WHEN A STATE COURT overturned Florida’s eight-month-old school-choice program earlier this month, both sides reacted with emotion. It was “probably the worst day of our lives,” said Tracy Richardson, mother of one of the 53 children who had received state “opportunity scholarships” to attend (mostly Catholic) private schools and so escape two awful Pensacola elementary schools. “I haven’t been this happy in a long time. There is a God!” exulted Democratic state representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, while her ally, Florida Education Association president Pat L. Tornillo Jr., taunted the Bushes, both Florida governor Jeb and presidential contender George W.: “We stopped one brother. We’re going to stop the other.” Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, said the ruling “puts a stake in the heart of the voucher movement.”
Actually, the ruling by circuit judge L. Ralph Smith is less definitive than any of them think. But their reactions throw into sharp relief the priorities of the two sides in the battle over school choice.
Opportunity scholarships were just one part of Jeb Bush’s larger “A+” education reform package. Under the plan, Florida schools receive grades based on their students’ performance on standardized tests. If a school receives an “F” two years out of four, students can either transfer to another public school with a grade of “C” or better, or take a scholarship equivalent to the sum the state would have spent on them and use it to pay tuition at a private school. The 53 Pensacola students were the first students to benefit.
In an opinion largely lifted verbatim from the teachers’ unions’ briefs, Smith declared that the scholarships violate the state constitutional requirement that Florida “make adequate provision” for “a high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education.” According to Smith, this wording “is, in effect, a prohibition on the Legislature to provide K-12 education in any other way.”
The state’s lawyers disputed that this wording prohibits Florida from going beyond the requirement. Supreme courts in Wisconsin and Ohio have allowed voucher programs to stand under similar state constitutional guarantees. Furthermore, Smith’s interpretation threatens an array of Florida programs under which the state pays for special-needs kids — those who are disabled, at-risk, or in juvenile justice programs — to go to private schools.
During oral arguments, Smith directed no questions to those challenging the voucher program, although they had the burden of proving it unconstitutional. Instead, he spent his time interrogating the lawyers for the state and the parents. At one point, he even suggested that the kids were responsible for the poor performance of the schools they had left behind, and questioned why they were being rewarded: “Those students who are in that school who may have caused it to be an “F” school are now going to get a free education at a private school?” He also questioned why vouchers were necessary since students at “F” schools could transfer to better public schools. One lawyer responded that “the nearest good public school that has room for these kids . . . may be very, very distant, preventing a parent from being active in that school.” Replied Smith, “We’ve been used to busing for a long time.”
Regardless of Smith’s ruling, Florida’s short-lived experiment with vouchers has undermined the arguments often made against choice. Voucher foes claim that choice “destroys” public schools by “skimming” off their best students and robbing them of resources they need to improve. But the two Pensacola schools that lost students to vouchers were forced to react to the departure of so many children — and as a result, they were improving. Under the A+ Plan, Florida increases its aid to failing schools. The very day of Smith’s ruling, the New York Times reported that the Pensacola schools were using that aid to add teachers and afternoon tutoring.
The state’s lawyers were also prepared to present to the court reams of evidence — obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests — that demonstrate how hard other “F” schools were working to meet the challenge posed by vouchers. “Our worry now,” says Clint Bolick of the Institute for Justice, which represented the families, “is that this ruling will halt the systemic reform of public education in Florida that opportunity scholarships were beginning to inspire.”
Choice opponents complain that the failing Pensacola public schools have been trying to boost their performance by narrowing their curriculum to those subjects that appear on standardized tests (like math and reading) and concentrating on test-taking skills. But students who haven’t first learned to read and add won’t get much out of science and social studies.
It is concern for individual students’ education that remains the overriding issue for voucher supporters. “[The teachers’ unions] totally misunderstand this,” says Patrick Heffernan, president of Floridians for School Choice. “This isn’t about special-interest groups, or the law, or even schools. It’s about the kids.”
While education establishment leaders were gloating after Smith’s decision, Bush, Heffernan, and their allies worked to ensure that the Pensacola kids could stay in their new schools while the state appeals the ruling. Within hours, they had raised nearly $ 200,000 in donations — enough to keep the students in their new schools next year. Now Heffernan’s group is trying to raise money for the approximately 60,000 kids who might otherwise have become eligible for vouchers this fall. “The outpouring of sympathy for the families from around the state and even the nation has been amazing,” said Heffernan, adding, “People recognize the sadness of this.”
Lee Bockhorn is an editorial assistant at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
