I knew the ongoing dismantling of public education in Florida had accelerated to new levels of audacity but I failed to notice that it included using taxpayer dollars to pay for theme park visits for kids who opt out of public schools.
In case you haven’t been paying attention, Florida’s expanded voucher programs now strip about $3.9 billion a year from what used to be money dedicated to public schools. Public schools now only get 77% (and shrinking by the year) of the state education pie. The rest goes to two statewide voucher programs for kids being educated in private, religious and home schools.
So called “school choice” started in Florida as an alternative for the poorest of kids already enrolled in underperforming public schools. But today, money that had formerly gone to public schools pays for more than 500,000 “scholarships” vouchers to private schools and home-schooling parents without any consideration for income limits or prior enrollment in public school for the child.
About 70% of the Florida kids getting voucher money through the state had never been educated in a public school in the state, a new report from the Florida Policy Institute estimated.
“Vouchers are a contributing factor in Florida’s school closures, have a negative effect on academic outcomes for recipients, and — especially in the case of universal expansion — are awarded to children who were never in public schools,” the FPI report says.
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It’s not a pretty picture, the policy institute concluded.
“Vouchers remove resources for public schools in an already chronically underfunded system in which Florida is ranked 50th in average teacher pay, and received an ‘F’ grade in per pupil funding,” the report said.
So, school choice in Florida is really just the looting of public education and its highly accountable standards to an ever-growing, voucher approach that breeds pop-up providers, taxpayer-funded home schooling and fewer guardrails.
One aspect of this degradation of traditional public schools is taxpayer-funded admissions to Disney World, Universal Studios, Busch Gardens, Sea World, and LEGOLAND for private-schooled and home-schooled children.
There was an effort in the Florida Legislature last year to restrict sanctioned educational expenses in these voucher programs to core subjects, such as math, science, language arts and social studies.
But after a bunch of home-school parents complained that they didn’t want to be micromanaged by the state in the kinds of extracurricular activities they offered their children, lawmakers yielded by giving them something bordering on a blank check.
As a result, your school tax dollars can now pay for a 55-inch TV in a home-schooling mom’s home, as well as a paddleboard, musical instruments, stuffed animals, a Nintendo Wii, internet service, and a ping-pong table in the home.
The list goes on and on. Basically, as a home-schooler, you can outfit your home with all sorts of recreational equipment — Did I mention a trampoline for your backyard? — and you can call it part of your homeschool enrichment program.
The state also pays for your kid’s dance lessons, gym membership and visits to museums. And yes, there’s a yearly $299 reimbursement for your child to go to one of the five theme parks on Florida’s approved list.
It’s under the category of “activities needed to enhance curriculum.”
To get reimbursed, you fill out an “Educational Benefit Form” and send it to the scholarship funding organization, Step Up for Students, that receives the taxpayer dollars and redistributes them.
You just have to do some creative writing to make your trip to Disney sound academic.
Scott Kent, a spokesperson for Step Up for Students, showed what this is like in an email last year to Orlando Weekly.
“Families provided Step Up with numerous examples of how theme parks contribute to their students’ customized learning plans, such as a homeschool family incorporates all the different history and culture lessons available at Disney World, including art and music festivals,” Kent wrote the weekly.
“Parents point to how the parks tie directly into curriculum: If they’re doing zoology, they go to Animal Kingdom; if they’re doing marine biology they go to Sea World, etc.”
C’mon, we taxpayers deserve a higher level of originality than that.
If you’re going to siphon off my tax dollars that ought to be going to traditional public schools, at least come up with a better, more entertaining list of the educational benefits of taking your kid to DisneyWorld on the public dime.
OK, I’ll show you how it’s done.
Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network.
