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The education commissioner's misappropriation of $1.1-million in voucher funds raises more questions about program oversight and concerns about public schools being cheated.
The law that sets up a dubious experiment in online elementary education was written narrowly, in part because some senators were skeptical about whether Florida would be underwriting home-schooling. So the $4.8-million in virtual vouchers this fall were to go only to "students who were enrolled and in attendance at a Florida public school during the prior school year."
That's plain enough, but apparently not to state Education Commissioner Jim Horne. He defied the Legislature's directive and awarded $1.1-million in vouchers to first-time kindergarten and first-grade students, only then to turn around and say he "should have done a better job of checking this interpretation with the Senate."
Horne's solution, to take $1.1-million from a different education account, does little to resolve the misappropriation. As Senate Democratic Leader Ron Klein told the Palm Beach Post: "I didn't know there was a slush fund out there to pay for this school, which was never really approved by the Legislature in this format anyway."
This latest voucher misadventure raises more questions about Horne's integrity and whether his Department of Education can be trusted to oversee a rapidly expanding voucher program that already has prompted investigations by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the state's chief financial officer and the state Senate. But the home-school subsidy is also of note for another reason. It is part of a budgetary sleight-of-hand that continues to pit private vouchers against public schools.
Since the first voucher program was established in 1999, Gov. Jeb Bush and the Legislature have used two financial assumptions to guide all planning: 1) vouchers are "revenue neutral," merely shifting money from a public school to a private; 2) they actually save taxpayers money, because the voucher in some cases is worth less than the public school appropriation. Both assumptions are misleading, and here are a few reasons why:
Reimbursement mismatch. The voucher amounts vary for the four programs, from $3,500 to $20,000 per student. The problem is that, with disabled students and those from schools deemed to be failing, the state deducts the money from each district using a formula that shortchanges public schools. In Pinellas, budget officials determined that the district received $5,500 for each disabled student but lost $7,500 if the student took a voucher. To add insult to injury, one third-grader from Blanton Elementary used a voucher this fall to enter private school in fourth grade because he failed the FCAT reading test last year, forcing the district to retain him. Said the boy's mother: "In my opinion, Blanton is one of the best schools around . . . but I refuse to let him be held back."
Replacing private charity. The corporate tax voucher is $3,500 and is provided only to poor students, but the Legislature allows incoming kindergarteners and first-graders, as well as some students who previously received private grants, to qualify. That means the state is paying for some students who would otherwise have attended the schools using church and charitable grants. Even Patrick Heffernan, president of Miami-based voucher group FloridaChild, has estimated that at least 10 percent of the students would probably receive private charity. For example, Academy Prep in St. Petersburg, a highly regarded private middle school created seven years ago to provide free education for poor black students, started using vouchers last year.
Home-schooling. The virtual voucher awards $4,800 per student to two companies that then supply computer and curriculum materials for children to learn from home. The students are so young that even company officials acknowledge the real instruction must come from parents, and a state House member who attended one of the parent recruitment meetings told reporters: "When they asked how many of you home-school your kids, three-quarters of the people there raised their hand." But the virtual voucher is not the only tax money going to home-schooling. DOE still lists at least two home-school organizations as eligible to receive vouchers for disabled students.
The point about the voucher money is not whether it is being wisely spent but whether it is being honestly budgeted. The Legislature has never embraced a fully privatized voucher alternative, because it has recognized the budgetary implications of trying to pay for the 12 percent of students who always have attended private schools. But some small portion of that investment is being made now, hidden in budgets that pretend vouchers are cost-free. Lawmakers can certainly choose to pay for home-schooling or for students who otherwise pay for their own private schools, but without a separate and honest accounting, public schools pay the price. Horne's $1.1-million shell game is only a small part of that cost.