Senate proposes school voucher expansion
Florida legislators look to streamline process, combine 5 programs into 2
Florida should expand its school voucher programs and spend more money on them, giving more parents the “freedom from a one-size-fits-all” education system, Republican leaders in the Florida Senate announced Thursday.
The state’s existing voucher programs — most of which provide scholarships to private schools — would be streamlined, with five programs combined into two, under a just-filed school choice bill (SB 48).
More students would be eligible to receive the scholarships under the revamped programs, Senate leaders said. The voucher programs currently serve more than 160,000 children, both youngsters with disabilities and those from low-income families.
“Parents are the best advocates for their children, and now more than ever before parents are seeking freedom from a one-size-fits-all system,” said Sen. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeh, the bill’s sponsor, in a statement. “Parents of all children, regardless of income, should be empowered to choose the educational environment that is best for their child.”
But the measure drew immediate fire from the state teachers union, which called it a “massive expansion” of unregulated schools in the state.
“How they can steal public tax dollars
and give it away to private unaccountable programs?” asked Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association.
The bill would change the programs’ funding so all of it would come directly from the state budget — and it would cost more. The bill, if it becomes law, also would allow parents to spend the money on both private school tuition and other educational items, from laptops to after-school programs to college savings funds, as long as their child wasn’t in public school.
Currently, Florida’s largest school voucher program, the Tax Credit Scholarship Program, is paid for with corporate donations made in exchange for a dollarfor-dollar write off on state tax bills. Only one of the five programs, the Gardiner
Scholarship, is now an “education savings account” that gives parents lots of ways to spend the money.
One of the scholarships selling points has been that they cost less than educating a child in public school, but that gap would shrink under the new plan. The scholarships now amount to about 95% of per-pupil costs in public schools but that would increase to 97.5%.
Diaz said the scholarships would use “funds Florida taxpayers have already dedicated to education” and would give more parents options for their kids outside traditional public schools.
But the teachers union, long an opponent of these programs, said the bill isn’t what Florida parents or educators want.
“It looks like it’s positioning for a massive expansion of unaccountable vouchers,” Spar said.
Most parents want strong public schools, Spar said, and do not want taxpayer money spent on state scholarships that end up at unregulated private schools. Those programs do not provide much accountability now, he said, and the bill looks to reduce it, dropping the audit requirement, for example, from once a year to once every three years.
Public schools have worked hard to open and operate during the coronavirus pandemic, he added, and need additional state support this year to continue those efforts.
“How are we helping kids? How are we addressing the fact that this is not a normal year?” Spar said. “They’re not addressing any of those things.”
Senate President Wilton Simpson said in a statement said Florida’s current voucher programs are “confusing” because of “various eligibility and funding mechanisms,” a system that he blamed on program opponents like the teachers union.
“This patchwork system is largely the result of years of legal challenges from school choice opponents who have attempted to thwart every effort to actually give parents a say in how their children are educated,” he said.
The voucher programs have been controversial since former Gov. Jeb Bush first pushed them into law in 1999. Some critics, for example, have objected to public money going to private schools that do not have to meet state standards for teacher credentials, facilities or academics, can offer religious instruction and sometimes discriminate against gay students.
The Orlando Sentinel last year published an investigation documenting that nearly 21,000 Florida scholarship students attended private schools with anti-LGBTQ policies, prompting some companies to stop donating to the tax credit scholarship program.
Florida’s voucher programs have faced several legal challenges, most led by the teachers union, but have successfully weathered all but one. Since the first school voucher program was created, Florida’s scholarships have grown into what is collectively the largest school choice effort in the nation.
“School choice is here to stay, and Florida does it better than anyone,” Simpson said.
If the bill becomes law, the two scholarships for children with disabilities, McKay and Gardiner, would be merged. As Gardiner is now, the new program would create “education savings accounts,” with parents able to spend the money on private school tuition but also homeschooling supplies, technology and other educational programs.
The Tax Credit scholarship program would be merged with the Family
Empowerment Scholarship Program, which also serves low-income families and is already paid for from the state budget, and the Hope Scholarship program, which is for students who say they were bullied in public school.
Those would also be savings accounts that parents could use for a variety of educational services.
Diaz’s bill does not yet have a co-sponsor in the Florida House, but Republicans are also in control there and have been staunch advocates of programs that let parents choose options outside traditional public schools.
In 2019, the Legislature approved the Family Empowerment scholarship, Florida’s newest voucher program, and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law, saying it would “help children realize their potential.”