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School Vouchers Added To Ballot

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By CATHERINE DOLINSKI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 26, 2008

Updated: 04/26/2008 12:13 am

TALLAHASSEE - Two years after the Florida Supreme Court struck down a school voucher program for children in failing public schools, voters will have the chance in November to revive it.

They also will have the opportunity to force public school districts to spend 65 percent of their public funding on classroom expenses.

To make one of these changes, however, voters will have to agree to make the other, as they will appear on the ballot as a single question.

The state's Taxation and Budget Reform Commission voted at its final meeting Friday to combine the two education proposals into a single question on the general election ballot this fall. The commission, which meets once every 20 years, has the power to place questions directly on the statewide election ballot without interference by lawmakers or the courts.

Both proposals came from former staffers of Gov. Jeb Bush, who made conservative education reforms a hallmark of his administration.

Commissioner Patricia Levesque, former deputy chief of staff for Bush who now runs his Foundation For Florida's Future, worked on the voucher proposal with former Bush policy director Greg Turbeville, who filed that bill as well as the plan to require school districts to spend 65 percent of their public funds on "classroom instruction, not administration."

Levesque headed the bill-drafting committee that decided Friday to roll the two plans together. A majority of commissioners agreed, but critics complained that it would mislead voters, and that voucher proponents were trying to use the seemingly simple spending plan for classrooms to lure voters into writing protections for vouchers into the state Constitution.

The vouchers proposal could bring back the Opportunity Scholarship Program, a Bush legacy that allowed children in failing schools to transfer to private ones at taxpayers' expense. The state Supreme Court struck down the program in 2006, finding that it violated the Constitutional mandate that the state fund a uniform system of public schools.

The ballot question approved Friday asks voters to override the court's decision. It would eliminate the uniformity provision in the Constitution and replace it with a requirement that the state fund free public schools "at a minimum, and not exclusively," thus allowing for public funding of private education as well.

"I support continuing to fund education at the most responsible and highest levels ... but in the meantime, we have people that are being left behind," Commissioner Julia Johnson said.

House Minority Leader Dan Gelber, a nonvoting commissioner, argued that the proposed language not only permits private school vouchers, it actually requires them. "I think this is as wrongheaded a proposal as this commission could come up with."

Commissioner Martha Barnett said she feared such a mandate could add up to $2 billion to the state's obligation to fund education at a time when it is struggling to meet current needs. She urged commissioners to reconsider "whether we can jeopardize Florida's public education system."

Other commissioners disagreed, arguing that the proposed language did not amount to a mandate, and that an amendment adopted Friday would eliminate any entitlement for individuals to state funding of their private education.

Proposal Addresses Voucher Prohibition

The proposal is one of two that the commission will place on the ballot to address issues relating to vouchers.

The other proposal - filed by Levesque - addresses an appellate court's finding that Opportunity Scholarships violated the Constitutional prohibition on spending public dollars on religious organizations. The state had allowed families to redeem Opportunity Scholarship vouchers at religious schools; the Levesque proposal would repeal the prohibition.

Levesque said that, taken together, both proposals would fully address both courts' rulings against Opportunity Scholarships.

Gelber criticized the commission for even considering voucher proposals, arguing that they fall far outside the group's purview. Joe Conn, a spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said his group will weigh the option of a legal challenge on those grounds, among others.

At the very least, Conn said, his group will mount a robust public campaign to fight the proposed amendment.

The state teachers union will likewise consider its options for a legal challenge, said union lawyer Ron Meyer. The union sided with those who, the previous day, had argued that insufficient public notice had been given of the upcoming vote on the two proposals.

"We think that what they've done is fairly legally flawed," he said.

Commission Chairman Allan Bense defended the decision, saying the laws governing the commission's proceedings give it full authority to waive the rules as needed.

Legislature Would Decide 65 Percent

Commissioner Jade Moore of Pinellas County argued in vain Friday that the vouchers plan and 65 percent solution were far too different to combine. After the meeting, he said "it was pretty obvious" that the spending plan was being used as bait for votes on vouchers.

"Clearly it won't hurt it," agreed Bense, who described the proposals as "very similar" and therefore appropriate to combine.

The "65 percent solution" is expected to appeal to voters, though it lacks support from the state teachers union, which complained that it is dangerously vague. The proposal would more or less leave up to the Legislature how to define a "classroom expense," which advocacy groups pushing the plan nationwide have defined as excluding librarians and other instructional staff who do not fit the traditional teacher mold.

The last time lawmakers contemplated the proposal, in 2006, lawmakers did not include language to protect key staff like reading coaches and guidance counselors, noted Maureen Dinnen, a member of the Broward County school board. At that time, labor and education groups raised concerns that the rule could force staff cuts.

After the meeting, Bense recalled two surveys he commissioned during his tenure as House speaker from 2004 to 2006 that revealed 89 percent to 91 percent of Floridians thought that school districts spend too much money on administration.

"Clearly this is an opportunity, in my personal opinion, for the education folks to prove their case."

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at cdolinski@tampatrib.com or (850) 222-8382.

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