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education savings accounts

Commentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

What school choice myths, invasive snails have in common

Ron Matus February 23, 2021
Ron Matus

Editor’s note: fact-checkED is an occasional feature that brings precision to complex education issues that are easily misunderstood, aiming to counteract incorrect information.  

Giant snails are one of hundreds of invasive species that now call Florida home. They damage homes, threaten crops, smell terrible – and carry a parasite that can cause meningitis in humans.

They’re also impossible to wipe out. If it gets too dry, the snails just bury themselves until the rains return. Then they emerge “like zombies clawing their way out of a grave.”

Kind of reminds me of …. myths about education choice.

Legislative sessions are to ed choice myths what rainy season is to invasive snails.

With lawmakers considering choice bills in 23 states and counting, the myths are on the march. Especially the Terminator of all school choice myths (see here, here, here, here, here … ) that choice scholarships drain money from public schools.

In Florida, choice opponents are re-surfacing the myth (see here, here, here and the tail end of this here) to slime Senate Bill 48. That’s the bill that would convert Florida’s school choice scholarships into education spending accounts.

A little math can temporarily dispel this myth as well as a little salt can, well, dispatch a snail. (Not that we’d support that.)

When choice opponents in Florida make the drain claim, they’re referring to the two biggest scholarship programs. The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship now serves about 100,000 students each year. The Family Empowerment Scholarship serves about 36,000 students. The value of both scholarships is roughly the same – and so much less than per-pupil funding in district schools.

All-in per-pupil spending in Florida in 2017-18 was $10,856, according to a 2019 analysis by Florida Tax Watch. The average value of the tax credit scholarship that year was $6,447.

That’s 59 percent of the district cost. That’s why when you extrapolate scholarship spending over thousands of students, you don’t get a drain on public schools. You get taxpayer savings that can be invested in public schools.

To date, eight independent analyses of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship have come to this conclusion. To date, not a single study has concluded otherwise.

The Florida findings are not an outlier. EdChoice has tallied 55 fiscal impact studies on choice scholarships. Forty-nine found savings for taxpayers. Two found net costs.

For the definitive busting of the siphoning myth, we suggest the chapter by Martin Lueken and Benjamin Scafidi in the indispensable “School Choice Myths.”

Sadly, media coverage of any of this evidence is, like a snail in dry season, rarely seen. 

For Floridians, here’s one more bit of remedial math. In 1999, when Florida awarded its first K-12 scholarship, average per-pupil spending was $4,804 for operational costs. (This operational figure is routinely cited as Florida’s per-pupil figure. In truth it’s a portion, but it still works as a comparison.) Choice opponents declared the apocalypse was upon us.

Two decades later, that per-pupil figure is $7,786 – or nearly $300 more than in 1999, once adjusted for inflation.

That’s with 180,000 students using K-12 scholarships.

Meanwhile, Florida’s academic outcomes now earn the Sunshine State a No. 3 ranking in K-12 Achievement from no less a fair arbiter than Education Week.

Choice opponents still say the end is near. They always will.

Even invasive snails won’t outlive the myths about school choice.

February 23, 2021 0 comment
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Education and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation LegislationEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedNewsParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

Education choice bill to streamline and add flexibility advances

Lisa Buie February 17, 2021
Lisa Buie

Natalie Wiley of Jacksonville was among parents and education choice advocates who spoke in favor of SB48, which would streamline state scholarship programs and provide additional flexibility for families. Three of Wiley’s children participate in scholarship programs, which she says have made a huge difference in their lives.

A bill that would simplify Florida’s education choice programs by merging five scholarships into two and add a flexible spending option advanced one more step toward passage today after clearing the Florida Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education.

By a vote of 6 to 3 along party lines, members approved SB48, which would transfer students receiving the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program (FTC) to the Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES), which was signed into law in 2019, and sunset the 20-year-old FTC.

“I am glad to see the bill will give myself, a single mother of four, and other families the opportunity to have flexibility in utilizing the scholarship,” said Natalie Wiley of Jacksonville, whose children are on FTC and FES scholarships. “This will improve programs that have made a huge impact in my family.”

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Manny Diaz Jr., R-Hialeah, was approved Feb. 3 by the Senate Education Committee.  (For more information about what the bill includes, go here.) A companion bill is expected in the House.

“This bill is not an expansion but really a streamlining,” Diaz said during the subcommittee meeting. He said the pandemic amplified the need for increased innovation and flexibility, with many parents working with their kids at kitchen tables. “I still believe the parent is the best decisionmaker for the child.”

