Vouchers are a scam in Florida (and everywhere else). We don’t want them in Kansas. Here’s more information from a former local school board member in Florida.
“When Florida went to a universal voucher system in 2023, extending eligibility for vouchers worth $8,000 to $35,000 a year to all, without restrictions, 122,895 new students signed up. Only 13 percent had been in public schools. 69 percent were already in private schools. Another 18 percent were brand-new kindergarteners.
“These are not families disgruntled with the public school system. The state’s voucher system is subsidizing choices families were already making, while draining the public-school system that has to serve every child who walks through the door.
If you do the math for Flagler County schools, $17 million has been diverted to private schools. However, of that, over 87 percent of those students receiving vouchers never attended Flagler schools. They are children who had always attended private schools or were being homeschooled. They are now being provided with vouchers to offset tuition. Most private schools have doubled their tuition or significantly increased it due to the availability of the vouchers. That was to be expected. Pretty soon private schools will have the highest-paid teachers and all the bells and whistles, while public schools will be starved of funding…
“You’re worried about ‘fraud & abuse’? Then why give a pass that huge part of the system that operates in the shadows? Prove me wrong: require voucher schools and the organizations skimming administrative fees to publish audited finances and disaggregated achievement data just like districts do. Same dollars, same rules.
“Scholarship Funding Organizations (like Step Up for Students) keep administrative fees, yet their books aren’t open the way a district’s are. If ‘fraud & abuse’ is the concern, why exempt these private intermediaries from the same scrutiny we demand of elected school boards?”
Originally posted to Facebook 7/29/25.