Home schooling is booming in Florida, thanks to vouchers paid for with tax dollars. Governor DeSantis was recently a keynote speaker at the state homeschooling association, and he said that Florida is now the nation’s leading state for homeschooling. He said, “When you think about education and your kids, as a parent, the kids are in many ways an open book. And do you want to turn them over for eight hours a day to some indoctrination factory? Of course not. And so you want to be able to have choice to be able to direct the education and upbringing of your kids.” Ten years ago, 77,000 children were homeschooled. Today the number is 155,000.

Homeschooling families receive vouchers of $7,000-$9,000 for education expenses. However, some parents have used the voucher to pay for trampolines, swim goggles, snorkels, masks, fins, skateboards, and for televisions up to 55 inches and admission to theme parks.

I assume some parents are qualified to teach their children at home. I’ve met a few. But I also assume that even more parents are totally unqualified to teach their children at home. I fear that the increase in the number of children taught at home will result in a larger pool of poorly educated, ignorant Americans, whose education leaves them unprepared for the 21st century. Unlike DeSantis, who went to Florida’s public schools, before going to Harvard and Yale Law School, the state’s home-schooled children will not be taught by certified teachers of history, science, mathematics, and literature, nor will they have access to advanced courses. They will learn what their parents know. They will avoid the strict accountability that the state considers essential for public schools. Their parents, if they have three children, will get nearly $30,000 from the state, and be free to immerse their children in ideological, political or religious zealotry or to teach them total nonsense. This is insane.

The Orlando Sentinel reported:

TALLAHASSEE — A state voucher program that began in the 2023-2024 school year is on pace to at least double as applications roll in from families who teach their children at home in search of funds to make a range of purchases.

What’s known as the Personalized Education Program provides voucher money to students not enrolled full-time at public or private schools. The program was established through a 2023 law (HB 1) that massively expanded the state’s voucher programs…

The law allowed for the Personalized Education Program to provide vouchers for 20,000 students in its inaugural year, and the program almost hit its cap, with vouchers for 19,514 students funded.

It’s allowed to grow by 40,000 students a year under the law, meaning the maximum capacity would grow in the 2024-2025 school year to 60,000 students.

As of late last week, 39,690 applications had been submitted for the coming school year, and 31,991 vouchers had been awarded, with months to go for applications to come in, potentially increasing the number toward the maximum of 60,000.

As the homeschool vouchers increase year by year, in time there will be even more homeschooled students, and the state will pay out more than a billion dollars annually.

A side note: last fall, I visited Germany. I learned that homeschooling is banned there. In our society, teachers must pass exams to demonstrate their competence, but parents who homeschool do not. We subsidize the cultivation of ignorance. Florida leads the way.