Under the bill, donors would still be allowed to contribute to the tax-credit program through a newly created state trust fund. However, donations would go to serve K-12 education generally in the state, rather than pay for scholarships. Both the FTC and the FES are income based and serve students whose families meet financial eligibility rules.

The bill does not materially change the eligibility criteria for any of the scholarship programs, and actually reduces the currently allowable statutory growth in some of the programs.

The bill also would merge the McKay Scholarship Program for Students with Disabilities and the Gardiner Scholarship Program, creating a new program for students with unique abilities called the McKay-Gardiner Scholarship Program.

That program would allow families in all state scholarship programs to have flexible spending accounts, also known as education savings accounts, or ESAs. Currently, only students enrolled in the Gardiner program have such flexibility.

The accounts allow families to spend their money on pre-approved services and equipment in addition to private school tuition. Approved expenditures include electronic devices, curriculum, part-time tutoring programs, educational supplies, equipment, and therapies that insurance programs do not cover. The bill would expand eligible services for McKay-Gardiner students to include music, art, and theater programs, as well as summer education programs.

The scholarship programs are also available to homeschool students and those enrolled in eligible private schools.

In addition, victims of bullying at district schools who transfer to private schools as part of the Hope Scholarship Program would also be served by the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program and receive the same spending flexibility.

Several families spoke in support of the bill. Natalie Wallace of Tampa told senators how programs allowed her son, daughter and nephew to attend Hillel School of Tampa after they were not academically challenged enough, and her youngest child was bullied.

“Hillel gives my kids smaller classes, more learning support, a safe environment, and it reinforces our family’s beliefs and values,” she said. “The scholarship has lessened the financial burden on my family and given us the same opportunities at a good education as those who are more privileged. And now, thanks to Sen. Diaz, this bill can make it even better by giving scholarship families more spending flexibility to further meet their children’s needs.”

In addition to scholarship families, the bill received support from the Libre Initiative – Florida and Americans For Prosperity, which have announced a joint campaign  to promote the bill.

The bill’s next stop is the Senate Appropriations Committee.

February 17, 2021 0 comment
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Commentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation LegislationEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedParent EmpowermentParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

Further evidence that Florida’s lower-income students will benefit from access to ESAs

Doug Tuthill February 17, 2021
Doug Tuthill

There are many important policy improvements in Florida Senate Bill 48, the innovative education choice legislation sponsored by Sen. Manny Diaz Jr. that is receiving so much national attention. But my favorite enhancement is the creation of education savings accounts (ESAs) for lower-income families.

This year, Florida is providing scholarships to about 140,000 lower-income families via the Florida Tax Credit (FTC) and Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES) programs. Currently, these scholarships can only be used to pay private school tuition and fees, or transportation costs to attend an out-of-district public school. The scholarship amount cannot exceed the annual cost of tuition and fees at a student’s chosen private school. If a student is eligible for a $7,000 scholarship but the tuition and fees at her private school are $6,000, then that student’s scholarship will be only $6,000.

This year, 17% of our FTC/FES scholarship recipients received scholarships that were, on average, $641 less than a full scholarship. That means 23,800 students, who researchers say are the state’s lowest-income and lowest-performing students when they receive a scholarship, did not get $15,255,800 in scholarship funds they were financially eligible to receive.

If the Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis agree to turn these scholarships into ESAs, then every scholarship student will receive the full scholarship amount, and any funds not spent on tuition and fees may be spent on additional education services and products such as tutoring, books, summer school, and software.

Some private and charter schools already are planning to create afterschool tutoring and summer enrichment programs to serve families with excess ESA funds. Families also may use ESA funds to purchase services from their neighborhood district schools and certified teachers who create their own afterschool and summer programs. More small business development, especially in lower-income urban communities, is a benefit of the enhanced spending flexibility families have via ESAs.

An important feature of ESAs is that unspent funds roll over so parents may spend them in future years. Some elementary and middle school families, for instance, probably will roll over unused ESA funds to help pay for high school expenses, which are often unaffordable for scholarship families.

Sen. Diaz’s bill is a long way from becoming law. But Florida’s legislative leaders, in collaboration with our governors over the last 25 years, have made steady progress toward providing our state’s most disadvantaged students with more effective and efficient learning options.

I am confident that the education choice bills that become law this summer will continue this trend.

February 17, 2021 0 comment
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Commentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedGardiner ScholarshipParent VoicesParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

Commentary: School choice helps Florida families

Special to redefinED February 16, 2021
Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This post from longtime Sarasota resident, mother and special education teacher Keri Zane appeared earlier today in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

As a mother with a daughter on the Gardiner Scholarship for special needs students, I was puzzled by Carol Lerner’s recent column criticizing a proposal to give parents more educational choices for their children.

