Lauren Ritchie:
Private schools need better oversight.
Florida is on track this year to spend nearly $35 million educating disabled kids in private, mostly religious schools in Central Florida — without bothering to check how the money is spent.
Just dump cash from the McKay Scholarship program into the bank accounts of the schools and hope for the best — that’s pretty much all the law requires. Florida Department of Education officials said the state can do a financial audit if some savvy parent complains that autistic little Ricardo isn’t getting the extra help he should, but otherwise the schools can carry on as they please.
Statewide, about $235 million in taxpayer dollars is disappearing into what seems like a bunch of tiny, bush-league religious schools that don’t even have to hire teachers with a college education, let alone those certified to teach disabled kids. The McKay scholarships allow special needs students to attend whatever private schools their parents choose.
Take, for example, Iglesia Bautista Central de Kissimmee, which will collect about $1.4 million this school year for educating 196 disabled children. A peep at the student handbook of the single largest McKay recipient in Central Florida makes the school’s purpose crystal clear:
“IBCK Educational Center is a Christ-centered mission school whose sole purpose is to equip all students of the community in the ways of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Teachers must “have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ” and have the “ability to integrate Biblical truth in their academic subject.” Female students must wear shorts under their dresses or skirts — no pants, of course — and white or black undershirts under their blouses “at all times.”
Students can be expelled if they live in a home where there is “sexual immorality, homosexual orientation, drug/alcohol use, or inability to support the moral principles of the IBCK Educational Center.” Hey, it’s what Jesus would do, right?
Those who want to give their kids a religious or private education using tax dollars have been a powerful force in recent years — spending on McKay students has risen 60 percent since 2010 when the state shelled out $148.6 million. With the appointment of private school and charter advocate Betsy DeVos as U.S. secretary of education, count on more public tax dollars being diverted to schools with almost no financial accountability.
State rules don’t require an audit of the McKay money, although schools that get more than $250,000 a year must file a report stating how they used the money and describing their financial controls. Audits may be done if there is a complaint, and 12 of the 1,359 schools taking the