The Florida Times-Union
November 06, 2003 Editorial
EDUCATION: Come fall, the heat is off
The state's much-touted sworn affidavits are making school vouchers look
increasingly like blank checks.
With the cameras rolling, state education commissioner Jim Horne stood tall in
the saddle. These private schools that get tax money, he said in the heat of
August, are going to start answering for what they do and they are going to
answer under sworn affidavit. If they don't, he said, their vouchers will be
yanked by November.
Well, autumn is closing in on winter, and Horne is looking less like a John
Wayne than a Don Knotts. As it turns out, Horne, once the cameras were turned
off, took the swear out of sworn and the nip out of November. His plan to bring
some immediate accountability to the corporate tax credit voucher program is
beginning to resemble a substitute teacher battling to restore classroom
decorum: Will you sit in your seats, pretty please?
The six-page sworn compliance form, as originally announced by Horne, was to
provide assurance to the Department of Education that voucher schools were
following all state laws and to give parents better consumer information about
what the schools have to offer. To date, according to a review of DOE records by
the Palm Beach Post, neither has really occurred. Some 67 schools have yet to
even answer the questionnaire and all are apparently still free to receive
tax-supported vouchers. One high school director in Boca Raton told the Post he
had never heard of the compliance form, though his school still receives voucher
payments. "When did they want it by?" he asked.
Ineptitude seems to play a leading role in these regulatory lapses, but
political pressure is not far behind. Though most private school operators have
publicly applauded the new accountability measures, some are offering a
different assessment in private. Patricia Hardman, who runs a Tallahassee school
serving disabled students, wrote Gov. Jeb Bush to complain that the form was "a
highly potential source of embarrassment for you by those who want to destroy
parental choice and by the liberal media." Seven days after receiving her
letter, the Post reports, the governor ordered Horne to remove the requirement
that the form be sworn and notarized.
Such political paranoia only hurts the voucher program. All governments have to
answer for the tax dollars they spend, and the truth is that some of the most
serious criticisms of Florida vouchers are coming from those who support private
education. A new report by the Senate Education Committee is brutal in its
assessment. Of corporate vouchers, it says: "The record is clear that there is
very little or no state oversight. . . . It has been difficult to determine who
at (DOE) is actually running the . . . program. . . . There is no department
procedure for verifying compliance with the law. . . . The fiscal soundness
determination is rubber-stamped. . . . Scholarship-funding organizations are not
routinely monitored to ensure compliance with the law. . . . The Board of
Education has not adopted rules mandating income verification. . . . The state
does not know if students . . . are having direct contact with individuals who
have been convicted of crimes involving moral turpitude."
Horne may like to pretend he is walking the beat, but his brand of policing is
why the Legislature will be forced to act next spring. In the meantime, given
his performance to date on voucher oversight, these latest delays and excuses
are just more of the same.