Lerner wrote that while “vouchers fund only private schools, education savings accounts can fund so much more.” Yes, and thank goodness for that! 

I’m a single mom and a special needs teacher raising three children.

My oldest child, Avaryanna, is 11 years old; she is severely dyslexic and has attention deficit disorder, as well as anaphylaxis and auditory and sensory processing disorder. She has been on the Gardiner Scholarship for four years.

Her brother, Victor – who is 9 years old – is also dyslexic; he is on the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for lower-income students. My youngest child, LeeEmry, is 4 years old and in voluntary pre-kindergarten. I already detect early signs of dyslexia in LeeEmry, and I will seek to get her on the tax credit scholarship when she starts kindergarten.

The scholarships have allowed me to put my kids in one school, Dunn Prep/Woodland Early Childhood Center, that best meets their learning needs. And it also helps me with my busy schedule: I don’t have to run around to different schools for each child.

The Gardiner program stands apart in Florida in that it operates as an education savings account, which allows parents to spend their children’s scholarship dollars on a wide variety of things – private school tuition, educational materials, therapies and other services – so that learning can be customized to suit a student’s individual needs. I believe that the Gardiner program’s flexible spending approach should be applied to other education scholarships in our state.

Children have so many unique learning needs that it makes sense to give parents as many educational options as possible: public, private, homeschool, “pod” – whatever works. That seems especially important during this pandemic, which has forced brick-and-mortar classrooms to close – and forced children to do online learning at home.

That works for some kids, but it doesn’t work for others; they need alternatives.

I’ve relied on multiple choices for my children’s education. Avaryanna cannot function in a traditional classroom, so we tried a charter school for both her and Victor. But that didn’t work out, so I homeschooled Avaryanna and Victor for a period of time.

I wish I had known about the Gardiner Scholarship back then because it would have eased the financial burden on my family. I’m thankful that I discovered Dunn Prep, which has been a great fit for all my kids. And I’m grateful that a friend told me about Gardiner; it has been a blessing for my oldest daughter.

Gardiner helped me buy an iPad for Avaryanna, which she uses to access educational apps, online learning and other programs. I would love to be able to use a portion of Victor’s tax credit scholarship to also supplement his learning.

To quote Laura Weaver and Mark Wilding, authors of “The 5 Dimensions of Engaged Teaching,” “When students feel safe and supported, they are truly able and ready to learn.” To best achieve that we should make it easier for all parents to make the best educational decisions for their children – whether it’s choosing a public school, a private school, a homeschool or another option.

At the end of the day, what matters most is that our children, all our children, reach their full potential. That’s much more important than the type of school – or the type of educational program – that allows them to reach their full potential.

February 16, 2021 0 comment
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Commentary: Pass flexible savings account bill

Special to redefinED February 15, 2021
Special to redefinED

Nick and Keely Cogan are pictured at their Tallahassee home with their children, four of whom participate in the Gardiner Scholarship Program.

Editor’s note: This commentary from Nick Cogan of Tallahassee first appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat.

I’m a math professor at Florida State University. My wife Keely and I have seven children – three biological and four with special needs we adopted from China. Two have cerebral palsy, and two have Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita, a rare joint and limb condition.

All four are on the state’s Gardiner Scholarship, a flexible savings account that allows parents to spend their education dollars on the services such as school tuition, tutors, technology and curriculum that match their children’s unique needs. I don’t know where we would be without the scholarship. It has been a life-changer.

I believe all parents deserve the same opportunity.

Fortunately, a bill in the Florida Legislature would turn all the state’s school choice scholarships into flexible spending accounts like Gardiner. I hope it passes so more families can control their education dollars as they see fit.

We’ve used Gardiner for almost everything it’s been designed for. When we adopted our oldest son, Kai, he was an 11-year-old working on a first-grade level. It was hard to mainstream him. The public school district wanted to put him in fifth grade. Thankfully, we found a private school that was willing to put him with younger kids in a more academically appropriate environment. The Gardiner scholarship helped pay that private school tuition.

Later we decided to take Kai out of private school and homeschool him with his other siblings — Kade, Kassi and Karwen — who also attended a private school at one time or another. We rely on Gardiner to pay for books, curriculum, equipment and other educational supplies for all four kids.

Gardiner has made it possible for our children to receive the various physical and emotional therapies they require to develop. For instance, my daughter Kassi has made a lot of progress with her speech therapy. My health insurance covered only a limited amount of that therapy. Gardiner has ensured she gets the therapies that she needs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been highly disruptive to education, and my homeschooled family has not been spared its effects. We typically participate in homeschool co-ops with other families, but those sessions have been suspended during the pandemic. 

