Scott, Sink differ over expanding school vouchers, accountability

GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott released a proposal last week for revamping Florida's K-12 school system that stresses his desire to "expand school choice" for students and parents.

More choice, he said, means offering a wide range of options, from more magnet and charter schools to expanding the use of virtual schools. But it's his desire to expand another option -- school vouchers -- that sets him farthest from his opponent, Alex Sink.

Scott wants, in particular, to expand an existing program tied to the corporate income tax that allows low-income students to attend private school. Sink does not.

"Our public education system today is severely underfunded. I would not advocate for further expansion of the existing voucher program until we are assured that we are adequately funding public education. Because after all, 90 percent of Florida's students are in public schools."

Speaking last week at a charter school in Broward County, Scott blended messages about school accountability and school choice. "Our plan is, we want to make sure your parents have choices. We want to make sure that teachers are measured based on your success," he said in a campaign film of the event.

Accountability has long been used as both a justification of vouchers and an argument against them. Supporters say the availability of vouchers force public schools to improve so that they can compete for those dollars. But Florida has never demanded that private schools receiving vouchers meet the same standards set for public schools.

Critics are asking, will Scott?

Among those critics is Republican state Sen. Alex Villalobos, a Miami Republican who recently bucked his party to endorse Sink in the governor's race.

"Let me tell you something about vouchers," said Villalobos, who is leaving the Senate this year due to term limits. "The idea that public schools are going to compete, I don't think is a bad idea. I think competition is good.

"However if you're going to be honest, and not a hypocrite -- if you really believe in accountability, and you believe in FCAT, and you believe in teacher certification, and you believe in teachers having to take extra continuing education courses in order to recertify -- if you really believe that, then that should apply to private schools that take state money also," Villalobos said at a Sink campaign event.

So far, Scott has not proposed new requirements for private schools accepting vouchers.

Those schools are already accountable, argued state Rep. Will Weatherford, a Scott backer whose successfully sponsored legislation this year that added new auditing and disclosure requirements this year for private schools accepting large numbers of tax credit vouchers.

It's true that those schools don't have to teach to the Sunshine State Standards or use the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, said Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel. But they do have to administer an approved standardized test such as the Stanford 10.

"Why do we want to make everything uniform?" he asked. "Some kids learn better in a different learning environment."

The Scott campaign noted that vouchers are cheaper than per-student spending on public schools, an assertion confirmed by a report of the nonpartisan state Office of Program Policy Analysis and Accountability.

Sink's education plan never mentions "school choice" or "vouchers." Sink does propose more state support and new standards for voluntary pre-kindergarten, which the state supports with vouchers.

Florida gets poor marks from experts for its low spending on public schools.

But the state has been a true pioneer in school choice. Florida established Opportunity Scholarships, the first statewide voucher program in 1999 at the urging of then-Gov. Jeb Bush, who endorsed Scott last month.

More voucher programs followed, but in 2006 the Florida Supreme Court struck down Opportunity Scholarships, partly on grounds that they funded private schools with public money.

Bush pressed the Legislature that spring to add a question to the state ballot that would enshrine vouchers in the state Constitution. Ultimately, he lost the battle to moderates in the Senate -- among them, Villalobos, who lost his post as Senate majority leader that spring after voting twice that spring against Bush's schools agenda.

Ironically, the gubernatorial candidate proposing to expand vouchers tied to the corporate income tax also wants to eliminate the tax completely.

As part of his plan to create about 700,000 jobs over seven years, Scott intends to phase out the corporate income tax over that period. His campaign said he does not have a solution to the funding problem for the vouchers program, but will find one.

While some of his school choice ideas would expand public options, he does not explain how he would expand the private ones without running afoul of constitutional prohibitions on spending state dollars on religious schools or taking money from public education to create an alternative school system.

"I'll work through that," he told reporters after a town hall meeting in Tampa. "I'm setting out how I want to make sure our students get the best education they can, and the legislation, we'll worry about that as we get there."

Scott is already proposing to cut property taxes that support public education by $1.4 billion. Schools won't lose a dime, he says, because his plan to resuscitate the economy will boost tax collections while he slashes other areas of state spending. But he has yet to specify all of the reductions he would make, however, and some that he has proposed - such as cutting the prisons budget by more than one-third -- have groups like police unions declaring his plan will harm the public.

Sink panned Scott's briefer education proposal as lacking specifics, though she has not fully explained how she would fulfill her promise to "reverse the shrinking proportion of Florida's general revenue investment in education funding."

She has already declared she's against raising taxes and is promising to trim waste and inefficiency from state spending. But her proposed cuts so far add up to about $700 million, less than one-third of the budget deficit predicted for the upcoming year.