There is an alarming misuse of public funds in Florida that isn\u2019t just unfair and irresponsible, it undermines our state\u2019s constitutional obligation to provide a high-quality, uniform education for every child and erodes trust in the very system meant to serve all of Florida\u2019s children.<\/p>\n
The taxpayer-funded voucher program has created a shadow educational system, one where billions in taxpayer funds move with little oversight, leaving families and communities in the dark about how their money is spent. This lack of accountability and transparency has created a fractured, unequal\u00a0 education landscape, robbing students of stability and opportunity no matter where they go to school.<\/p>\n
Approximately $5 billion in taxpayer money is being siphoned away from our traditional public schools into voucher systems. Private schools that accept vouchers are held to a tiny fraction of the standards our public schools must meet, if any at all. Nearly a quarter of all state funding for education is now drained by voucher programs that serve only 15.3% of Florida\u2019s students and overwhelmingly benefit families who were already paying to send their child to private school. How is this fiscally responsible?<\/p>\n
The consequences of this system are clear in Orange County, where my kids go to school.<\/p>\n
This year, our county was forced to\u00a0close seven public schools\u00a0and cut hundreds of positions despite the district earning\u00a0high grades. An estimated $315 million of education money will be diverted from Orange County Public Schools to vouchers just this year. These closures and loss of funding are a direct result of a state system that puts politics and profits ahead of students.<\/p>\n
Traditional public schools across the state are held to incredibly high standards on how and what they teach students, who they hire, how they report grades and more. However, the taxpayer-funded voucher program and charter schools are not held to the same standards and measures of accountability despite receiving public tax dollars.<\/p>\n
Charter schools, deemed public schools by law, sometimes serve an unmet need in a community, and may operate transparently under a fully nonprofit model. In some cases, they can benefit our larger communities. However, charter schools operate with far fewer requirements and accountability measures than traditional public schools, and far too many are franchise operations, run by for-profit management companies that benefit affiliated for-profit entities with our tax dollars.<\/p>\n
No one wins when our state decides that transparency and\u00a0accountability\u00a0don\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
After decades of chronic underfunding of our public schools, parents across the state are fed up. We\u2019re done watching our kids lose out because leaders refuse to value every student equally. The lawsuit against the state recently launched by the Florida Education Association and supported by parents like me is a common-sense lawsuit that every parent should be in favor of because its ask is simple: accountability,\u00a0transparency, and a basic set of educational standards regardless of the type of school a parent chooses for their child.<\/p>\n
Every parent wants what\u2019s best for their kids.\u00a0Calling for a basic set of uniform standards, expectations, and transparency guidelines for how our public dollars are used in education isn\u2019t an attack on parents or guardians who choose private or charter schools, and it\u2019s not about making every school identical. It\u2019s a demand for the bare minimum: that Florida\u2019s leaders follow the Constitution, strengthen parents\u2019 rights to clear, consistent information about where they are sending their kids, provide transparency for the expenditure of public money, and ensure every child has access to a safe, high-quality education.<\/p>\n
Accountability and transparency aren\u2019t bad words \u2014 they are the cornerstones of good policy, fiscal responsibility and the rights of all parents. Lawmakers and local leaders must stand up for these values and invest in the public schools that are the heartbeat of our communities.<\/p>\n
Stephanie Vanos represents District 6 on the Orange County School Board and is a mom to three girls in Orange County Public Schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is an alarming misuse of public funds in Florida that isn\u2019t just unfair and irresponsible, it undermines…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[483,482,139,141,140,109,76410],"class_list":["post-352805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-commentary","tag-opinion","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social","tag-social-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}