Fla. Senate votes for expansion of school vouchers

A bill touted as the nation’s largest expansion of school voucher programs is headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis after the Florida Senate voted Monday to make more students eligible for state scholarships to pay for private schools or other private educational services.

Republicans in the GOP-controlled House passed the sweeping bill (HB 7045) last week. Supporters in both chambers said it would give more Florida parents educational options outside public schools by making more youngsters — including those living in families of four earning nearly $100,000 — eligible for vouchers, which were initially created to help children living in poverty.

“It continues to give more families the opportunity to choose the best course they see fit for their children,” said Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota.

Gruters, also chairman of the Republican Party of Florida,

said it was a step toward his goal of “universal choice,” where all parents could use public money on any number of educational options.

In both the Senate and the House, some Democrats criticized the legislation as a vehicle for sending more taxpayer money to unregulated private schools that, unlike public schools, do not have to hire college-educated teachers, make public student test scores or graduation rates or face consequences if their students don’t make academic gains.

“Parents have no way of knowing, are there children really learning?” said Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point. “This is a scam. It’s a bad scam.”

The new initiative could cost up to $200 million and serve up to 60,000 more students. More than 160,000 students now use state scholarships at a cost of about $1 billion.

The bill passed 25-14, with all Republicans voting for it and all Democrats present voting against it but for Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville. The bill now goes to DeSantis, who has supported other efforts to expand voucher programs since he took office in 2019.

Farmer and others noted that some parents whose children currently use the Gardiner Scholarship, meant for youngsters with significant disabilities, oppose the change, fearing it will mean fewer opportunities and smaller scholarships in the future for some of the state’s neediest students.

The opponents include former Senate President Andy Gardiner, a Republican from Orlando, for whom the scholarship was named, and his wife, Camille, a co-founder of the Down Syndrome Foundation of Florida.

Sen. Manny Diaz, R-Hialeah, however, said the change will not hurt current Gardiner recipients, as it guarantees their funding remains the same in the future.

The bill combines three of Florida’s current five scholarship programs into one and makes more children eligible. It leaves untouched the state’s largest voucher program, the Tax Credit Scholarship. The Senate had wanted to revamp and expand that, too, but dropped its bill in favor of the House’s slightly more modest version.

Under the bill now headed to DeSantis, the Family Empowerment program, which serves children from low-income families, would merge with Gardiner and McKay scholarships, both for youngsters with disabilities, and eligibility would become more expansive.

Families of four earning more than $99,300 could qualify for the incomebased scholarships, up from the current nearly $80,000 income limit, though families earning below $49,000 would remain a priority. Children of active-duty military members, the siblings of disabled youngsters who already have scholarships, and youngsters who’ve never been in public school, among others, also could qualify.

The Gardiner and McKay scholarships would become “education savings accounts,” a pot of money parents could use for private school tuition but also homeschooling supplies, therapy, tutoring or technology, as long as their child was not in public school. Gardiner is currently run as a savings account, but McKay now only pays for tuition at private schools. The McKay scholarship typically serves children with less significant needs, such as learning disabilities and speech problems, while Gardiner serves children with specific disabilities that often need the most-intensive services, including autism, cerebral palsy and Down syndrome.

The income-based part of the voucher program would remain a private-school scholarship with one change: Families could also purchase a laptop or internet access with some of their scholarship money.

Sen. Lorrane Ausley, D-Tallahassee, called the voucher programs a “very clever scheme” to redirect public money to private, often religious, schools.

She also urged senators to listen to the Andy Gardiner, “whose very real and personal experience,” led him to push for a specialized scholarship program for children with significant disabilities. Gardiner’s son has Down syndrome.

Sen. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa, said boosting funding for voucher programs would hurt public schools. “Couldn’t that money be better spent on public institutions?”

But Diaz, who had sponsored the Senate’s scholarship bill, said the debate about voucher programs amounted to “a philosophical choice” and he urged his colleagues to trust the state’s parents.

“Do we trust our families to make the right decisions for our students?” he said.

And, he added, if parents think a private school or a homeschooling option is best for their children, it makes sense for the state to pay for that.

“We should be in the business of funding students, not institutions,” Diaz said.