The sweet smell of defeat: Gov. Jeb Bush’s devious plan to privatize Florida schools took a major hit yesterday. His cornerstone voucher system — the nation’s first to be used statewide — was ruled unconstitutional by Florida’s Supreme Court.
The elaborate scheme involved first grading schools according to Jeb’s Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT), and then punishing “failing” schools by cutting their funding and offering their students vouchers for tuition at private schools.
Chief Justice Barbara Pariente, writing for the majority, said the program “diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools,” which are the sole means set out in the state constitution for educating Florida children.
Private schools also are not uniform when compared with each other or the public system and they are exempt from many standards imposed by law on public schools, such as mandatory testing, she added.
The system has been marked by fraud, including recipients taking kickbacks to funnel the vouchers to schools which are actually post office boxes or strip center offices. The vast majority of real private schools receiving money are religious in nature, and had the court ruled other than it did, the ACLU, League of Women Votes, NAACP, and others were prepared to challenge it for violating separation of church and state.
Only two justices dissented from the majority opinion, and — surprise –” they were both appointed by Jeb.
State Sen. Rod Smith, a Democratic candidate for governor, said he was certain from the beginning that the voucher program eventually would be struck down.
“What we must do to is to stop hair-brained schemes of funding (private) schools and focus on adequately funding the public schools,” Smith said. “That’s what our constitution requires of us and our taxpayers expect of us.”
But Jeb is nothing if not a sore loser and this time is no exception . “I’m disappointed,” Bush said. “Let’s leave it at that.”
If only.
Jeb is already plotting a way around the legal decision, with a new plan that would make Tom DeLay proud — laundering the money for private schools through corporations. Jeb wants to provide voucher money to big business through tax breaks which will, in turn, pass it on to private schools.
