Florida, under Ron DeSantis, is determined to defund its public schools.

The first charter law in Florida was passed in 1996, when Democrat Lawton Chiles was governor. The 1996 law said there could be no more than two charter schools in each district, and only local school boards could authorize them. When Chiles left office, the state had 17 charter schools.

From 1999-2007, Republican Governor Jeb Bush removed the caps on charters and encouraged their growth. By the end of his tenure, there were more than 300 charter schools.

Republican Charlie Crist vetoed aggressive charter legislation, but charters increased to more than 300 during his tenure in office (2007-2011).

Republican Rick Scott (2011-2019) strongly promoted school choice, reduced regulation, and the number of charters increased to about 650.

Far-right DeSantis is a cheerleader for charters and vouchers. Elected in 2019, DeSantis has aggressively expanded charters as well as vouchers, while reducing accountability.

Half of Florida’s charter schools operate for-profit. Over the years, nearly 500 charter schools have closed, due to maladministration, low enrollment, finances, or scandal.

Today, Florida has about 730 charter schools, which enroll 13.8% of the state’s students, about 400,000. The cost of charters is about $2.5-4 billion annually that should have gone to public schools.

The state’s Republican-controlled governor and legislature are dedicated to expanding private alternatives to public schools. In 2023, it removed income limits from vouchers, so that all private school students are now eligible to get a state subsidy. The number of students receiving vouchers doubled, from 250,000 to 524,000.

Before and since the voucher expansion of 2023, 70% of the voucher recipients were already enrolled in voucher schools. so Florida offers a subsidy to all students enrolled in private and religious schools regardless of family income.

Florida spends about $4 billion on vouchers each year, subsidizing mostly families who can pay for schooling without state aid.

Thus, between charters and vouchers, Florida is spending at least $6 billion annually on school choice.

Now, Florida has given charter operators another boon, allowing them to co-locate inside public schools. This alleviates their need for facilities funding.

Many Republican legislators have financial ties to the charter industry.

Kate Payne of the Associated Press wrote this story, which appeared in the Orlando Sentinel.

TALLAHASSEE (AP) — Florida’s board of education signed off Wednesday on a major expansion of charter schools in the state, clearing the way for the privately run schools to “co-locate” inside traditional public schools.

It’s the latest push by Florida officials to expand school choice in a state that has long been a national model for conservative education policy.

The move comes as some public schools are closing their doors as they grapple with declining enrollments, aging facilities and post-pandemic student struggles.The new regulations approved by the state board build on a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis this year to allow operators to open more “schools of hope,” charter schools that are meant to serve students from persistently low-performing schools.

Lawmakers created the schools of hope program in 2017 to encourage more publicly funded, privately run schools to open in areas where traditional public schools had been failing for years, giving students and families in those neighborhoods a way to bail out of a struggling school.

This year’s law loosens restrictions on where schools of hope can operate, allowing them to set up operations within the walls of a public school — even a high-performing one — if the campus has underused or vacant facilities.

The board’s new regulations require public school districts to provide the same facilities-related services to the charter schools as they do their own campuses, including custodial work, maintenance, school safety, food service, nursing and student transportation — “without limitation.

”School districts must allow schools of hope to use “all or part of an educational facility at no cost”, including classrooms and administrative offices, the rules read.

“All common indoor and outdoor space at a facility such as cafeterias, gymnasiums, recreation areas, parking lots, storage spaces and auditoriums, without limitation, must be shared proportionately based on total full-time equivalent student enrollment,” the rules continue.

Public school advocates urged the board to vote down the proposal at Wednesday’s meeting. One such advocate, India Miller, argued that schools of hope are designed to be “parasitic” to public schools.

“To me, it would be like asking Home Depot to give Lowe’s space in their store and pay all of their infrastructure costs. It just does not make sense to me,” Miller said.

Board members, who are appointed by DeSantis, defended the new rules and dismissed concerns that the charter expansion could pull critical funding away from traditional public schools.

“Schools of hope wouldn’t be necessary if our public school system had done its job along the way,” said board Vice Chair Esther Byrd.

Associated Press writer Kimberlee Kruesi contributed reporting from Providence, Rhode Island. Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.