Don’t panic or celebrate yet: this proposal in the Florida Legislature isn’t likely to pass this year, even though it cleared its first hurdle in the Senate last week. But it’s getting its warm-up for next year, when it is likely to be a centerpiece of education “reform.” As such, it would transform and potentially gut public education funding as it’s known today.
The plan, tailored in some ways after health savings accounts, allows parents to use state funding to pay for private school tuition (secular or parochial), private virtual school, college savings plans, home-schooling or tutoring. The bill cleared its first committee last week.
The ambitious plan (SB 1550) would take 40 percent of the state’s per-pupil spending on a public school student and deposit it into an account – the bill calls it an “education savings account” – where it may be used to pay for a series of private education services or for college, but at the expense of the public education budget.
That would amount to about $3,100 per student under this year’s education funding formula.
Click On:
- Senate Bill 1550: Text
- Charter Schools To Be Allowed To Go Virtual As Florida Expands Online Public Education
- Public Money for Private Schools: Voucher Programs Set to Expand Across Florida
- But Should They Be Paid? Flagler School Board Members Defend Their Salaries
- Merit Pay’s Trap: When Lawmakers Are Clueless About Teachers’ Classroom Realities
“This is a very innovative program that recognizes that parents should have choices,” said Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, the bill sponsor. He added that “I don’t believe public schools are going to fold” because of the bill. “Public schools are competing with private schools,” Negron said.
Any student, whether they currently attend public or private school, would be eligible to open an account.
Gov. Rick Scott has previously stated his support for savings account plans for parents, and the idea is supported by an education policy group founded by former Gov. Jeb Bush.
Though the bill cleared the Senate Education Pre-K-12 Committee on Tuesday, supporters and detractors alike said it isn’t likely to progress much further.
Its House companion (HB 1225) has not yet been heard in a committee.
“It won’t get much further this year,” said Jaryn Emhof, a spokeswoman for the Foundation for Florida’s Future, the education think tank affiliated with Bush that is pushing various proposals that would channel more state funding into charter, virtual and private schools. “It was heard as a courtesy.”
Emhof said this is the first year the idea has gotten a hearing in the Legislature and that education savings accounts are likely to return next year for more serious consideration.
According to a legislative analysis of the bill, “A student remains eligible for the program until he or she graduates from high school and as long as the student does not enroll in a public school, charter school, or a virtual instruction program that receives state funding as a result of the student‟s participation. However, a student would remain eligible if he or she is enrolled in the Florida Virtual School.”
Critics say the education savings account bill is just another voucher program. Its unique structure, which doesn’t mandate that taxpayer money go to a private school, may allow the state to skirt around the constitutional issues that have been problematic for school voucher programs in the past.
A previous attempt at a wide-ranging school voucher program called Opportunity Scholarships was struck down in 2006 after the Florida Supreme Court said it violated the state constitution.
“It’s constitutional,” Negron said after the committee. “We do the same thing in voluntary (pre-kindergarten),” Negron said, though the bill analysis says it may be “constitutionally challenged.”
The legislative analysis predicts a constitutional challenge, however, for the same reason that the “opportunity scholarship” voucher program was challenged in 2006: the state Constitution explicitly forbids state funding to be used for any religious purposes in any way: “No revenue of the state…shall ever be taken…directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.” The constitution also requires public education funding to be uniform, whereas the education savings accounts would create a tiered system.
The voucher program, the court’s opinion read in 2006, “diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools that are the sole means set out in the Constitution for the state to provide for the education of Florida’s children. This diversion not only reduces money available to the free schools, but also funds private schools that are not ‘uniform’ […] through the [Opportunity Scholarship Program] the state is fostering plural, nonuniform systems of education.”
Several teachers spoke against the education savings account bill, saying it is a way of diverting funds away from public schools and into private schools and the hands of parents who home school their children.
“While this might be something that seems like a good idea in theory, in reality if we were to have a large number of people opt into this program…I do see us losing some of our wonderful programs,” said Barbara Wilmarth, a Pinellas County public school teacher.
Negron said it doesn’t hurt public schools. He said the measure would allow schools to keep 20 percent of the state’s per-pupil spending cost, even though the student would be gone, though the bill didn’t spell out that percentage.
But the proposal does provide a strong incentive for parents to take their kids out of public schools, critics say.
“What is to stop families from saying ‘I am going to keep my child home’ and just take the money and it is not going to appropriate educational opportunities?” asked Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers.
Negron said by requiring the money be deposited into banks and having only certain approved expenditures, such as tuition, books, tutors and college savings plans, would avoid abuse.
The bill would cost the state’s Department of Financial Services over $760,000 to set up, and about $168,541 each year to maintain. The department would be in charge of setting up the savings accounts.
Negron said he was focused on moving the bill forward in the Senate, though acknowledged that “it is a transformational idea and so we are making progress as with any big idea.”
–Lilly Rockwell, News Service of Florida, and FlaglerLive
lawabidingcitizen says
A very bad idea.
Thinking people who care about our kids should be agitating to take the public schools out of the hands of union thugs and return them to local communities and just as importantly, we should demand that the bureaucratic black holes of federal and state departments of education be dismantled.
Public money should never be put into the hands of any private group even those with whom one might agree.
JR says
Without reading the bill I won’t comment on the plan, but I would like to address the headline of the article (having read that, and in light of the entire article). “‘Education Savings Accounts’ Would Shift Public Money to Private and Home Schools,” this statement disregards the fundamental basis of government in this country. It is the publics money, It belongs to them before it is taken by the government — whether local, State, or Federal — and, before I’m assaulted, taxes are necessary to
“establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty (sic),” [Its in the constitution, look it up]. Politicians speak of the “cost” of tax decreases, as costing a specific amount of money. This is an enormous lapse in understanding. You don’t “pay,” for a tax decrease, you simply collect less. Because, the money belongs to individuals — not the government — and should not be thought of as the government’s money, that it allows individuals to keep, but rather, individuals money that they give to the government.
William says
“…whereas the education savings accounts would create a tiered system.”
Big red flag here.
Johnny Tax Payer says
the opposition to this idea and the previous voucher program which the supreme court struck down is based simply on the following logic, “Every child in Florida must have the exact same education, even if that means every child gets a crappy education”.
Merrill says
In fact opposition to this plan includes a desire by a great many citizens to avoid being coerced into paying for the religious education of children of other denominations. Currently in Florida 85% of the voucher and “backdoor” voucher schemes such as our Corporate Scholarship Tax Credit Program monies go to private religious schools. Want private religious education for your children? Pay for it yourself! Quit asking me to pay for it!
palmcoaster says
Totally agree with Merrill.
Liana G says
Religious people don’t pay taxes? I’m a tax paying citizen and I should have a choice along with the million others who also want that choice! And I am not religious!
Johnny Tax Payer says
who’s asking you to pay for it? Quite the contrary… the parents who send their children to religious schools in many cases pay twice. They’re being forced to pay for a public school system they don’t use, and at the same time pay the tuition at the school they’ve decided to send their child.
Becky says
All expenses for education should be deductible on ones income tax. From 1st grade through college. The same goes for medical expenses and health insurance. Regardless of your income, whether you take ‘deductions’ etc. It is not the governments place to tax the money spent by individuals or parents to educate their children, (or themselves) or to pay for medical care. Period. There are enough property taxes, etc to fund education for those who don’t file income tax. (numbers are outgrowing those who do pay Federal Income tax) (and there would be plenty of revenue if we went to a fair tax system) If they don’t stop spending, and cut back, you better hang onto your IRA’s before our gov’t does the ‘confiscation for the greater good’ bit like Argentina did…already being discussed.