Florida’s new Commissioner of Education is talking big about ending public schools and moving to a system where the state hands out the money and the parents choose from a range of private options.
The taxpayers would put up the money. The “market” would do all the rest. No need for pesky state standards or regulations on the qualifications of educators or rules about the treatment of students with disabilities.
One Trump Ed Department official said (in 2024 before she was with the Administration):
I’m optimistic that, you know, five years from now a majority of kids are going to be in a private school choice program.
The idea that government has an inherent interest in providing a free, public education for every child used to be sacrosanct, except among a small set of radical reformers like Milton Friedman. But a 40-year campaign for “school choice” has quietly gathered steam. Proponents of privatization are now openly acknowledging that their sights are set on eliminating public schools. They want to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education (founded to ensure the civil rights of children in schools) and offer no-strings-attached public dollars to private and religious schools. And now, a lawsuit filed in Nebraska just this month argues that the U.S. system of public schools violates the First Amendment and asks the state to declare public schools unconstitutional.
At Gov. Bill Lee’s behest, the General Assembly this year expanded the state’s private school discount coupon scheme – now costing $300 million.
As part of that expansion, policymakers also decided that students accepting vouchers would no longer have to take state standardized tests – so, we won’t know in the future whether students using vouchers have “improved” academic outcomes.
We do, however, have numbers from the program so far – a program that has been around since its passage in 2019.
The Tennessean notes that only 17% of kids receiving vouchers scored proficient on the state’s standardized math test and 24% reached proficiency in English.
I mean, that sounds bad – but, how does it compare to public school results?
Public school students scored 43% in math proficiency and 40% in English.
ProPublica digs into some of these “100% schools” and finds both poor performance and questionable financial practices. Yes, both of these may occur in public schools – but, public schools post line-item budgets online and must conduct business in public meetings. There are also rules about awarding contracts to board members – rules that don’t seem to apply to private schools.
Point is– federal voucher dollars are not going to go to public schools unless the public schools can figure out a way to create the new funding stream for students carrying cash backpacks, and that create a whole new set of issues. If a special tutoring program is available to Susie because she has a backpack of federal voucher money, then why shouldn’t that tutoring be available to any or all students, regardless of backpack status?
Addendum: If a district already has a program that charges fees, then the federal voucher would help families pay that fee, but that would result in zero new revenue for the district.
School privatization schemes come in a lot of packages – no matter how they are served, though, the results are the same: The schemes cost a lot, leave lots of kids behind, and reduce funds available for traditional public schools.
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The appeal of “school choice,” in which families are permitted to use state funds that would’ve been otherwise spent on public education on non-traditional programs like charter or private schools, is easy to understand. The promise of options and tailored education sounds reasonable in the abstract. But in practice, choice works best for families with the time, information, and flexibility to navigate it, and whose children the private school is willing to choose. For a family in rural Florida or a child with complex disabilities whose needs most private schools won’t accommodate, the marketplace of options is theoretical. The public school is the only institution legally required to educate every child who walks through the door. When it is weakened through funding cuts, the diversion of students and dollars, or a hollowed-out teaching workforce, the consequences fall hardest on the children least able to find alternatives.
State Rep. Aftyn Behn talks about the current climate in Tennessee – and predicts a dark future after the devastating results of a decade and a half of complete GOP control. She even calls out vouchers as among the key policy blunders the GOP seems eager to expand:
Tennessee’s private school voucher program has already jumped from 20,000 seats to 35,000 in its second year, estimating a cost of $260 million by 2027… states like Arizona with similar voucher programs are staring down billion-dollar holes in their budget, with local counties hemorrhaging revenue with limited ability to fill the gaps
Jeff Yass is one of the richest people in the world. He is the richest person in Pennsylvania. He is #25 or #27 on Bloomberg’s Billionaires’ Index, depending on which day you check.
Yass is known for his investment in TikTok’s parent company and for being a major financial supporter of President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.
He’s now the largest single contributor in Tennessee’s gubernatorial election after donating $1 million to Team Tennessee, a PAC that is backing U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s bid for the top job.
A group that supports a statewide program of private school discount coupons for wealthy families (school vouchers) is among the top political spenders in Tennessee.
Over the next two years, the School Freedom Fund spent $4.5 million across Tennessee’s 2024 legislative cycle and a special election for a Middle Tennessee Congressional seat in 2025. The group won five of the six primaries it spent on, signaling the value of its backing in winning competitive Republican elections.
The group spent nearly twice as much as the Tennessee Republican Caucus did in the 2024 cycle. Following that, state lawmakers passed Lee’s original 2024 statewide plan by a five-vote margin in the state House.
As Gov. Bill Lee’s 8 years in office come to an end, his legacy is clear: Support for public schools is near the bottom in the nation, while efforts to privatize get top billing.
While the most recent analysis of public school funding places Tennessee last in the nation, a report released this week by the Network for Public Education (NPE) gives the Volunteer State a grade of “F” for its support (lack of support?) for public schools.
In a press release, NPE says:
Only two states — Nebraska and Vermont — earned an A. Seventeen states received an F, failing to meet even 40% of the points allocated across NPE’s 39 standards. Florida ranked last, scoring 14 out of 102 possible points, with Arizona close behind. “The data confirm what we have long suspected: privatization and disinvestment go hand in hand,” said Carol Burris, Executive Director of NPE and the report’s author. “These are not states struggling with limited resources. They have made deliberate choices to abandon their public schools while directing billions in public dollars to private alternatives.”
Relative to Tennessee, the report notes:
Florida lost every possible point in our school funding category, ranking in the bottom decile for funding level, distribution, and effort, while also paying among the lowest teacher salaries in the country when adjusted for cost of living. Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, and Tennessee each earned just two of sixteen possible funding points.
The 17 states that earned an F for their lack of support of public schools, students, and educators while embracing privatization were (lowest to highest) Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Louisiana, Indiana, Oklahoma, Idaho, Arkansas, Alabama, Utah, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio, Nevada, South Carolina, and Missouri.
About the report:
The report draws on original research in addition to research from other organizations — including the Education Law Center, the Learning Policy Institute, and EdChoice — to deliver a comprehensive assessment of public education and privatization across 39 distinct factors. These include teacher-to-student ratios, teacher satisfaction, school funding levels, and the degree to which laws governing vouchers, charter schools, and homeschools protect both taxpayers and students.
