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Heritage Foundation
Union Lawsuit
Against Florida School Choice Programs Dismissed
By Brittany Corona
Hundreds of Florida parents are able to celebrate the New Year with
access to school choice thanks to a decision last Tuesday to dismiss
the union lawsuit against the Sunshine State’s Personal Learning
Scholarship Accounts and expansion of the tax credit scholarship
program.
For the second time, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Charles Francis
found that the Florida Education Association, Florida school boards,
the NAACP and the League of Women Voters, among others, lacked standing
to challenge the school choice options.
During the last day of the legislative session this past June, the
Florida legislature passed an education bill that created the nation’s
second education savings account program, known in Florida as Personal
Learning Scholarship Accounts, and expanded Florida’s thriving tax
credit scholarship program.
Shortly after the legislation was enacted, special interest groups
filed an injunction against the scholarship accounts and tax credit
scholarship program contending the legislative process in which the
bill was passed did not follow procedure because it contained more than
one educational program and therefore violated the “single subject”
rule— despite the subject being “education.”
In September, Judge Charles Francis gave the plaintiffs 15 days to
rework their argument, stating that they did not provide proof of harm
from the program. Last Tuesday, Francis again found that the plaintiffs
could not prove how the school choice legislation caused them “special
injury.”
As a result, hundreds of Florida families are now able to choose an
educational option that best meets the needs for their children,
through Florida’s personal learning scholarship accounts and tax credit
scholarship program.
Modeled after Arizona’s innovative education savings accounts program,
Florida’s scholarship accounts help families of children with
special-needs—defined in the statute as those with autism, cerebral
palsy, Down syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, spina bifida, Williams
syndrome or Intellectual Disability (severe cognitive impairment),
along with some kindergarten students deemed “high risk” because of
developmental delays— to fully tailor their child’s education. Through
the accounts, the state deposits 90 percent of its per-pupil state
funds onto an education “debit card” that parents can use toward a
variety of schooling options, including private school tuition,
tutoring, curricula for home schooling, therapy, textbooks and
special-education services.
Florida’s 13-year-old tax credit scholarship program has enabled nearly
400,000 Florida students to attend a school of choice. In 2014,
businesses contributed $357.8 million to non-profit groups providing
scholarships to 68,761 children to attend a private school of
choice—most of whom are low-income minority children. Before the
expansion of the program, eligible children were from households with
incomes of no more that 185 percent of the federal poverty line. But
under the expansion, families at 260 percent of the federal poverty
line, or $62,010 for a household of four, will be eligible for partial
scholarships during the 2016-17 school year.
But despite this victory for educational opportunity, the fight for
school choice in Florida is not over.
According to Politico, top Florida Education Association staff will
convene this week to decide whether to appeal the dismissal. And in the
meantime, the union is preparing for a Feb. 9 hearing on the tax credit
scholarship’s constitutionality.
In August, the Florida Education Association and allies, including the
Florida School Boards Association, the Parent-Teacher Association,
Americans United for Separation of Church and State and others, filed
another lawsuit against the tax credit scholarship program claiming
that the scholarship violates the “no aid” clause and the “uniform
public schools” clause of the state’s constitution by allowing students
to take the aid to private schools, some with religious affiliation.
But this is not an accurate representation of the way tax credit
scholarships work.
“Scholarship Tax Credit laws are privately administered programs that
rely on the voluntary contributions of corporate taxpayers who receive
tax credits in return. As the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, these funds
never become public funds because they do not ‘come into the tax
collector’s hands,’” writes Cato Institute education policy analyst
Jason Bedrick.
You can read more about “no aid” clauses and similar “Blaine
amendments” in-depth in a new analysis by Heritage’s Lindsey Burke and
co-author Jarrett Stepman in the Journal of School Choice.
Earlier this month, Leon County Circuit Court Judge George S. Reynolds
III granted parents of scholarship children the right to intervene in
the suit, despite union efforts to block their involvement.
In national debates over school choice, public education is
increasingly coming to be understood not in terms of school buildings,
but delivery of educational services. School choice measures such as
personal learning scholarship accounts and tax credit scholarships
allow those who know the needs of the child best— the parents— to
choose an educational option that best meets the needs of the child.
The recent court victory will allow hundreds of Florida families to do
just that.
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