Education panel looks to expand vouchers

Senate would change teacher bonus program

Florida would expand its school voucher programs so more students could attend private school with taxpayer money and alter its controversial teacher bonus program, under a multi-pronged bill passed by the Florida Senate’s education committee Wednesday afternoon.

The bill (SB 7070), crafted by the committee’s Republican majority, passed along party lines after two hours of discussion, debate and public testimony. The vote was 5 to 3, with the “no” votes from the three Democrats on the panel.

Committee Chairman Manny Diaz, R-Miami, called it a “hot topic” bill, an apt description given that about 60 people signed up to speak about the legislation.

The bill doesn’t have a companion in the House, but Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he wants legislation that both expands the voucher programs and revises the teacher bonus program.

One of the most controver-

sial sections of the 52-page bill centered on lawmakers’ efforts to create a new scholarship, or voucher, program. It would pay for private school tuition for students now on the waiting list for the Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which serves children from low-income families.

Diaz and other advocates said the new program would give more parents options outside their neighborhood public school and “make sure that all of our students are able to have the best education possible.”

Several parents wearing orange T-shirts that read “parent power” urged lawmakers to approve the bill. They said the scholarship helped them afford private schools that met their children’s needs in ways typically larger public schools could not.

“We desperately need that scholarship,” said parent Tammy Steadman.

Giselle Gomez, a single mother from Ocala, told lawmakers her son was on the tax credit waiting list, and she was struggling on her own to pay for the private school the 6-year-old with behavior issues needs..

“It makes me feel bad as a mom,” she said. “I implore the Senate to end the wait list. A scholarship would make the world of difference.”

The new Family Empowerment Scholarship would serve up to 15,000 students in its first year. The tax credit program, created in 2001, is paid for by corporate donations given in exchange for a dollar-for-dollar credit on state bills, a funding plan Florida courts upheld when the program was challenged as unconstitutional. The program has about 14,000 students on its waiting list because donations have slowed, officials said.

Critics said they feared the new program — paid for with money pulled directly from the state budget — would violate the state constitution and take funds that should go to public schools, which serve nearly 90 percent of the state’s students.

“I will not support legislation that takes another step toward dismantling Florida’s public school system,” said Sen. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa.

Rev. Russell Meyer of the Florida Council of Churches said he worried the scholarship programs send public money to private religious schools that don’t have to meet state standards. The private schools can hire teachers without college degrees, for example, or be run out offices, strip malls and other facilities that public schools cannot use.

“We believe there should be one standard of accountability,” he said, adding that he worried voucher programs also leave “many church-state questions unaddressed.”

The other much-debated section of the legislation would revamp Florida’s Best and Brightest Teacher and Principal Scholarship Program. It has been criticized because the top bonuses are awarded to teachers partly based on the ACT or SAT scores they earned when applying to college.

The Senate bill would delete those test score requirements, but many teachers remain opposed, saying Florida needs to boost teacher salaries, not revise a program to offer one-year bonuses.

Chris Weinrich, who teaches AP Economics at Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach, told the committee he has won the “best and brightest” bonus every year but doesn’t want the program to continue even with revisions.

“A bonus does nothing for my pension,” he said, and isn’t guaranteed for more than a year.

The “best and brightest” program also hasn’t met one of its key aims — helping to recruit new teachers and to ease the state’s teacher shortage, he added.

“Raise salaries of all teachers,” Weinrich said. “Make no mistake, Florida is losing in this marketplace.”

Some also criticized the committee for meshing many items into one large “train bill” on the second day of the 2019 session, making it hard for any one piece to be fully vetted. Those who signed up to speak, they noted, were given just a minute, and many ended up waiving their time but letting the panel know if they were in favor or opposed.

Other measures in the bill deal with teacher certification rules, a proposal to expand community schools that provide services beyond traditional academics and school construction requirements.

“There’s some great things in here, and there’s some things that need work shopping,” said Marshall Ogletree, executive director of United Faculty of Florida. “What happened to workshops? What happened to having discussions?”