FLA: Vouchers become subsidy for state's private schools

From the "No Sh*t, Dick Tracy!" file:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/vouchers/m10a_vouchersedit_0522.html

Vouchers become subsidy for state's private schools
Secret change in 2001 exposes the true intent.

Palm Beach Post Editorial
Sunday, May 23, 2004

Florida's voucher programs have crossed the line at which the pretense of helping students ends and the real goal of enriching private schools becomes clear.

As The Post reported this week, private schools that take McKay vouchers to teach disabled students originally could not charge tuition in excess of the vouchers. But in 2001, a private school operator who takes the disabled-student vouchers lobbied for a change that has blown away the cap.

Florida's Voucher Programs
Continuing coverage
from The Palm Beach Post

The change was made so stealthily that most lawmakers didn't notice. But the effect is clear. Parents of disabled students have to pay more — thousands more, in some cases — and the private schools can reap correspondingly higher incomes.

Patricia Hardman, who runs a private school in Tallahassee, is behind the change. Tuition at her school, which takes McKay vouchers, rose from $4,700 in 2001 — the voucher limit at the time — to $7,500 this year and will hit $10,000 next year, when the voucher will be up to about $5,100. In addition to tuition that exceeds the voucher, parents must pay $550 to have their children tested at Ms. Hardman's for-profit diagnostic center.

As voucher proponents such as Floridians for School Choice readily admit, their ultimate goal is a voucher that every student can take to whatever school the parents choose. While that might sound like equality, in practice, vouchers under such a system would provide a subsidy for private schools and wealthier parents. Public schools and some private schools would accept the voucher as full tuition. But many private schools simply would increase tuition, perhaps passing a share of the publicly provided windfall back to the parents. Any scheme, such as that one, that gives public money to every child who attends private school either will force a big increase in taxes or — more likely — a big reduction in budgets for regular public schools serving families that can't afford the extra private school tuition.

Rather than view the 2001 change in McKay voucher rules as a scam to be stopped, lawmakers this year ignored even more obvious abuses in both the McKay and corporate-tax voucher programs, failing to pass minimal financial and academic reforms.

"Brokers" siphoned off McKay money meant for disabled students. Students received both corporate and McKay vouchers. One private school operator took $268,000 in corporate vouchers without enrolling students. Yet lawmakers didn't act. The only good news is that if they need even worse outrages before they act, the state's failure to provide voucher accountability is likely to produce them.

this was the plan all along - to do away with public schools. Education, like everything else, will soon be available only to the affluent.

If private schools want public funding AND are willing to play by the same rules as public schools ... fine. Otherwise, no.

That means they have to take ANY student. They cannot ask ANY MORE than a voucher. They have to supply assistants for kids with learning disabilities. They cannot simply kick kids out of school for discipline problems.

Of course, this would destroy the primary virtue of private education. The ability to CHOOSE your students.

Especially Christian private schools. All you have to do is work for the Christian school, and your child can attend for free. But someone has to pay for their tuition.

tuitions payments for those who can afford to pay for private school... a real no brainer.