These vouchers, intended to help families who could not afford private education, allow for public state aid to be redirected to families to cover the costs of the private school.<\/p>\n
State funding diverted to private school vouchers increased from 12% for the 2021 school year to 24% for the 2025 school year, according to data from the Florida Policy Institute, an Orlando-based nonprofit whose mission is to support equitable access to health care, education, housing and jobs.<\/p>\n
Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP-led Florida Legislature praised vouchers as a way for more students to be able to attend private schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlorida is No. 1 when it comes to education freedom and education choice, and today\u2019s bill signing represents the largest expansion of education choice in the history of these United States,\u201d DeSantis said in March 2023 when he signed the new law. \u201cWhen you combine private scholarships, charter schools, and district choice programs, Florida already has 1.3 million students attending a school of their choosing.\u201d<\/p>\n Then-Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, a Naples Republican, was a strong supporter of vouchers. When the Legislature passed the voucher bill, she said that public schools \u201cwill have a meaningful chance to compete right alongside other school choice options.\u201d<\/p>\n Data from the Florida Policy Institute shows that the growing number of students using these vouchers since 2023 were not previously in public school; many students were already attending a private school and paying for it out of pocket. About 69% of students new to using the voucher were already enrolled in private schools, according to Step Up for Students, the nonprofit in charge of the scholarships.<\/p>\n These vouchers \u2014 and other reasons for declining enrollment \u2014 have led to declining funding among the largest school districts. Teachers say they are feeling the effects.<\/p>\n \u201cOur public schools are struggling to make ends meet,\u201d said Andrew Spar, President of the Florida Education Association. \u201cThat means fewer programs for kids, larger class size for our students. It also is impacting teacher pay.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida ranks 50th in the nation in average teacher pay, at $54,875, according to the National Education Association, one of the largest teacher unions. The Legislature in recent years has raised the minimum salaries for new teachers in Florida, which now ranks 17th in the U.S., at\u00a0 $48,639.<\/p>\n \u201cUnlike in the private sector, as much as people who say this is about choice and this is about competition, it\u2019s about neither: it\u2019s about money,\u201d Spar said.<\/p>\n Orange County is the fifth-most populated county in Florida. For the current school year, 24% of Orange County\u2019s state aid is being redirected to vouchers, while enrollment in public schools has dropped only 3%.<\/p>\n Veteran teacher Laurie McLeod has been teaching in Orange County schools since 1998; she has seen noticeable changes in the past couple of years.<\/p>\n \u201cI have more students assigned to me personally than I have in the past six years,\u201d she said. She added, \u201cI have over 35 students in my advanced studies Cambridge classes.\u201d<\/p>\n On top of increased class sizes, Mcleod reports cuts to intensive reading classes and stagnant teacher pay.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are underfunded, not because we\u2019re under-enrolled but because our money keeps going to private schools and businesses,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n McLeod does not support the use of public dollars for private education.<\/p>\n \u201cPrivate schools are a great option for families who want to pursue and pay for them, but I don\u2019t think that taxpayer dollars and public money should fund private schools.\u201d<\/p>\n At least 17 states have at least one program in which public taxpayer money can be redirected to private schools.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s this scramble to survive in this political landscape; I don\u2019t think that public schools should be weaponized in any way.\u201d Mcleod said.<\/p>\n The amount of money redirected from state aid for vouchers averages about $8,000 per student, meaning for every student that receives a voucher, that amount is reduced from the public school district where they live.<\/p>\n Florida\u2019s voucher program, created in 2019, is funded with money from the Florida Education Financial Plan, the same source for public schools.<\/p>\n The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, created in 2001, allows businesses to receive a tax cut for every dollar they donate to a scholarship-funding organization.<\/p>\n Prior to 2023, both programs had income limits. Recipients could not exceed a certain percentage of the federal poverty level.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t call them scholarships because scholarships implies that there\u2019s some kind of merit that is necessary to obtain them, so I call them school vouchers,\u201d said Nor\u00edn Dollard, senior policy analyst at Florida Policy Institute and director at Kids Count Data Center.<\/p>\n Dollard worked on a Voucher Budget Report in January, and most recently finished the 2025-26 Education Budget Report in August.<\/p>\n Dollard said $3.8 billion in Florida public school funds will be directed toward vouchers\u00a0during this school year, compared to only $1.4 billion during the school year that started in 2022, when the income limit was first eliminated.<\/p>\n \u201cThese voucher expenditures have grown so exponentially\u201d Dollard said. \u201cThey obviously threaten public schools and most of them go to folks who are already in private school, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. You can donate to support our students\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s expansion of vouchers for families who want to enroll their children in private schools is leading to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[39230,28,30,29,13487,39231,39232,412,39233,39234],"class_list":{"0":"post-66994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-andrew-spar","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-florida-policy-institute","13":"tag-kathleen-passidomo","14":"tag-laurie-mcleod","15":"tag-ron-desantis","16":"tag-step-up-for-students","17":"tag-vouchers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66994","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=66994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/FCG-CS-Award-2025-FL-Politics-Ads-728-x-90-px.png\")
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