The Florida Legislature has passed the NAME bill that will make school vouchers, good for private school tuition or homeschooling expenses, available to every family in the state.
The Senate passed the measure, known as HB 1, by a 26–12 vote on March 23. It passed in the House on March 17 by a vote of 83–27. The bill, which Gov. Ron DeSantis is likely to sign, would go into effect on July 1, 2023. The state plans to add 40,000 vouchers yearly to its program until 2027.
“This bill makes Florida the first state in the nation to provide universal parental choice for education,” state Rep. Chuck Clemons, a Republican and speaker pro tem of the House, told The Epoch Times in a text.
“The old tired system was broken. This model will soon spread across the country.”
House Speaker Paul Renner told The Epoch Times in a text message, “The goal of school choice is to deliver education in a much different way than the one-size-fits-all model that we all knew growing up.
“The Florida model factors in the unique learning needs of every child to deliver education by empowering parents and students to choose the best way to achieve their educational goals, regardless of zip code, race, or income,” the Republican speaker said.
“Thanks to the dedicated efforts of Representatives Kaylee Tuck and Susan Plasencia, Florida will unlock the full potential of every student in the state.”
According to the Legislature’s staff analysis, the bill will cost $209 million.
“I was one of those kids in a struggling neighborhood in Pompano Beach, with a mother that was dedicated to getting me a better education,” said Sen. Corey Simon, the first Republican to represent his Panhandle district since Reconstruction and the bill’s sponsor in the Senate.
“I’m so thankful to be standing here today with this piece of legislation. This was the passion for me. This wasn’t just another bill that we push for some company or some special interest. This was my bill.”
What he’s picked up listening to debate in committee and the House, he said, “is that parents have been erased from the entire spectrum of ... our education system. My colleagues are saying, ‘We know best for your kids. We know how to educate your kids. We know where they should fit in. We have all of the answers.’ “
“And what this bill does is, we put that back in the parents’ hands,” Simon said, noting that his wife was a special education teacher.
He found irony, he said, in many of his opposition sending their children to private schools.
Democratic senators attacked the bill—which could cut the public schools’ enrollment, funding, and employment—and school choice generally. They said taxpayer money will now go to private schools where teachers may be unqualified or uncertified, which don’t participate in standardized testing, and who aren’t accountable. It may go to religious schools teaching extreme or intolerant ideas, they say.
School choice could lead to the resegregation of schools or denial of admission based on sexual orientation, said Democratic Sen. Geri Thompson.
Sen. Bobby Powell, a Democrat, said the bill might end up being far more expensive—$650 million—and that, meanwhile, the $8,000 scholarships might not prove enough. The statewide average cost of private schools is $9,000, he said, and in Palm Beach County, part of which he represents, even elementary private school tuition averages $10,000.
“That $2,000 gap is a lot for low-income families,” he said. And some schools cost from $25,000 to $30,000 a year, even as much as $36,000 a year.
Republican Sen. Clay Yarborough said he appreciated the bill’s impact on homeschooled families.
“I graduated from Duval County public schools, but we homeschool our boys. I wanted to make sure that our homeschool education communities out there understand the balance that we also struck in the bill, to make sure that provisions in there that might affect homeschool students are in a good place.”
Jim McKenzie, the headmaster of the Rock School, a Christian school in Gainesville, told The Epoch Times the bill wouldn’t have much effect on his school, which has been at capacity for years. But it will provide a significant boon, particularly to middle-class families, relieving them of most of the school’s $10,000 tuition.
He said about 40 percent of Rock School students are on scholarships from the state’s existing voucher program, which the new legislation dramatically expands. Because of that, he said, the school’s demographics are very diverse—and within one percent of the Gainesville area’s overall racial and ethnic demographics.
“The school looks like the community in which we live,” McKenzie said. “We have students that qualify for free and reduced price lunch programs. We have blue-collar families, white-collar families, professional families working at the University [of Florida], and truly affluent families.”
“And we’re doing it all in the context of a Christian school, with a deep commitment to the Christian faith.”
McKenzie said research he’s seen confirms significant improvement in the academic performance of students transferring from public to private schools and staying at least two years. Meanwhile, public schools nearby also improve, likely the effect of competition.
Jody Robertson, principal of Gainesville’s Countryside Christian School, said his school was also at capacity and might not see an immediate impact from the bill. He said the bill might cause new schools to be formed or existing ones to expand. It will first help schools most of whose students are not on scholarships. He said that Countryside Christian used to have 50 percent of its students funded by the vouchers, but that has grown lately to nearly 75 percent.
Countryside Christian is selective about who it takes, he said. “We don’t have an open door policy. We have an ajar door policy.”
They have found that many students from public schools “lack structure, and often it doesn’t work out.” They hardly ever take transfers from public high schools. “We have an extensive interview process,” Robertson said.
He said parents need to have a choice in the matter, partly because of what they see as deterioration in the public schools. Some former students now studying teaching in college are changing their fields because of the indoctrination they’re experiencing. “They’re trying to pump out activists, not teachers.”
The Florida Education Association (FEA) condemned the bill in a public statement, saying it represents “a terrible loss” and charging it “stands to direct billions of taxpayer dollars to unaccountable, private, corporate-run schools.”
FEA President Andrew Spar said, “This bill is going to make life tougher for a lot of kids. It will mean fewer resources in their schools, and fewer teachers and staff to meet their day-to-day needs.”
