Corporate 'scholarships'
Legislature should stop flow of funds through voucher scheme
Florida's school voucher experiment hasn't done much for public education. It has stirred controversy. For the most part, vouchers aren't popular. Serious concerns remain about the quality of education offered at many of the schools that accept the taxpayer-funded "scholarships."
Yet they continue to be a high priority for lawmakers pandering to far-right splinter groups.
The Legislature is considering a bill that would triple the money dedicated to a particularly insidious form of voucher -- a corporate income tax credit that launders taxpayer money for use in private, often religious schools (82 percent of the schools accepting these vouchers are religious).
How the tax credit works: A corporation donates money to a nonprofit "scholarship funding organization" -- receiving a dollar-for-dollar credit against corporate income tax. The funding organization then sets up scholarships of $3,750 for each student, which can be used against tuition and other costs at a private school. Children are eligible to receive the vouchers if they meet the requirements for free or reduced-price lunches -- criteria that include roughly half of Florida's 2.6 million public-school students -- even if they're currently attending a high-performing public school and doing well there.
Unlike schools that accept other state-funded vouchers, institutions taking corporate tax credit scholarships face little in the way of accountability measures. Schools are required to administer one of a number of standardized tests to voucher students, but are not required to report scores directly to the state -- instead, the data goes to an "independent research organization" that strips anything identifying individual students or schools, then reports aggregate performance data to the state.
The state set an $88 million annual cap for vouchers funded through corporate tax credits -- but has never hit that cap. In the current school year, 20,076 students are using the vouchers -- fewer than 2 percent of those eligible, and fewer than the state allocates funding for.
Faulty logic: So what's the logic behind expanding the money available for these vouchers, especially in a painfully tight budget year? Under legislation working its way through House and Senate, the state would step up the money available through corporate vouchers through 2012, for a maximum of $238 million. It would also increase the amount of money allocated per child, to $4,500, and relax eligibility requirements.
Supporters of these vouchers argue that they actually save the state money -- but the argument doesn't hold water. Local school administrators have learned to brace themselves for a rash of voucher students that "wash out" of private schools; unlike public schools, private schools can reject voucher students. These kids end up back in the public system, often requiring remediation. Mark Pudlow of the Florida Education Association says that while the state doesn't keep numbers, about 50 percent of the children in the original voucher experiment in Escambia County ended up back in public schools. .
..In a year where public education has already been cut twice, approving this legislation would constitute another betrayal of Florida's schools and the children who attend them.
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Read the entire editorial and make comment on the Daytona Beach News-Journal Web site.
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