Recently, Laura Hines who is a Pinellas County School Board member and Executive Director of a non-profit organization called Educating Florida Families, put a video together to review the impact of Florida’s School Voucher law on our public-school systems. This is a very informative video, and it is strongly recommended for families interested in keeping our state education system strong. You can click on the link to watch it. We have also summarized the subject matter below.
Article Summary:
Florida taxpayers have questions about the now 5B school voucher program.
What has changed?
Are students learning?
Is the money being managed well?
Background on the voucher system
McKay scholarship- year 2000 – meant for students with disabilities who needs and IEP aren’t being followed or met in a public school.
Florida Tax Credit – year 2001 – meant for students in a failing public school to attend a private school regardless of zip code. Students shouldn’t be strapped by income. Criteria was 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, this increased in 2018 where 50% of Florida families qualified for low income.
Gardiner Scholarship- year 2014 – students with special needs not being met.
Universal vouchers came about through Family Empowerment Scholarship year 2023– meant for anyone, any income, anywhere, which now includes any student already enrolled in a private school can now apply for the voucher.
Breakdown of the 5B spend.
1B – serviced through the Dept. Of Revenue, for low income and homeschooling students, capped at 1B.
4B – funds the Family Empowerment scholarship, this includes 1.6B of the McKay and Gardiner scholarship plus 2.4B of the Universal voucher, any student, outside of the public school system. No cap.
Prospective how this adds to the budget. 6 years ago, the budget was 94B, today 114B.
How are there 222,000 more vouchers to private schools, if students aren’t moving to private schools? Taxpayers are now funding students who are already enrolled in private schools and have never attended a public school. 91% are already enrolled in private schools with 2.7B in new tax spend.
According to the Legislative Budget Commission, Florida is facing a deficit. Not for the year 2026-2027 but for 2027-2028 year a total of 1.5B to 6.5B in 2028-2029. This unvetted funding is affecting all areas of the state budget, which includes Healthcare, aerospace, transportation, criminal justice, and agriculture.
Taxpayers want accountability for the tax dollars that are funding the new Universal voucher.
Are tax scholarship students learning?
Total number of scholarships is 536,457 with a cost of $5,009,389,700 going to 3,609 private schools.
There are no required academic standards. Schools may teach any curriculum they choose. Public schools must meet these academic standards which are set by the Florida Dept. Of Education. Teachers do not need to meet the state certification requirements or demonstrate mastery. Academic testing is varied and incompatible. Students take 1 out of the 28 nationally normed tests, which are not compared to the FAST assessment required by public schools. Out of the 3,609 private schools 76% are unaccredited.
Are the tax scholarship dollars well managed and publicly reported?
In 2025 an audit conducted. Senator Gaetz spoke on the findings:
As of today 30,000, scholarship students are unaccounted for on any given day. They can’t ensure taxpayers that the money is following the student. Many students move between different providers. $270,000 is unaccounted on any given day, $1M should have been paid to public schools but mistakenly it was paid to private schools. These monies aren’t being managed well.
What can you do as a taxpayer do:
Contact Florida House Budget and Florida House K-12 Budget Committee members and ask for academic and financial accountability for all public tax dollars that fund K12 education.
Contact Educating Florida’s Future.
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