The Florida House on Friday advanced a bill to expand three of the state’s school choice voucher programs, adopting an amendment that could double the eligibility for taxpayer-funded scholarships, making them more accessible to middle-class families.
House Bill 7067, spearheaded by House Education Committee Chairwoman Jennifer Sullivan, R-Eustis, will be heard in a binding third-reading vote on the House floor early next week.
Its Senate companion, Senate Bill 1220, sponsored by Senate Education Committee Chairman Manny Diaz, R-Miami, also advanced through a second reading Friday and is on a similar track as the House measure, although there are minor differences in the chamber’s proposals.
Florida’s five school-choice plans, already the nation’s largest voucher program with about 150,000 students attending private schools with taxpayer-funded scholarships, could expand significantly under both proposals.
HB 7067 proposes to grow the state’s newly created Family Empowerment (FES) scholarship program, now capped at 18,000 students, by about 10,000 students next year.
Students are FES-eligible if household income doesn’t exceed 260 percent of the federal poverty level. This year, 17,795 FES scholarships were awarded in 70 school districts.
Under an amendment adopted Friday, students would be FES-eligible if household income doesn’t exceed 300 percent of the federal poverty level. If more than 5 percent of scholarships still are available once the school year begins, students whose families make up to 325 percent of the federal poverty level – more than $80,000 for a family of four – would be eligible.
HB 7067 would increase the maximum number of students allowed to participate in FES from a quarter-percent to 1 percent annually of the state’s 2.85 million K-12 population.
The cap’s expansion to 1 percent would increase the maximum number of students eligible by 28,902 to 46,626 next year. Under the quarter-percent cap, 7,225 students would have been eligible.
The measure also expands eligibility for the Florida Tax Credit (FTC) program, the largest voucher plan that paid tuition for 100,512 students enrolled in 1,807 private schools this year, dropping family income levels from the equation but giving families that earn below 185 percent of the federal poverty rate priority to securing the scholarships.
As they did in hearings as the bill matriculated through committees, Democrats questioned the reason for the voucher expansion since demand has not increased. Democrats also submitted amendments requiring parity in academic standards and financial reporting with public schools.
Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, filed three rejected amendments that would have required voucher-funded schools to make enrollment policies public after disclosures by the Orlando Sentinel that at least 80 fundamentalist Christian schools expel or will not enroll children who are gay, transgender or have parents who are.
Smith delivered a passionate call to adopt his anti-bullying and constitutional safeguards amendments, spurring Rep. Kimberly Daniels, D-Jacksonville, to counter with one of her own.
Daniels – a self-professed “demon buster” and “street preacher” known for sponsoring In God We Trust and Study of the Bible and Religion Act legislation and routinely votes with Republicans on abortion restrictions and school-choice issues – said she has “great respect” for Smith as “a champion of the LGBTQ community.”
But she has a community, too, spelling out “G-O-S-P-E-L – the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Daniels said her support for voucher programs has exposed her to bigotry within the Legislature’s Democratic caucus, noting she has endured discrimination in the form of racism, sexism and religious persecution because of her devout beliefs.
“I am a poster child for the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” she said, telling lawmakers on the floor that 20 years ago, “I smoked dope. I was a street woman who lived on the streets a few blocks from where I now stand. I was targeted and trafficked, and I came out of it.”
Daniels said Democrats display a different type of discrimination – “elitism” – when they attempt to restrict private schools from having policies that prohibit them from exercising their right to freedom of religion.
“You cannot stop discrimination by discrimination. We cannot receive rights by taking the rights of others,” she said. “In our being inclusive, we are being exclusive.”
Daniels said Democrats’ elitism over school choice and other religious issues is hurting the same constituency they claim to support – middle-class and lower-income families left behind by Republican tax policies.
“C’mon, people,” she beseeched fellow Democrats, “let me in.”
