For the first time, Florida’s main school funding formula will send more state money in Miami-Dade County to private school vouchers than to the county’s public schools. Budget documents show about $766 million going to roughly 82,000 students using vouchers this school year, compared with about $737 million for more than 300,000 students in traditional public and charter schools, the Miami Herald reported.
That’s the state-funded piece of the formula only. In Miami-Dade, the state covers about a quarter of what’s spent per student, and local property taxes pay for much of the rest, NBC 6 reported. So public school kids aren’t getting less money overall than voucher kids. But the state’s share is tilting fast.
How do Florida school vouchers work?
Since 2023, when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law opening the state’s scholarships to every family regardless of income, any Florida student can use public money to attend a private school, including religious schools. More than 500,000 students now use them statewide, at a cost of more than $4 billion a year. A typical voucher is worth roughly $8,000 a year. When DeSantis signed the expansion, he said, “The amount of scholarship money is less than what would go per pupil for public, anyways.”
What does this mean for Miami-Dade public schools?
Less state money spread across more students. On the state-formula numbers alone, it works out to roughly $8,000 to $9,000 per voucher student and less than $3,000 per public school student, before local taxes. Public schools are also losing kids as families move out of South Florida, immigration drops and birth rates fall, and funding follows enrollment.
Opinions split along predictable lines. “We’ve seen a lot of families want to take their kids to faith-based schools and it’s their choice,” Miami-Dade School Board member Roberto Alonso said, though he wants the state’s formula updated. Teacher Crystal Etienne, who founded the public school advocacy group Eduvoter Action Network, worries about oversight: “The private schools don’t have the accountability to those dollars being spent.” The Legislature may take up school funding again next session.
The BeezLoop Take
Parents choosing a school that fits their kid is reasonable, and a lot of Miami families clearly want that option. But taxpayers are now sending more state money to private schools in Miami-Dade than to the public schools most kids attend, and private schools don’t have to report test scores or spending the same way.
If Florida’s going to spend $4 billion a year on vouchers, it should be able to tell taxpayers what they’re getting for it. Accountability shouldn’t stop at the public school door.
The open question: will the Legislature require private schools taking vouchers to show results, or keep expanding the program without asking?
Also on BeezLoop: teen reading and math scores hit record lows in the latest PISA report, and how Cuban Miami is feeling about Trump now.
Sources: NBC 6 South Florida · Miami Herald, via Yahoo News · NBC 6 South Florida (video)
