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The fate of voucher students is unclear and likely will be decided by the Florida Supreme Court.
By ALISA ULFERTS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 6, 2002
TALLAHASSEE -- The 703 Florida students counting on state vouchers to attend private schools could soon face a different choice: pay the tuition themselves or return to public school.
A circuit judge tossed out Florida's school voucher law Monday, saying it violated the state Constitution's ban on using public money to benefit religious institutions. He issued an injunction barring any students from using vouchers to attend private school this year.
However, the state plans to appeal the decision possibly as early as today, which attorneys say would automatically stay the ruling. With many schools starting soon, the fate of voucher students is unclear and ultimately could be decided by a higher court.
While 703 students have accepted tuition vouchers for this school year, roughly 8,900 students in 10 public schools were eligible because their schools received failing grades twice within four years. Those 10 schools are in four counties: Escambia, Miami-Dade, Orange and Palm Beach.
Monday's circuit court ruling does not directly affect roughly 4,000 disabled students using McKay scholarships, which provide those students with public money to pay for private school.
In his ruling, Leon County Circuit Judge P. Kevin Davey said he empathized with the state's attempts to give parents a wide range of school choices for their children, but said the state Constitution left him no choice.
"The language . . . is clear and unambiguous. There is scant room for interpretation or parsing," Davey wrote.
Davey's ruling comes just six weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that voucher programs don't run afoul of the separation of church and state clause in the federal Constitution.
But the Florida Constitution goes further and forbids the flow of public dollars, either directly or indirectly such as through a voucher program, to religious or sectarian schools, Davey wrote. That pleased the handful of parents plus the state teachers union and other groups that sued to overturn the law.
His ruling sparked criticism from Gov. Jeb Bush after a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new charter school in Kissimmee.
"I'm disappointed in the ruling, given the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling," Bush said. "We're looking at all our options, and we will be notifying parents what their options and alternatives are." One option may be to raise private funds, such as through a tax credit available to companies that donate to private schools, Bush said.
Florida's voucher law is a cornerstone of the Republican governor's education policy, which includes grading schools based on students' standardized test scores and awarding vouchers to students in failing schools. Democrats gleefully noted that Davey's decision came exactly four years after then-candidate Bush unveiled his A-Plus Plan for education.
"Four years ago today Bush announced in Tallahassee his plan to make public schools "a model for the nation,' " Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride said in a statement.
"It's clear that the Bush plan has constituted a model for the rest of the nation to steer away from rather than a prescription for excellence," said McBride, a voucher opponent who hopes to face Bush in the November election.
The ruling also was praised by Maureen Dinnen, president of the Florida Education Association, the state's teachers union and a plaintiff challenging the voucher program. Dinnen called the voucher program "an exercise in futility" the state never should have tried.
The voucher case is so important to Bush and state education officials that they hired Tallahassee lawyer Barry Richard to argue the case instead of the Attorney General's Office, which normally defends the state in lawsuits. Richard represented George W. Bush during the 2000 election challenges and now is paid $425 an hour to handle the voucher case.
During a hearing last month Richard argued that vouchers don't violate the state Constitution because parents, not the government, choose where to send their children.
Davey called that a stretch, saying such an interpretation "would amount to a colossal triumph of form over substance."
In fact, the section of the Constitution that Davey referred to was amended in 1968 largely through the efforts of former Rep. Jim Redman of Plant City. Redman has said he was concerned about increased efforts to funnel public money to private schools and didn't want to see religious schools cashing checks intended for public schools.
But Davey's ruling struck down the entire statute, including the parts that allowed parents to use vouchers to send their children to private, nonreligious schools or to transfer their children out of a failing school and into a better public school in the district. That could raise the number of schoolkids affected by Davey's decision on the eve of a new school year into the thousands, Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan said Monday.
Brogan said he also wants to know whether the ruling sets a precedent that could harm other state programs where money indirectly supports religious institutions, such as Medicaid patients getting treatment at a Catholic hospital or certain scholarships students can use at religious colleges.
Meanwhile, students who signed up for vouchers now may be left hanging while the state and the teachers union decide what to do next.
The situation is particularly difficult for Escambia County, which starts classes this week and has 44 students continuing in the voucher program. Students in the other districts that are eligible for vouchers, Miami-Dade, Orange and Palm Beach counties, start later this month.
According to the state Department of Education, about half of the 703 students counting on vouchers planned to use them at a religious school.
-- Times staff writer Kent Fischer and researcher Deirdre Morrow contributed to this report.