Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis implemented universal school choice across the entire state. The legislation opens up many possibilities for all students, but the aspect that sticks out is the vouchers:
“This is a huge thing in the state of Florida and we’re happy today that we’re able to do even more to make people’s dreams become a reality,” DeSantis said.“Parents are going to be able to have the ability to get money for their student for their child, and they can do tuition, they’re also going to be able to use it for things like tutoring and other things that can be very important for a child’s development and well being,” he said.
Florida has proven parents are essential in their child’s education:
DESANTIS: “So people have said, ‘Wait a minute, if you give parents a choice, if you let parents take scholarship and go to the school of their choice, somehow that’s going to hurt education performance.’ And in Florida, we’re proof positive that that’s just the opposite of what actually happened.”
DeSantis boasted the legislation keeps Florida in the top spot:
DESANTIS: “State of Florida is number one when it comes to education freedom and education choice. And — (Cheering and Applause) — and today’s bill signing cements us in that number one position, because we will be signing legislation which will represent the largest expansion of education choice not only in the history of this state but in the history of these United States.”
A press release described the bill:
HB 1 eliminates the current financial eligibility restrictions and allows any student who is eligible to enroll in K-12 to participate in available school choice options. The bill also continues to prioritize awards to students with household incomes that do not exceed 185 percent of the federal poverty level while incorporating a second priority to award scholarships to students who live in households with incomes between 185 percent of the federal poverty level and 400 percent of the federal poverty level. HB 1 also increases the annual scholarship adjustment for the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities from one percent to three percent to address high demand and wait lists.The bill also eliminates the current enrollment cap and the exemptions to the maximum number of students who can participate in FES-EO [Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options]. For students who are not full-time enrolled in public or private school or who are not Home Education Program students, there will be a cap of 20,000 new scholarships for the 2023-2024 school year and a cap of 40,000 new scholarships for every year after that.Additionally, this legislation requires the Office of K-12 School Choice to develop an online portal that enables parents to choose the best educational options for their student. The bill also eliminates the restrictive requirement that students must complete at least one credit through a virtual course to graduate.
The Florida Union threw a hissy fit, claiming the bill will “drain billions of taxpayer dollars away from the neighborhood public schools” and give a ton of money to “to unaccountable, corporate-run private schools.”
DeSantis shot them down:
“One is the amount of scholarship money is less than what would go per pupil for public anyways,” he said. “Second, since I’ve been governor, we’ve raised the amount of funding to our public schools every year. I mean, the idea that they’ve been starved, that theoretically could happen, that’s a choice that legislators and a governor would make, and I push to have more funding for the school districts. And we’re actually going to do for public school teachers, the biggest teacher pay increase we’ve ever done.”DeSantis said right now there are 1.3 million students enrolled in some kind of choice program.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY