Florida has one of the largest voucher programs in the nation, and Republicans expect to make the program even larger. With a large majority in both houses and a choice-friendly governor, they will push their bill through with little or no resistance. Florida’s voucher schools are not required to hire certified teachers; their students do not take state tests. Although accountability was a major thrust of the Florida “reforms,” voucher schools are exempt from any accountability. Most are religious schools.
The Miami Herald reported:
Florida’s school voucher program could see a major expansion under new legislation filed Thursday by House Republicans. Standing at a lectern with a sign reading “Your Kids, Your Choice,” House Speaker Paul Renner introduced House Bill 1 to make vouchers available to all Florida children eligible to enter kindergarten through 12th grade. Children from families with incomes up to 185% of the federal poverty level, which is $55,500 plus $9,509 for each additional family member, would continue to get priority for the funding. Children in foster care also would receive priority.
The bill would allow voucher recipients to use the public funds for more than tuition at a private school and transportation, as is currently in law. Families would be allowed to spend the money on home-schooling, college courses, private tutoring and specialized testing such as Advanced Placement exams, among other expenses.
Students may not be in public school to qualify for a voucher, which is the equivalent of per-student funding in a public school — currently about $8,216 per year.
Families would receive the money through state-funded education savings accounts, a longtime goal for Florida Republicans. “It’s about freedom and opportunity,” Renner, R-Palm Coast, said during his news conference. “We empower parents and children to decide the education that meets their needs.”
State Rep. Kaylee Tuck, chairperson of the House Choice and Innovation subcommittee, is carrying the bill. The Lake Placid Republican said the measure should allow families to customize education for their children.
Renner predicted broad bipartisan support for the bill, which he said also should clear the waiting list for students with special education needs to receive a state scholarship. Currently about 9,400 children are on that list, according to Renner’s staff.
DEMOCRATS CALL IT ‘DEFUNDING PUBLIC EDUCATION’
House Democratic Leader Rep. Fentrice Driskell disagreed with Renner’s comments regarding support for the bill. She called it a “defunding of public education” and said she expected most members of her party to oppose it. “There is nothing in this bill that I like, because we continue to take these public dollars and use them for private purposes,” Driskell, D-Tampa, said.
Other Democrats attending a news conference to counter the Republicans’ announcement held similar views. They said they support vouchers for students who need special services, and agreed that parents deserve choices — including within the public schools, which 2.9 million children attend.
“Let’s not defund one institution to fund another one,” said Rep. Felicia Robinson, D-Miami Gardens, who also called for more accountability in the voucher system. Schools that accept vouchers should at least have certified teachers, Robinson said.
And parents who accept funding should have to prove the money is going toward approved education services, added Rep. Yvonne Hayes Hinson, D-Gainesville. ”There is no accountability for tracking funds,” said Hinson.
“This might be a get-rich scheme. I’ve seen it all over the country.” Rep. Allison Tant, D-Tallahassee, referenced her city’s Red Hills Academy, a charter school that closed within weeks of opening last year, citing low enrollment and processing issues, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. ”They got state funding to go create themselves,” Tant said. “Then they turn the kids back to public schools and guess what? They kept the funding.” In Palm Beach County, the founder of one charter school was found profiting off the venture by steering school contracts to companies he owned, according to the Palm Beach Post.
RENNER OFFERS REBUTTAL ON FUNDING
Renner said critics who claim the Republicans are seeking to dismantle public education ignore the fact that the Legislature has put more total dollars into district schools every year, something he said would likely continue. He also pointed to the state’s efforts to improve teacher pay, adding millions of dollars to boost the base salary.
“It’s going to be a good year for our traditional public schools as well,” Renner said.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article271373917.html#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How many parasitic charters and vouchers can the public schools endure before they collapse under the weight of lost funding? For the state GOP it is a plan, not an accident. They want to use public funds for low dollar vouchers to convince poor, minority parents to send their children to separate and unequal schools. They want the working class to supplement the tuition of affluent children. They also want to use public funds for religious schools so white students can be separated from darker ones, and they want public schools to whither and die. This dystopia is right wing nirvana. It is a plan to divide and conquer.
The truth is that 70-80% of voucher users are already in private schools. The vouchers are a subsidy for them.
The Fascists ruthlessly ruling the state of Florida strike again and are hard at work subverting democracy in other red states, too!
You want choice? Here, in the seventh largest school district in the state, you can choose AP, college-dual enrollment, Cambridge, ACCEL or International Baccalaureate for academics.
You can enter a career academy for aeronautics, health fields, architecture, criminal justice, education, culinary, graphics, CAD/CAM, engineering, legal studies, design, veterinary science, finance, biotechnology, construction. and others.
