all of these proposals, but she’s willing to amend her bill if some of the additional requirements gain traction.

She’s not opposed to giving parents choices about how to educate their children, she said, but she wants to ensure “their expectations are being met.”

“Sometimes the way to prove that’s happening is to have a few rules,” she said.