|
Why not . . ?
Given
that Florida
families receive tax funds to send their children to public or private
preschools and colleges, why don’t they receive them for use at public
or
private elementary and secondary schools?
The
answer is primarily
political: Vouchers for K-12 education can only be created by the
Florida
legislature. Parents may want them, but many others don't. In
particular, the
public school establishment maintains a permanent army of lobbyists to
preserve
its
monopoly on our K-12 education funds going only to them. By
contrast,
parents have few lobbyists to advance their cause of school
choice. To
win it parents must get bills filed and passed in Tallahassee. They
must win
the legislative battle.
They must also win an electoral battle. The struggle over
school choice
bills is now largely drawn on party lines. Most Republicans are
strongly in
favor of vouchers for K-12 education and most Democrats are strongly
opposed.
So securing school choice for all families depends as much on who wins
the elections
as on who wins the arguments in the Florida House and Senate. Without
knowing
it, parents often vote for candidates who are against them on school
choice.
And
finally there are the
courts. On the day after the first K-12 vouchers were passed in 1999,
the
teachers unions, PTA, ACLU and others sued to stop the families from
getting
them. The case ended in 2006 with the Florida Supreme Court ruling that
they
violated the Florida Constitution. The ruling excluded the other
vouchers but
the opponents have threatened lawsuits against them also. In the
meantime, the
United States Supreme Court ruled that vouchers do not violate
the U.S.
Constitution. What we are permitted as Americans we are denied as
Floridians. To win school choice families must also
win the judicial
battle.
For
an account of the
legislative battle for school choice, we suggest this by the Heritage
Foundation: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/SchoolChoice/Florida.cfm
For an account of the electoral battle for school choice in Florida, we
suggest
this by All Children Matter: http://www.allchildrenmatter.org/state.php
For
an account of the judicial battle for school choice in Florida, we
suggest this
by the Institute for Justice: http://www.ij.org/schoolchoice/florida/index.html
|
