Universal Education Savings Accounts, HB1 and the Further Defunding and Dismantling of Florida’s Public Schools

That sound you hear is the crumbling of public school walls as the Florida House moves forward on dismantling public schools. HB1, filed today by Kaylee Tuck (R-83 and daughter of former State Board of Education Chair, Andy Tuck) provides Universal ESAs/edu-debit cards for all. ICYMI, during her freshman session, Rep. Tuck “championed” the bill forbidding trans-gender girls from participating in sports.

Please read more about ESAs here and here.

The “1” in HB1 means it is of the highest priority to pass. The only qualifications are that the student is a resident of the state and is eligible to enroll in kindergarten through grade 12 in a school in the state. 

HB1 also creates a new business entity: “Choice Navigators” (I expect edu-entrepreneurs are filing incorporation papers as we speak), apparently designed to help ESA recipients choose from the wide array of non-public school options available to them. In Florida’s current ESA program (FES-UA, formerly Gardiner) families can, every two years plus 1 day, use their public education dollars to purchase a laptop, desktop, phone, tablet, game console, smart watch, VR, AND MP3 player… Please note the “AND” is not a typo. Each device falls in a separate approved category. Every two years…

HB1 makes it clear that families give up all federal IDEA rights by accepting the voucher (line 312).

Also, there is this, which I’m not sure how it is related to the bill… because I believe you can’t be enrolled in public school and still receive the voucher:

Much will be written on HB1 but everything that IS written should include this: In EVERY state that has moved to Universal Vouchers, ~80% of the recipients are those are already in private school, meaning this will require a massive amount of increased spending and little (none?) of it will go to public schools. There is no reason to believe Florida will be any different (just ask your own district how many new kindergartners are attending private school on the Family Empowerment Scholarship in your district).

The latest data I have (from January 2021), show 183,951 students in Florida’s private schools and 101,309 homeschooling.

Let’s do the math:

183,951 + 101,309 = 285,260 new students eligible for public funding. Each student will get 100% of the per-pupil dollars received by students in their assigned public school district, which is currently an average of $8,216.74/full time student.

285,260 x 8,216.74 = $2.34 BILLION to fund students who are not now (or ever) attending Florida’s public schools.

Add this to the current ~ $1 Billion for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program and the $1.3 Billion for the current Family Empowerment Scholarship voucher program and you get:

Florida could be spending $4.6 Billion funding vouchers…

Of course, both the Florida House and the Senate have Republican super majorities so this bill will pass.

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Can you hear it? It is the combination of the crumbing of school walls as Tallahassee defunds and dismantles our public schools. Though it may be hard to hear over the rush of public education dollars flowing to private entities.