Florida's faith-based education, provided by corporations who get tax breaks. Defunds public schools

madfloridian

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Tue Apr-26-11 07:05 PM
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Florida's faith-based education, provided by corporations who get tax breaks. Defunds public schools

Florida's needy can send their children to private religious schools with the help of a voucher fund paid for by corporations. Those corporations receive a dollar for dollar tax credit, which can be up to 75% of their state income tax liability.

Good for the parents who want their kids in private religious schools. Great for the corporations who get huge tax breaks. Terrible for the public schools who will be losing tens of millions this year alone because of those tax breaks.

The courts have said public taxpayer money should not go to private religious schools, so this is a way to get the money to the private schools...let the corporations do it. There are also McKay Corporate Vouchers for children with disabilities to go to private schools.

Hernando families praise school vouchers

(WILL VRAGOVIC Times)
Ariana Blevins, 8, a second-grader who attends West Hernando Christian School, takes a break and talks about her experiences at school while her mother, Christine, left, looks on Wednesday.

Evans reads the next word, "were," and then uses it in a sentence: "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"

...It's a timely example, two days before Good Friday. The classroom walls are adorned with colorful placards on the same theme: In Christ, all things are made new, reads one. Jesus is alive, proclaims another.

These are the telltale signs of the faith-based education that Jeff and Kimberly Pasmore say they are glad their son is able to receive — and that they wouldn't be able to afford without the help they get from the state. The missionaries from Spring Hill have a meager income, but use the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program to cover the roughly $3,600 annual tuition.

A spokesperson for the Florida Education Association points out that public schools must hold their students accountable.

In an era when the state places so much emphasis on the results of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, private schools aren't held accountable to ensure all students are meeting benchmarks, Pudlow said.

"They get to set their own curriculum, and the government says, 'Here's your money, good luck,'" he said.

If Rick Scott gets his way only in part, taxpayer money will be given to parents for each child instead of to the public schools. It appears an expanded school voucher plan is moving along in the Florida legislature. He calls it an Education Savings Account.

Expanded school voucher plan advances in Florida Senate

The bill, SB 1550, would let parents use state taxpayer money to pay for their children to attend private schools, including religious ones. The savings account money could also pay for homeschooling or tutoring services or college-savings plans. An identical House measure has not come up for a vote yet.

If the savings accounts were in effect this year, they would be worth about $3,100 each, the Senate estimated.

The concept for the new, and expansive, choice plan was devised by the Goldwater Institute in Arizona as a way to offer parents options outside public schools but meet the constitutional problems of earlier school-voucher programs.

Florida’s first private-school voucher program was struck down by the state supreme court in 2006. The court said the program violated state requirements for a “uniform” public school system and diverted “public dollars into separate private systems.”

Also such vouchers were ruled unconstitutional in 2002 and 2004.

Scott later said he would wait until next year to push this idea.

The Orlando Sentinel hits this plan hard, saying it will weaken the public school system.

Weaker public schools would be the familiar result of new universal voucher scheme

Then, like an offering to Caesar, Sen. Joe Negron, a Stuart Republican, presented Senate Bill 1550. His "GI bill for kids" would put school choice in parents' hands through "education savings accounts." Parents could tap state taxpayer dollars to cover private school (including sectarian schools) or homeschooling needs, or fund pre-paid college plans.

Shades of Jeb Bush, but with a makeover meant to pass the constitutional test where Bush's 2006 Florida voucher plan failed.

...."Negron's bill would cover vouchers by siphoning off 40 percent of what the state spends on each public school student, which would have amounted to about $3,100 per student this year. Some of the remaining money the state would have spent on public schooling for voucher kids would go into an education savings account lottery for kids currently in private or home schools.

Five years ago, the state Supreme Court rightly struck down the Opportunity Scholarship Program, Florida's first attempt at private-school vouchers. The court ruled it violated state provisions for "uniform" public school system. And it diverted "public dollars into separate private systems."

In Broward County the public schools are already suffering from the loss of tax money while the private schools are getting the benefit.

Broward private schools benefit from Florida vouchers, while public schools are strapped for funds.

First the article points out that about a quarter of the students in private schools are on vouchers, and most of these schools are religious ones.

"The Broward school with the biggest number of voucher students — 169 of its 361 enrollment — is Nur Ul Islam Academy in Cooper City, which has received about $694,000 from the state. The second biggest beneficiary is Phyl's Academy Preparatory School in Lauderdale Lakes. Vouchers helped pay tuition for 132 of its 356 students, for a total of about $542,000."

This program gives tax relief to corporations who help students go to these private schools. It takes money that would have gone to public schools via taxes and gives it to private schools which are not required to hired certified teachers and not required to meet state academic standards.

And about that 31 million loss of tax payments to public schools in 2011? That will expand in future years to about 228 million.

The program allows corporations that make contributions deduct those gifts from their corporate income and insurance premium taxes. Economists expect the expansion would cost the state $31 million in lost taxes next year and as much as $228 million in future years – although those losses would be offset somewhat because taxpayers would pay less for students in the program than if they were attending public schools.

.."Tax-credit vouchers are funded with corporate donations, but it's money that otherwise would have been paid in state taxes. About 100 companies donated last year, including Walgreen Co., Burger King, ABC Liquors and Bankers Insurance Group. The average contribution is $1 million, East said.

Private schools that take vouchers must give students a standardized test — not the FCAT — but schools aren't graded and scores are released only for schools with at least 30 students.

I guess I am glad that the families are enjoying a private religious school. However there will be a price to pay for that in the harm being done to public schools by defunding them.

If Scott and the legislature decide to override the courts, it could be tax money being given directly to students to go to the school of their choice. That would mean the destruction of Florida's public schools.