Depending on your viewpoint, Florida’s Empowerment Scholarships, commonly known as vouchers, are either a great opportunity for kids or a massive drain on public school funding.
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This year in Miami-Dade County, as first reported by the Miami Herald, the state’s school finance program is actually spending more on vouchers than it is on public school students.
Statewide, more than 500,000 students use taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private schools, at a cost of more than $4 billion.
“We’ve seen a lot of families want to take their kids to faith-based schools and it’s their choice,” said Roberto Alonso, a Miami-Dade County School Board member.
When Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill to expand vouchers to anyone, regardless of family income, in 2023, he said this: “The amount of scholarship money is less than what would go per pupil for public, anyways.”
However, this school year, the math in Miami-Dade County does not add up that way. The state provides about 25% of per-pupil spending for the county, and this year, about $766 million goes to the private school voucher program, while $737 million goes to public and charter schools. That means Florida is spending about $8,000 per voucher student, and less than $3,000 per public school student.
“It’s not that more students are in the private schools, but more money is going to those students and so that’s the problem,” said Crystal Etienne, a teacher and founder of Eduvoter Action Network, a public school advocacy group.
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More than 300,000 kids attend public and charter schools in Miami-Dade, compared to about 82,000 in private schools.
“Well my first question was, what exactly is that money going to?” Etienne said when she saw how much taxpayer money was being spent on vouchers. “Because we don’t know, the private schools don’t have the accountability to those dollars being spent.”
The voucher program is obviously popular. Roberto Alonso supports it, but also says the state’s complex funding formula for public schools needs to be adjusted to current economic and demographic realities.
“As a district, we will continue to focus on our students and as long as we do that, at the end of the day our students are the ones that are winning because the competitive environment makes sure that we’re all providing the best product,” Alonso said.
The state’s public school funding relies heavily on local property taxes, and as families move out of South Florida, as immigration plummets and the birth rate drops, school enrollment has fallen. This issue might prompt the legislature to re-examine education funding in the next legislative session.
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