TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s largest teachers union filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Education, alleging the disparity between traditional public schools and private schools receiving taxpayer vouchers violates the state constitution.
The lawsuit filed in the Leon County Circuit Court by the Florida Education Association was joined by a group of parents, school board members and civil rights organizations. It alleges nearly $5 billion in taxpayer dollars are being sent to private schools and charter schools, which aren’t held to the same standards or oversight as traditional public schools.
That discrepancy violates the Florida constitution’s requirement for the state to “make adequate provision for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high-quality system of free public schools,” the lawsuit claims.
“With this lawsuit we are simply asking for accountability, transparency and a basic set of educational standards, which is what every parent wants — regardless of where they choose to send their children,” said FEA President Andrew Spar. “Floridians have made it clear we should be strengthening not abandoning our public schools.”
The lawsuit was filed by the union, a teacher, and seven parents on behalf of their school-age children, including Stephanie Vanos, an Orange County School Board member and mother of three.
The lawsuit was prompted in part by Florida’s 2023 expansion of voucher programs that made all children eligible for a state-funded scholarship to pay for private school or homeschooling services. The lawsuit argues that as more money gets directed to private schools, public schools have suffered and been “asked to do more with less.”
It also notes that traditional public schools face far more state regulations that state-funded private schools and charters schools, which are public schools run by private groups.
Public schools, the lawsuit says, “must comply with a large and growing body of laws covering safety, staffing, facilities, student services, and financial accountability,” rules that take up about 1,400 pages.
Charter school rules, on the other hand, take up about 20 pages, it says, and private schools that take vouchers must comply with even fewer.
The education department and other state leaders criticized the legal challenge.
The union “is once again wasting taxpayer dollars and members’ dues on a frivolous lawsuit,” said Cassie Edwards, spokesperson for the education department, in an email.
The lawsuit seems similar to one filed in 2009 by parents and education advocacy groups that also argued Florida was not providing the “high quality” public education, as its constitution demanded. That lawsuit, which included a four-week trial in 2016, was ultimately unsuccessful, with judges ruling that decisions about how to educate the state’s students were “political” ones that, based on the state constitution, rest with lawmakers and the governor.
Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas responded on social media to the lawsuit by defending Florida’s expanded voucher program.
“Every Florida family has access to universal school choice, empowering them to select the learning environment that best fits their child’s individual needs,” Kamoutsas wrote in a post on X. “We stand unapologetically convicted on the principle of always putting students first!”
As of March, there were an estimated 521,000 students enrolled in private and home school options using voucher funds for the 2025-2026 school year, according to data from the state’s Office of Economic & Demographic Research.
According to the lawsuit, about a quarter of the state’s education budget is going to voucher programs, up from 12 percent in 2021.
The 2023 law expanded the existing voucher program, which was targeted initially to low-income families, to any K-12 student in the state.
Last year, the state’s auditor general found a “myriad of accountability challenges” within the voucher system. The report showed overspending and delays in scholarship payments that resulted in a funding shortfall and a system without proper controls to verify where students who received the voucher payments were being educated.
A bill that would have implemented the recommendations from the report passed the Senate but never received a hearing in the House.
Orlando Sentinel staff contributed to this report.