The state education commissioner and “school choice” advocates have clapped back at the Florida Education Association’s lawsuit alleging the state’s school voucher program is unconstitutional.
Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas during a Florida Board of Education meeting in Miami Thursday said the union “continues to waste members’ dues and taxpayer dollars on litigation that does nothing to advance student achievement or strengthen our schools.”
He called the statewide union a “special interest group” on a “never-ending quest to harm students and families in our great state.”
“It has been said, if you give a clown a stage, they will perform, and last week’s press conference put on by the Florida Education Association was nothing short of a circus act that we have all grown tired of,” Kamoutsas said during his report.
Parents and the FEA argued in a 39-page filing in state trial court in Leon County last week that state dollars funding private school vouchers don’t conform to the Florida’s Constitution’s requirement for “uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools.” They announced the lawsuit during a news conference in front of the Florida Capitol.
“This lawsuit is against the more than 530,000 students who are participating in a state scholarship program and it is also against 440,000 students who are enrolled in charter schools across this state,” Kamoutsas said.
If the FEA’s ideas were enacted, Kamoutsas said, they “would have an enormously detrimental impact” on students. He compared it to the COVID-era lawsuit when the union resisted the DeSantis administration’s reopening of public schools.
The FEA wants the court to declare the scholarship programs and charter schools “as currently administered” unconstitutional.
“When public funds are used to educate a child, that child is entitled to the same level of educational opportunities, the same quality standards, and the same basic protections,” the FEA argued.
The Capitol
Moments after the commissioner made his argument, outside the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee representatives of former Gov. Jeb Bush’s education think tank argued against the lawsuit.
“We don’t have to choose between supporting our public schools or giving parents educational choice. We can do both,” Foundation for Florida’s Future Director Patricia Levesque said.
Bush focused heavily on school choice during his time as governor. Back then, the Florida Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Holmes in 2006 that his program paying taxpayer dollars to private schools was unconstitutional.
Levesque, who was chief of staff for Bush while he was in office, said although she doesn’t think the FEA intends for Bush v. Holmes to be overturned, “I think it’s very possible,” Levesque said, calling it a “flawed decision.”
Since then, the makeup of the Florida Supreme Court has changed. Currently, the top state court is made up of all-but-one Gov. Ron DeSantis appointees.
“We believe it was a wrong decision back then and, if this lawsuit should proceed, we look forward to the opportunity for the Florida Supreme Court to re-examine that deeply flawed decision,” Levesque said.
“When the state Constitution says, ‘Legislature, you shall fund a system of high quality, safe, secure, free system of public schools,’ you shall do this. What we believe, and what we believe is an actual, accurate interpretation of the Constitution, is that’s the minimum. Legislature, you have to fund the system of free public schools. What the Bush v. Holmes decision and what the teacher’s unions are arguing is that that’s the only thing you can do. They’re arguing that that’s a limit on the legislative power,” Levesque said.
Levesque pointed to the School for the Deaf and Blind and university lab schools as being outside the system of free public schools.
“Is the requirement to fund a system of free public schools, is it the minimum or the maximum? And we would say it’s the minimum they have to do; they can do more than that if they so choose, which they have done for 20-something years,” Levesque said.
Rita Brown, owner of Brownsville Preparatory Academy, said that, before private school vouchers, families like hers on the the south side of Tallahassee “were unable to think about private school as an option because they just didn’t have the money.”
Brown called vouchers a “game changer.”
“If the teachers’ union were to succeed in eliminating the scholarship program, we would lose most of our school-aged children. That K-3 program would probably die and it would be devastating for our parents,” Brown said, calling the lawsuit “frivolous.”
Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, pointed to former President Ronald Reagan’s vision of exceptionalism.
“We are the light on the hill that Ronald Reagan talked about, because of the opportunity that’s unmatched anywhere else on the planet, and Florida has been leading the way. And Florida’s StepUp scholarship will continue to make sure that our light stays the brightest, not just in this country, but around the world,” Martin said.
–Jay Waagmeester, Florida Phoenix
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