The Gardiner program gave us the means and the ability to swiftly respond to the crisis and direct our children’s education dollars into effective alternatives.  

We bought pre-built curricula so we could have a consistent set of tools at home. These included some online resources and “workbook”-type resources. These have features for languages and math that offer dynamic feedback for students. We started a Duolingo classroom for the kids to learn Ukrainian (we are in the last stages of adopting two children from the Ukraine). The classroom option does a good job of tracking progress for us. We bought ours from a family-run business, which just shows the diversity of resources out there. 

I am a strong supporter of public schools, but because of their special needs, our kids would not fit there. Gardiner gives us options that otherwise wouldn’t be available to us. That applies to other families as well, as each child has unique learning requirements. It’s important to be able to customize education for each child.

That’s why I urge lawmakers to pass the bill that converts state scholarships to flexible spending accounts. The pandemic has showed that, now more than ever, families need as many options as possible.

February 15, 2021 0 comment
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Commentary: Why education savings accounts are the great equalizer for school children

Special to redefinED February 9, 2021
Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: In this opinion piece, Shaka Mitchell, Tennessee state director of American Federation for Children, and Justin Owen, president and CEO of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, explain how the Tennessee Supreme Court’s decision to take up an education savings account case would create a win for both parents and school systems. The piece appeared recently in The Tennessean.

On Thursday, the Tennessee Supreme Court accepted the widely publicized Education Savings Accounts—or ESA—case.

In 2019, the state Legislature offered a lifeline to families in our worst-performing school districts. They passed the ESA program, which would allow parents to take a portion of the dollars we already spend on their child’s education and use those dollars to send their child to a school of their choice.

Almost immediately, the city of Nashville and Shelby County sued the state to stop parents from utilizing this important program.

While lower courts sided with these local governments, we are optimistic that the Supreme Court will reverse those lower courts and allow the program to launch this fall.

Even before COVID-19, many families struggled to access a quality education in these two school districts. Fast forward to the current school year where nearly 200,000 students lack access to school buildings and tens of thousands haven’t been able to access the admittedly second-class online environment.

If they weren’t fortunate enough to be zoned into a good school or one that was open for in-person instruction, they were out of luck. Unlike families with means, lower-income families can’t just pick up and move to a better school district, nor can they afford private school tuition to send their child to a school of their choice. They are completely stuck.

We must do better.

The ESA program would be the great equalizer for these families. Regardless of their ZIP code or how much money they make, parents in Memphis and Nashville would finally have options. They could get their children into the school that best serves their needs by simply allowing the money to follow them to the school of their choice.

Yet, local government leaders are more concerned about money than fixing their schools or even allowing those most in need to leave for better schools. They chose to stand at the schoolhouse door, this time to keep these families in the schools they have failed to improve decade after decade.

Despite their claims, research shows that these local governments would save money under the ESA program. When a child leaves with an ESA, the public school district no longer has the expense of educating that child, but the program would still let the district keep a portion of the funding.

A recent Beacon Center study — using data reported by the school districts themselves — found that Nashville would save $500 each time a student left with an ESA. Shelby County would save an even greater $2,000 per child.

When the program is fully up and running, that translates into an additional $21 million these two districts would save. Metro Nashville Public Schools could add 65 classroom teachers or pay its existing teachers $670 a year more as a result. Shelby County Schools, meanwhile, could hire an additional 310 teachers or give each of its current teachers a $2,900 raise.

Fortunately, courts in nearly a dozen other states and the United States Supreme Court have found programs like Tennessee’s to be constitutional.

The state Supreme Court can now affirm the legislature’s authority to extend this lifeline to families by ruling that the Tennessee ESA program is in fact constitutional. And if they do so, thousands of families in dire need of a better education will finally have the options they deserve.

February 9, 2021 0 comment
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Commentary: More parents should have the learning options we have

Special to redefinED February 8, 2021
Special to redefinED

Eli Conner, shown here with his mother, Stephanie Conner, and his sister, Madeline, benefits from the flexibility offered by the Gardner Scholarship, Florida’s education savings account for students with special needs.

Editor’s note: This piece from Stephanie Conner, who lives in LaBelle, Florida, first published in the Naples Daily News.

My 14-year-old son Eli has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and other development delays, and he communicates mostly through sign language. A few years ago, he was anxious and struggling in public school. But then he got a state scholarship that changed everything.

