MidPoint on April 23, 2025, examined the status of public education funding in the Florida legislature this session and we were concerned about what we heard. Our guests, Dr. Norin Dollard, Sr. Policy Analyst from the Florida Policy Institute, Hon. Jessica Vaughn, Chair, Hillsborough Co. School Board, and Ellen Lyons, V.P. of Operations for the Hillsborough Co. PTA all joined us to educate us and discuss the legislative proposals.
Dr. Dollard explained that the proposed total for K-12 education is at $30.9 billion in the House and 31.7 billion in the Senate, a difference of $814.8 million. But, both proposals are lower than the total education funding in the current fiscal year of $31.9 billion. Although increases for education overall are proposed in both chambers, the changes are minor and do not represent the magnitude of investment needed to fully fund public education in Florida.
Diverting Funding to Vouchers Short-Changes Traditional Public School Students
This funding deficit in Florida is largely due to vouchers. In 2023, Florida expanded eligibility for public school vouchers to all students regardless of income for the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Education Options (FES) and the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, along with increasing annual enrollment caps for students with Unique Abilities in the same year. Vouchers continue to place great stress on public schools as more funds are diverted from traditional public education to private schools and homeschooling. Again, this year, the House Proposal increases the FES voucher allocation by $805.9 million. and the Senate proposal increases voucher funding by $823.3 million. The Florida Tax Credit scholarship for private schools and the Personalized Education Program for homeschooled students is also authorized for an additional $1.1 billion.
This continuing diversion of funds from traditional public education to vouchers has a real impact on the ability of traditional public education to provide services for all students, including Exceptional Education and Early Learning programs. School Board Member Vaughn discussed one example of this impact: “We had a meeting last night where we got information from the State that for this year and previous years, because essentially they’ve overfunded these vouchers that go to not just private schools or charter schools, but home schools where there’s 0 accountability for our tax dollars, we’re getting an $18 million dollar reduction. Some of it is based on whether they say we have the enrollment that we say, 4 million of it literally is just being taken back for the money that we’ve earned for providing the services to the students in our schools because they basically say they’ve over funded and they don’t have the budget for it. And they’re taking 4 million dollars back at the same time we had teachers in our most high-need schools, our Renaissance schools, that no longer have a supplement to teach in those schools because that was taken back by the Florida legislature, who say that 4 million could actually be the exact amount to supplement that Renaissance pay. So, that 4 million being taken away from us for our services has a direct correlation and impact on the teachers in our schools.”
College and Career Readiness Programs are at Risk
HB 5101 includes provisions to reduce state funding for several college and career readiness programs, including AP and IB, by up to 50%. Educators and parents have serious concerns about the availability and quality of AP and IB courses if this funding is reduced. Ellen Lyons represents parents and students through the PTA and she is also a parent of two high school students herself. She said: ” I think the idea of a lot of these programs is that let’s get kids ready for college or trade or military. WMNF News: We have military ROTC in our schools. We have trade programs in our schools, and most recently, it does seem like people have finally realized the value of career and technical education. I’ve noticed that we have a construction management academy. We have a medical academy. We have a culinary academy and there are many opportunities for people to not just go work as Uber drivers or in retail, but to have a real trade to potentially become an A/C repairman or work in kitchens and things like that. So these programs have real value to students. But what the legislature is doing is they’re weighting the value of these programs by half in the Florida Education finance program, which means that there’s going to be half as much money to go to these programs going forward.”
HB 5101 includes provisions to reduce state funding for several college prep programs including AP and IB, by up to 50% as well. Ellen Lyons, again, : “So, for bright futures and for the State University system, the State University system recalculates your GPA and they add weights to those GPAs, they add a 1.0 weight. So if you got an A in an AP Class, it counts as a 5, not a 4, and so it jacks up your GPA. In comparison with other students competing for those same spots in the State University system and for bright futures, if you take away those opportunities to get those weights it will impact students and their admission to college.”
The legislature is considering these funding bills now.
Listen to the entire show here, or on the WMNF app, or as a WMNF MidPoint podcast on Spotify or Apple Music.
Leave a Reply
Funding%20Bills%20in%20the%20Legislature){kind=link}