Show Notes
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a national exodus from public schools, with parents opting for private schools, homeschooling, and other alternative K-12 education methods. It also gave rise to support for school choice, an umbrella term for policies that allow families to send their students to alternatives to public schools. These can include charter schools, private schools, magnet school, learning pods, and homeschooling costs.
School choice isn’t limited to simply allowing kids to attend schools they aren’t assigned to based on zip codes. It includes letting parents subsidize the costs of the alternatives with the taxpayer funds that normally would’ve financed their child’s education at a public school. This is usually in the form of individual tax credits, scholarships, school vouchers, and education savings accounts (ESAs).
That may be why so many people have moved to Florida since 2020. Florida is considered one of the best states for school choice along with Arizona, which has adopted universal school choice, meaning all students have access to public funds for alternatives. The Heritage Foundation ranked Florida the best state for education in its Educational Freedom Report Card and No. 3 for school choice.
Florida has four school choice scholarships, each of which has certain conditions that students have to meet in order to be taken advantage of. Not every student in the state can have public education funding follow them out of their assigned district school. The scholarships are administered by scholarship-funding organizations, known as SFOs. The largest SFO is Step Up for Students, which funds all four programs.
Navigating the different options can be difficult for Florida parents who may not understand the various intricacies, so here is a basic layout of each of the main options.
The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship
Florida’s oldest and most popular school choice scholarship is the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, known as the FTC Scholarship. It was launched in 2001, and EdChoice estimates that more than 85,000 students utilized FTC Scholarships in the 2021-2022 school year.
Students are eligible if they come from households that make less than 3.75 times the federal poverty level (roughly $111,000 for a family of four) have siblings in their household are current recipients, are in foster care, or are dependents of active-duty military.
The average scholarship award is $6,815. SFOs give the award directly to parents for tuition and fees or transportation if they decide to send their child to a different public school.
Florida taxpayers can contribute to eligible SFOs and receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for taxes like the corporate income tax, insurance premium tax, and the excise tax.
Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options
Florida’s only voucher program is the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options, sometimes called the Educational Opportunity Voucher.
It was created in 2019 to increase school choice access for those who aren’t able to access the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship. Students are eligible if they come from households that make less than 3.75 times the federal poverty level (roughly $111,000 for a family of four), receive food assistance like SNAP, are in foster care, have a parent in the military, or have a sibling who is already participating in the program.
As a voucher program, students are awarded a certain amount of dollars that are redeemable at participating schools. The average voucher amount awarded is $7,300, with nearly 75,000 students participating. So if a student who qualifies wants to attend a private school with a tuition of $10,000 and receives a $7,500 voucher, the family would present the voucher to the school and only have to pay $2,500 out of pocket.
The Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities
A school choice education savings account (ESA) is an account that receives public funds to be used on edu
More from Spill The Tea
On the latest episode of Spill the Tea, Dr. Bob McClure sits down with JMI’s Director of the Center for Technology and Innovation, Edward Longe, to do a deep dive on tech issues data privacy, cryptocurrency, Tik Tok, and other topics.
December 25, 2022
Roslyn Layton
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
When Lina M. Kahn, Associate Professor of Law at Columbia University, was sworn in as Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), she pledged to “protect the public from corporate abuse.” Unfortunately, in fulfilling this promise, the FTC has turned an increasingly skeptical eye toward mergers and acquisitions, arguing they hurt competitors, the marketplace, and consumers. Aside from the fact that antitrust law has traditionally focused on consumer harm, this increased hostility at the FTC over mergers and acquisitions will disrupt the innovative technology ecosystem that generates significant benefits for American consumers. In disrupting this ecosystem, Chair Kahn’s FTC has declared war on innovation, American consumers, and the competitive marketplace that rewards success.