EDITORIAL Orlando Sentinel
HOLD THE APPLAUSE
October 29, 2003
Our position: The governor deserves no special credit for giving voucher scraps
to public schools.
Gov. Jeb Bush and state lawmakers are patting themselves on the back for giving
public schools the $38 million left over this year from the state's largest
private-school voucher program.
That was obviously the right thing to do, but it doesn't make up for the fact
that the state shortchanged public schools in the first place in favor of a
poorly designed, poorly regulated program that asked nothing of the private
schools that took that money.
Earlier this year, the state conveniently underestimated the growth in public
schools while overestimating the popularity of the corporate tax-credit voucher
program.
It predicted that 42,000 additional students would enroll in public schools --
an estimate at least 13,000 kids short of reality. At the same time, lawmakers
budgeted $88 million for the tax-credit program, which will be lucky to use
about $50 million.
Even with the money lawmakers shifted to public schools in the special session,
public schools still will be shortchanged. The leftovers from the tax-credit
program will cover the cost of about 8,000 students -- about half of the
unexpected new students in the system.
Meanwhile there's talk about adding a little accountability to the tax-credit
voucher program, but no interest in having students in that program take the
FCAT -- the only legitimate way under the state's system to compare schools and
judge performance.
Private schools receiving public money shouldn't get special treatment while
public schools have to settle for scraps.