Vouchers foster segregation, don’t expand opportunities

Racial discrimination in education was the shameful status quo in this country until the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, which held that separate can never be equal, and called for integration “with all deliberate speed.” Counties in several southern states closed their public schools entirely rather than comply with the decision, and instituted voucher programs to enable white taxpayers to access racially exclusive segregation academies.

Sadly, that regrettable history has been resurrected and vouchers are touted today as a mechanism for parents to “escape” public schools labeled as “failing.” Worse, they are described by some as the “civil rights issue of our time.” This profoundly dishonors the heroes and heroines of the civil rights movement who fought, and in too many cases, died so our children could enjoy their full birthrights, including the right to quality public education.

As in the past, vouchers today are not expanding opportunities for all students; they are a tool of segregation.

Floridians need to know that vouchers have not delivered on the promises their advocates make and should demand that legislators support programs and interventions that actually work to improve students outcomes.

Research shows that the private school voucher programs exacerbate the racial and opportunity divide. Schools today are in fact more segregated than in the 1970s. Studies have found that even “race-neutral” voucher programs intensify racial and socio-economic segregation. Twothirds of school transfers in the Louisiana Scholarship Program and 90 percent of transfers in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program increased segregation in private schools, public schools or both.

Here in Florida, vouchers have been presented as opportunities to exercise choice and access quality, but have failed to deliver academic results, while taxpayers are denied the ability to hold accountable the schools that receive vouchers.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that our voucher system is “so weakly regulated that some schools hire teachers without college degrees, hold classes in aging strip malls and falsify fire-safety and health records.”

This is possible because voucher schools are held to virtually none of the accountability measures that apply to public schools.

Academically, research reveals that students who use vouchers to transfer to a private school experience lower test scores than their public school peers. Our public school educators can confirm that students returning to public schools after spending time in private schools experience a learning deficit.

Vouchers have fundamentally distracted attention and diverted resources from an alternative that the majority of Floridians strongly favor — great public schools in every neighborhood.

Today we are (yet again) in Tallahassee debating the diversion of $1 billion in taxpayer dollars to unaccountable private schools, rather than ways to improve conditions for the 2.7 million children served by Florida’s public schools. That’s $1 billion for private schools that can discriminate, and that do not provide better educational outcomes, while our teacher shortage balloons, classrooms are under-resourced, and programs are cut.

In 1954, this nation affirmed that separate can never be equal. The Florida NAACP and the Florida Education Association urge Florida’s legislators to discontinue programs that exacerbate inequity, undermine accountability, and do nothing to ensure that all our children have access to a great public school. Our elected officials must abide by the fundamental notion that every community has the right to quality public schools for our children regardless of their ZIP code; the right to quality, well-paid educators who will help students reach their promise in a safe environment that promotes their growth into the leaders of tomorrow. Tell your lawmaker to reject any further expansion of taxpayer-financed vouchers in Florida.