Florida’s State Constitution has explicit language forbidding public schools fir religious schools. Voters in Florida passed a referendum in 2012 against vouchers.
No matter. Republican legislators are expected to endorse SB 48, which will decrease funding for the public schools that most students attend. Students will be able to get a voucher even if they never attended a Public school.
Read about it here.
The fact that voucher studies repeatedly show that unregulated voucher schools produce worse outcomes for students than public schools is of no concern to the rabid believers in the free market.
The free market of choice that Florida is embracing will deepen the inequities in the state’s already mediocre and underfunded school system.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One can’t even call them “vouchers” anymore. Ed reformers are now jut redirecting public education funding to any random private contractor:
“SB 48 which converts the state’s five voucher programs into two Education Savings Accounts pre-loaded with designated public-school funds that entitles parents whose children do not attend public school, wide spending flexibility to reconstruct their education piecemeal.”
The next project for ed reformers will be reducing public education funding to equal the amount of these vouchers- they’re already claiming the vouchers are cheaper than funding a public education system.
Every family will get a low value voucher to spend on education contractors. That’s the cheap junk they’re replacing a public education system with- they’re going to give each of you a debit card and a list of politically connected private contractors.
Really radical stuff, completely dismantling the public education system and replacing it with a low value voucher, but all ed reformers are cheerleading it- no discussion, no debate, no dissent, as usual.
When ed reformers succeed in destroying the US public education system and replacing it with this cheap junk substitute, will they claim credit for their work, or deny they had any part in it?
There is NO discussion of these privatization bills in ed reform orgs, by the way.
They’re all hoping no one will notice they spend 90% of their time lobbying to privatize K-12 public education and they’re succeeding. There are tens of these privatization bills pending all over the country. It is the only work they’ve done since the pandemic hit.
No analysis, no real debate, and no dissenters or doubters permitted to speak.
well said: No dissenters or doubters permitted to speak
If you live in one of these states dominated by ed reformers and you’re wondering why your lawmakers never seem to get anything at all accomplished that is even relevant to public school students, check the state legislative record and see how much time lawmakers spend expanding, funding, cheerleading, promoting and marketing vouchers schemes.
They don’t get any work done on behalf of students in public schools because they’re captured by the ed reform lobby, and the ed reform lobby has no interest in students who attend public schools.
You’re paying hundreds of state employees to work full time promoting private schools and education service contractors. They do no productive work of any kind on behalf of students who attend public schools.
The ed reform lobby runs my statehouse, so I follow what they push for because Ohio lawmakers give them everything they demand.
Since the pandemic started, they have lobbied for exactly ONE thing that even applies to students in public schools- testing.
That’s the single accomplishment of ed reformers in the last year. They lobbied for and got a mandate for public school students to take standardized tests this year.
For this we’re supposed to hire and pay thousands of them? So our kids can take the same standardized tests they take every year? We need 15 billionaire funded orgs to produce the same testing mandate they cheelead every year? What did they they do all year?
I was a career public school teacher and I’m concerned about the impact of vouchers over the long term. But this item came across my news feed last week. How can advocates of traditional public schools defend what happened at that school?
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/city-student-passes-3-classes-in-four-years-ranks-near-top-half-of-class-with-013-gpa
Better yet: Why is the solution for this parent’s problems with the school going to be solved by declaring, as does this news story, that the school failed the child?
Poverty is the problem. She had to work 3 jobs. Enough said.
What happened there is simply outrageous. The way I would tend to look at this: it has come to public attention partly due to the courageous whistle-blowing of this mother. And partly because it IS a traditional public school. Therefore its records are public. The reporter looking to verify the story can ascertain, for example, the school body’s median GPA & grad stats and raise holy hell. Now imagine if it were a charter school or a voucher school, which (depending on state laws) are able to screen much information from public view due to the ‘corporate veil.’ Many have been known to massage stats for advertising purposes or use public $ to feather admin nests and it takes years to uncover. Some states renew 5-yr charters repeatedly despite performance that doesn’t meet its own charter laws due to charter-chain donations to state officials’ campaigns. State accountability systems mandated by the fed ESSA law do not in general apply to voucher schools, nor in many cases to charter schools. What’s been going on at this school (and perhaps at many Baltimore pubschs?) is reprehensible, but at least we know about it and can pressure govt to do something about it.
Roy’s point is also to be considered: in a state which allows this kind of outrage to go on year after year in the traditional publics of its poorest majority-minority urb– presumably because they don’t care about those kids– would they do the kind of digging required to ferret out stats proving fraud/ mismgt/ uniformly low attendance/ poor performance at privately-managed alternatives? Or just let public $ flow into them because nobody can prove they’re no better? Allowing private orgs to take over their job sounds to me like kids are just getting thrown further under the bus.
If you’re a public school family or public school supporter and you’re wondering what the ed reform lobby accomplishes on behalf of students in PUBLIC schools, just look at the record.
Here’s what they got done this year on behalf of the 90% of Ohio students who attend public schools:
“Fordham Institute OH
Test data are only way to get the reliable and comparable information we need to funnel state funding and assistance to the places where they’re needed most. If schools are able to safely reopen and stay open, then administering these tests is crucial.”
They lobbied for and got mandated standardized testing in a pandemic. Their single accomplishment for 2020/21. The rest if expanding and increasing funding for vouchers and charters.
What do public school students get out of the ed reform “movement”? One word- tests.
For this you’re supposed to hire, elect and pay them.
I know it’s off topic and the subject isn’t discussed much here, but here’s another good piece by ProPublica on school closures.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-lost-year-what-the-pandemic-cost-teenagers
A very worthwhile read. It helps round out your thinking. Developmentally speaking, the 11-18yo’s are the most in need of robust in-person social contact, and the most vulnerable to mental destabilization when deprived of it altogether. Even tho vaccination is underway, we won’t be back to normal for some time yet, and need to get beyond simplistic all-closed/ open alternatives.
It took me a couple starts and stops to finish it, it was so depressing.
SB 48 is radical legislation designed to harm public schools. Big defenders of the bill like Manny Diaz, who is invested in privatization, downplay the potential damage this bill could have. This bill allows for the unbundling of education services. It places the student as a 100% consumer of education products. The students may select products without any guidance or accountability while it gives tax breaks to corporations and simultaneously subtracts the same dollar amounts from public school budgets. So many students will be lost in this libertarian shell game it is difficult to even imagine. Nobody will be looking out for the health and well-being of students that may live in abusive homes. This is the opposite of the common good. It is common squalor.
For more information read the following link which describes the potential damage that this bill may do. It is a “radical transformation,” not streamlining. I have already voiced my concerns to Doug. Broxson as he is our local state senate representative. https://accountabaloney.com/index.php/2021/02/14/why-is-senator-diaz-minimizing-the-impact-of-sb48/
Good lord. The state is essentially washing its hands of any responsibility for the education of its children! Does the FL constitution guarantee anything at all along those lines? Somehow, ‘here’s your $, buy what you like from this list of loosely-related services’ doesn’t sound like providing equal access to a quality education…
The politicians and legislators in Florida don’t care about the state constitution. It is just paper. Meaningless words.
It is a whole new opportunity for waste and fraud of public dollars at the expense of the public schools. It is tragically irresponsible.