Publicly Private

In the news lately, one of the hottest education related topics has been the School Voucher program. This program gives students in Florida who are attending failing public schools the ability and monetary support needed to transfer schools. The schools that they are transferring into are not only other public schools, as you may expect, but to private and charter schools that are unregulated and unsupported by our public school education budget. This budget is explicitly outlined in our state constitution and it specifically states that these tax dollars are required to go to public school education, not private schools. Private schools are unregulated by anyone but those people in charge of them, which has created some unique problems in the education system. One of these problems is a school known as InterAmerican Christian Academy. This academy hands out diplomas after just 8 days of enrollment, for only $399. The transcripts from these easy-to-come-by diplomas are actually legitimate and are earning some students admittance into local colleges. While $399 may seem like a steal compared to the average $7,000 per pupil expense of public school, we have no way of monitoring what, if anything, the students receiving these bogus degrees are learning. As a private school, it is free from government control, but is it still free from government funding?

That is where the problem arises. Even if private schools are better in the long run for our students, can we really ignore our constitution and allow students to transfer to a non-regulated private school at the expense of our tax payers? Even if that expense is roughly half what it costs to educate them through our public schools? I am on the fence, as I suspect most people are. If it is what is best for my child I am likely going to be in support of this idea, regardless of the constitution. It is, however, a valid argument to say that it is not our responsibility, as tax payers, to support the education of students who do not wish to attend public schools. The problem with this argument and with our constitution is that this creates a loose monopoly on education. Not in the sense that there are no other options, because there clearly are, but because as a tax payer you are forced to pay property taxes that support local government funded public schools, regardless of your child’s attendance. This is how our public education system gets funded, if not for these property taxes, we would not have the ability to fund these public schools.

So the question remains, can we, the state of Florida, afford to support those students who do not wish to attend our public schools at the expense of those public schools? I think the answer is no. I am in full support of private schools, and have often considered the idea that maybe all schools should be privatized, but this voucher program is hurting more than it is helping. It strips funding from our already struggling public schools and hands that money to private schools that may or may not be for profit. As I stated above, I am open to the idea of privatizing education (which I will explain in a later post), but at the expense of the tax payers, it just can’t happen.