There are outstanding fine arts programs, with graduates going on to Broadway, television, and the tourism entertainment industry.
Play sports? The state lets you transfer to any school you want. You could join the state champion football team or state champion girls basketball team.
Want something hands on, such as, diesel mechanic, HVAC, auto repair, IT, or welding? Two public vo-tech high schools offer those programs.
All this choice is available in the public system.
So, the issue isn’t choice at all. This is about what vouchers have always been about since the days of massive resistance in Virginia.
SteveA,
Are you in Miami-Dade?
Diane, I’m in Polk County in the middle of the state. Our district is smaller than the counties with the major cities, but it’s huge by national standards. By the way, our per pupil funding is fourth worst in the state.
Thank you, SteveA. Your post was very interesting to me because choice advocates say that public schools are “one size fits all,” but it’s clear that public schools accommodate many interests. It’s the charter and voucher schools that are one-size-fits-all.
Large public systems offer far more “choices” than any one size fits all charter school or voucher program. Students also have qualified, professional teachers and civil rights and other protections under the law.
But, public schools don’t guarantee a pipeline of people for the Republican, religious right.
A young person who is religion-addled makes for an adult who is more easily manipulated by men like John Eastman. The conservative Catholic majority on SCOTUS shows us the consequences of belief- God’s laws above man’s.
God’s laws have no arbiter. So as long as Christianity (or any other patriarchal religion) is used as rationale for making women second class citizens, women won’t have equality. The attacks against public schools by union busters, libertarians and, civil rights deniers like the Catholic Church (Biel V. St. James Catholic school) are to keep labor, in particular women, desperate and poor.
Raw Story recently posted an article about the links between American libertarians and hostility to women and, the support for their campaign from right wing Christianity.
I teach in Lee County, FL. Right now, the two biggest problems that I see with the education in Florida is that, 1) The testing. We teach to the test. We obsess about the test. All we do is test. 2) We May have diverse programs, etc, but no teachers to teach them. The head of the FEA just stated that teacher openings in the state have gone up 200% in the last 5 years.
There is no one to teach.
The lack of qualified teachers is a major problem in almost all, if not all, the states in this country. In the universities the colleges of education are having problems attracting students to become teachers.
Students while they are in high school see and hear what is happening to teachers and the profession. They question why should they go into profession where a teacher who truly cares about his/her students and is trying the best they can to educate their students yet get beat mentally and sometimes physically by parents, the general population, corporations, and politicians.
Teaching is no longer a respected profession as it once was in this nation. In other countries teachers have the same high respect as doctors and lawyers and are paid for what they are worth. Not in the United States of Ameria.
Why don’t we just give Florida back, along with its Fascists Governor, to Spain. The United States would be so much better off.
And the Phillipines, Puerto Rico, and miscellaneous other territories and states?
Moeone, that’s creative thinking. Since the Texas GOP has declared that it wants to secede, maybe we should return it to Mexico. Then Texas would not have a border problem.
Here is Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up for Students, one of the organizations that administers vouchers in FL, telling people in Washington State how they can get voucher support in such a liberal place.
This is from the Florida Education Association’s “Teaching from the Heart” podcast Episode 6.
Video: https://feaweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Corporations.mov
Full Show Notes and Transcript: https://feaweb.org/podcast/episode-6-vouchers-for-all/
If you didn’t watch the video, he says cloak vouchers as supporting poor and/or minority students. Meanwhile, the plan the whole time was to provide a subsidy for existing private and homeschool students.
And, religious schools. In Ohio, the overwhelming amount of voucher money goes to Catholic schools. Ohio’s government is run by conservative Catholics. In Ky., media reported that the Ky. EdChoice VP is the associate director of the Kentucky Catholic Conference and in Indiana, Catholics are given credit for the initiation and passage of school choice legislation in the state.
Vouchers have passed the Utah House. It has 2/3 vote so it passes the Senate by the same margin it cannot have a citizen referendum, according to new legislation from a couple of years ago. A veto would also be overridden. The voucher would be DOUBLE Utah’s WPU and would let the voucher school keep all of the money even if a student leaves mid-year.
THIS IS A TRAVESTY. Diane, please publicize this.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2023/01/20/utah-house-pushes-through/
I presume that what is happening in Ohio is also happening in other locations in the central states. Local businesses have on display, free for the taking, a 12 page newspaper. Two of the pages are devoted to promoting school choice. Centerville’s The Dispatch, is published by Miami Valley Newspapers.
The paper also has a story promoting Medicare Advantage plans.