Education Crisis in Florida? “Our system of education is being overwhelmed…”

SB7070, the Senate Education Committee’s first train bill of the session, passed through their committee along a party line vote. Voting on a train bill on day 2 of the Legislative session might be a new record.

The bill contains more than a dozen components (in 5 basic categories). The most controversial component is the creation of a new voucher program, the Family Empowerment Scholarship, designed to “eliminate the waitlist” for the current Florida Tax Credit Scholarship/voucher. Like the tax credit scholarship (FTCS), this new voucher will fund lower income families but, in contrast to the FTCS, local property tax dollars will be required to directly fund these vouchers to private, mostly religious schools. Such a funding scheme was successfully challenged in court in 2006 (Bush v Holmes) and was overwhelmingly rejected by voters on the 2012 ballot.  We will be writing more as the train moves through committee stop but, for now, you can read about the bill and its discussion in front of the Senate Education Committee here, here and here.

What caught our attention, yesterday, was something that Chair Manny Diaz, Jr. said in his opening remarks (watch at 23:35):

Obviously, our system of education is being overwhelmed, as we speak,  by the number of people that come to the state every day… within ten years, I believe that our entire public education system will not be able to keep up with the number of people that keep moving to Florida. While this is very positive and it’s a sign we are doing so many great things in this state and we have so much to offer, there are some challenges that we are going to have to meet.

Is Florida’s population growing so quickly that our public education system won’t be able to keep up? If this is true, what is Florida’s legislature doing to divert this crisis? Will this Legislature allow the lack of adequate public schools deter our state’s future economic growth?

Senator Perry (watch at 1:25:00) uses a few “quick numbers” to remind us that vouchers save the state money. Voucher schools (which are private, mostly religious, schools) do not receive capital funding (for new school construction) and voucher students are funded below the cost spent on the average public school student in Florida. The newly proposed Empowerment Scholarship/voucher would pay 95% of their district’s average per pupil calculation (the FTCS program pays 88, 92 or 96%, depending on the student’s grade level) or the amount of the private school’s tuition and fees, whichever is less. Perry supports expanding vouchers as a way of “saving money for the education system for Florida.” This idea that “voucher programs are “good” because they allow states to spend LESS money on poor children’s education” is not new. 

Is the solution to Senator Diaz’ impending population crisis to divert children to cheaper options? Is that the goal? Does that fulfill the Legislature’s paramount constitutional duty “to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders?” Just how cheap can one go and still be considered “adequate?”

Also, if we are expecting a crisis within 10 years, why are we continuing to restrict future tax revenue? On Tuesday, March 5th, the Senate Community Affairs Committee took steps to create a new education property tax exemption for some of our state’s senior citizens. SJR344 and SB562 are companion bills designed to create a ballot proposal that would limit eliminate or freeze education property taxes for certain individuals over the age of 65. Both bills are sponsored by Education Chair, Senator Diaz, who says he wants to ease the tax burden on certain homeowners without significantly hurting schools. The bill was voted favorably despite having no fiscal impact statement, with no idea how many homeowners would be affected, how much tax revenue would be lost or what the impact would be on local education funding. If passed to the Senate Floor, it will require a supermajority vote (in the Senate and the House) before being placed on the ballot for a statewide vote.

Moving forward, if the goal is to collect and spend as few tax dollars as possible, in the face of rapid population growth, how will the Legislature fulfill their paramount duty “to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders?”

This may be the real impending crisis facing our public schools.