House panel votes to expand school vouchers

Florida’s scholarship programs for students with disabilities and for those from low-income families would be expanded under a proposal a Florida House panel approved this week.

The bill (HB 15) would make more children eligible for the Gardiner and McKay Scholarship Programs, which serve youngsters with disabilities and would increase the perstudent funding for the Tax-Credit Scholarship Program, which pays tuition bills for students from poor families.

The changes would mean money spent on the Gardiner program would jump from about $73 million this academic year to $200 million next year. The tax-credit scholarships, now worth about $5,886, or about 82 percent of the amount spent perstudent in public school, would pay from 88 to 96 percent of that figure, depending on the student’s grade.

These voucher programs have been controversial, with one challenged unsuccessfully in court, but they are also strongly supported by the state’s Republican leaders and the families who use them. They view them as needed options for students who cannot get what they need in public school but cannot on their own pay for private school.

And they got a boost last week from President Donald Trump, who visited a Catholic school in Orange County where most students use the tax-credit scholarships to help pay their costs.

Two parents testified on behalf of the Gardiner program, saying those scholarships helped their children access services they desperately needed.

“I was getting calls daily about his frequent crying and his emotional meltdowns,” said Lashundra Williams, a Tallahassee mother, who said her child has autism. “I felt hopeless that my son would ever be able to attend a school that could meet his special needs.”

But with the Gardiner scholarship, she said she was able to enroll him in a private school that offered small classes and speech therapy. “It’s providing hope and educational opportunity.”

The bill would expand the pool of students who can qualify for a Gardiner Scholarship, which on average pays about $10,000 a year per child. Parents can use the money for private school tuition, therapy, home-school materials or other services, as long as their child is not in public school.

This year, 7,879 students have scholarships. Students can qualify if they have certain significant disabilities, such as autism, Down syndrome, and cerebral palsy.

The bill adds more disability categories to the list, meaning more than 40,000 other students could qualify, based on enrollment in “exceptional student education” programs from the Florida Department of Education. The proposed funding would cover about 20,000 students total, however.

The McKay program would get a small change that reduces the requirements related to public school enrollment in the year before seeking a scholarship.

The tax-credit program now serves nearly 98,000 students, who use the scholarships to attend one of more than 1,700 participating private schools.

The program is funded by donations, largely from corporations, given in exchange for credits on state tax bills.

The private schools can charge parents the difference between their tuition, which averages $8,524, and the scholarship, said Jon East of Step Up for Students, the organization that administers the program.

About 5,000 students a year turn down the scholarships because they cannot pay the difference, he said.

The bill would make each scholarship worth more but also lessen one of the benefits program advocates often tout: That it cost less per-child than public school.