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Florida Voucher Schools to Answer Questions
Ohanian Comment: The reporter reveals how accountability works for private schools accepting voucher money: Their teachers do not need to be certified, employees are not required to have criminal background checks and their curricula do not have to follow Sunshine State Standards.
TALLAHASSEE -- Facing mounting criticism of Florida's loosely regulated school voucher programs, Gov. Jeb Bush conceded Wednesday that the programs need more state oversight and promised to demand more information from private schools that accept the vouchers.
The governor said he would send the legislature a voucher reform package to better regulate the programs. Education Commissioner Jim Horne promised to crack down on schools that violate program regulations.
For now, Bush said, he would require all private schools taking vouchers to provide basic information to the state within two weeks.
The information -- such as whether the school requires teachers to be certified, is accredited and has enough money to operate for one year -- would be in a notarized response to a five-page questionnaire from the state.
Bush and Horne made their announcement Wednesday after a series of Palm Beach Post stories revealed lax state scrutiny and little accountability in the state's three voucher programs. Those stories -- including one about $350,000 in corporate vouchers that went to a Tampa-based Islamic private school whose founder was indicted on federal terror-related charges -- have prompted criticism of the limited accountability private schools have to the state, even though more than 24,000 students used the taxpayer-financed vouchers last year to attend private schools.
"We realize there needs to be some financial controls because of the significant amount of money going into those programs," said Bush, who touted vouchers during his election campaigns as a way to improve education. "It is really important that we get this right."
Democrats not satisfied
But Senate Democrats, who have fought for increased accountability of the voucher system, said the questionnaire doesn't go nearly far enough.
Questions about enrollment, whether the school follows safety and health laws and whether there is a published disciplinary code offer only a surface view of the school, they said.
The state needs to go further, they said, by requiring reporting on standardized test scores, curriculum, class sizes and how the voucher money is spent.
Voucher critics also noted that Bush's plan to provide accountability follows the start of the first voucher program by four years.
"There is not a lot of substantive information here," said Sen. Ron Klein, D-Delray Beach. "They (Republicans) demand accountability on everything but this. Under what set of circumstances do you send a check out and then ensure schools are in compliance?"
Bush said, "We have had tremendous growth in this program and it's important to pause and say, 'Where do we go from here.' "
Florida has three voucher programs:
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McKay Scholarships, worth from $5,000 to $21,000 each, which were created in 1999 and are given to disabled students to attend private schools. About 9,000 disabled students received McKay vouchers last year.
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Opportunity Scholarships, which went to an estimated 600 students last year and are given to students whose public school received an F grade two years out of four. Students who take opportunity scholarships are still required to take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
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Corporate Tax Credit Scholarships, which allow a company to receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit of up to $5 million for donations to provide vouchers for poor students. The total amount of tax credits awarded last year to companies was $50 million, allowing about 16,000 students to receive corporate vouchers. This year, the legislature increased the amount companies can donate statewide to $88 million -- money that would have otherwise gone into the state's general fund to pay for services such as public schools.
Each program carries different regulations, but in general there are few requirements of the schools taking vouchers. Their teachers do not need to be certified, employees are not required to have criminal background checks and their curricula do not have to follow Sunshine State Standards.
And, although voucher proponents say 95 percent of private schools use standardized tests to measure student performance, the schools do not have to publicly report their scores, as public schools must.
When asked why the private schools couldn't report their scores on the questionnaire released Wednesday, Bush said it was a privacy issue.
"There are parents in those schools who do not receive vouchers, and, while it is important to have outside validation, we have to do it without invading people's privacy," Bush said.
The corporate tax credit program probably has the fewest state requirements. Until recently, the state did not even have a list of schools taking corporate vouchers.
While corporate voucher schools will be required to fill out the questionnaire, they are exempt from the section that asks about whether teachers are required to be certified.
Legal requirements differ
Horne, who joined Bush at the news conference Wednesday, said those schools were exempted because of "statutory reasons." The law creating corporate vouchers lists no requirements of a private school's teachers, whereas the laws for the other programs do.
Horne spent a week recently touring the state holding a series of "round table" discussions at private schools touting Florida's voucher programs.
One of the things he said he learned was that parents need more information about private schools accepting vouchers, and he said the questionnaires announced by Bush Wednesday will be available to the public.
Horne also said he will shut down schools that are not in compliance with the voucher laws -- or the spirit of the laws.
"Certainly schools that are not schools will have their scholarships eliminated," Horne said.
Department of Education spokeswoman Frances Marine said Horne was probably referring to consultants who register as private schools and take McKay vouchers to aid home-school parents.
The Post reported Sunday on a Boynton Beach consultant alleged to have asked for 30 percent to 50 percent of a McKay scholarship it helped a home-school parent get. The consultant, Castle Oak Academy, said the fee was for administrative costs, according to the parent's complaint.
The home-school consultants are not technically breaking the McKay voucher law, even though they may be operated out of a private residence. But the state has no way to know how many of those "schools" are taking vouchers.
One of the questions planned by Bush could help the state find out: whether a school has a physical location where the majority of students receive more than 75 percent of their instruction from teachers who are employed by the school.
Bush called Wednesday's questionnaire a "weeding out" tool that will ensure basic laws are being followed. He said it was the beginning of an evaluation of the voucher program and that the Education Department is working on a package of reform legislation to introduce next session.
Lawmakers also are considering possible changes. Senate President Jim King, R-Jacksonville, convened a task force to study the McKay voucher program and ordered an interim study of the corporate tax credit voucher program this year.
He wrote a letter last week to the task force leader, former Senate President John McKay, voicing concerns about the oversight of the program.
"The people I've talked to whose kids have taken advantage of its existence are, for the most part, extremely complimentary," King wrote. "But, it seems that the methodology by which we approve and pay schools leaves giant loopholes."
— Kimberly Miller
Voucher schools to answer questions
Palm Beach Post
2003-08-14
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/thursday/news_f3b3701f1027c1550074.html
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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