Florida’s Gardiner Scholarship for students with special needs is an education savings account. It gives parents the power to create a learning program that is just right for their child, covering tuition, tutors, therapists, technology, curriculum, etc., in whatever combination works best. My husband and I used it to educate Eli through both home education and private school.

Eli was once far behind his academic potential, but now he is gaining ground, especially in reading. The sensory integration therapy he gets through scholarship funding has made it possible for him to learn in more settings, from field trips to classrooms, including the private school he attends part time.

For Eli, the scholarship has been life changing. And it would be life changing for more children if more families had what we have.

In Florida, that might happen.

In coming months, lawmakers will consider a proposal to convert the state’s school choice scholarships into education savings accounts. That will give tens of thousands of other families the kind of control over their children’s educations that we have. Especially now, in the midst of the pandemic, that ability to create as many options as possible makes sense.

Families like mine are sometimes called education pioneers, but we didn’t set out to be. I’m a former teacher, my husband is a teacher, and he comes from a family of teachers, including his father, a former superintendent in Hendry County. All four of our children use choice scholarships.

Our 10-year-old, Madeline, has been diagnosed with bilateral congenital deafness and also uses a Gardiner Scholarship. Our 6-year-olds, Meizi and Gideon, use the Family Empowerment Scholarship, which is available to low- and middle-income families.

We are grateful for both scholarships, but the flexibility of education savings accounts makes them especially nice. Before the Gardiner Scholarship, we considered moving from Hendry County so we could be closer to the therapists Eli needed. We agonized over that possibility, given all the family we have here. But the Gardiner Scholarship spared us.

Instead of relocating, I take Eli to Orlando several times a year for intensive therapy. The rest of the time, I work with Eli and Madeline at home, using the specialized tools we purchased with scholarship funds.

The scholarship pays for private school tuition too. Being in school is excellent for Eli, but full time would be too much. So, Eli goes part time to a loving school near our home, which is happy to offer part-time services.

Meizi and Gideon attend the school full time, while Madeline goes for PE. Last year, Eli attended for PE, lunch and a science/social studies class. This year, he added a keyboarding class, and the school adjusted tuition accordingly. When education savings accounts become more common, more families and schools will be able to benefit from similar opportunities.

Knowing every child is different, I think it makes sense for every child to have a learning program that accounts for those differences. The scholarships available to my family allow us to create that unique learning program, but they shouldn’t be limited to a few families.

Florida would be an even more beautiful place if more families could do the same.

February 8, 2021 0 comment
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AnalysisEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation LegislationEducation Savings AccountsFamily Empowerment ScholarshipFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipGardiner ScholarshipHope ScholarshipMcKay ScholarshipParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

What Senate Bill 48 does

redefinED staff February 2, 2021
redefinED staff

Manny Diaz Jr., R, Hialeah, wants to simplify and clarify the state’s school scholarship program.

Florida Senate bill 48, filed by Senator Manny Diaz, Jr., will be heard in the Senate Education Committee tomorrow. The bill is over 155 pages and at times difficult to understand. Below is a list of the bill’s key features. Some of these features may get modified as the bill moves through committees. A similar bill has not yet been filed in the House. The bill does not materially change the eligibility criteria for any of the scholarship programs, and actually reduces the currently allowable statutory growth in some of the programs.

What SB 48 does:

·       Merges five different K-12 scholarship programs created over the past 22 years into two programs. The Florida Tax Credit (FTC) and Hope scholarship programs merge into the Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES) and will serve economically-disadvantaged and bullied students. The combined McKay-Gardiner Scholarship program will serve students with unique abilities/special needs. 

·       Eliminates the FTC and Hope growth potential and caps the McKay growth for the first time. [Currently in statute, any student with an Individual Education Plan (IEP) is eligible to receive a McKay Scholarship to pay for tuition to a private school. There are currently over 300,000 such children in the state.] Establishes the maximum number of McKay-Gardiner program awards at 50,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) students with an annual scholarship growth rate of 1 percent of the total exceptional student education student FTE, not including gifted. The FES enrollment will include all returning FTC, FES, and Hope students, and may grow at no more than 1 percent of total public-school enrollment, or about 28K students annually.

·       Eliminates the McKay and FES prior public school attendance eligibility requirement, makes economically-disadvantaged homeschool students eligible for FES, and makes children who meet a Gardiner diagnosis category and turn three after September 1 eligible for a McKay-Gardiner scholarship.

·       Returns about $910M in tax credit funding to state General Revenue, $828.9M of which is annual reoccurring revenue. The cost of funding the returning FTC and Hope students in the FES is about $562.5M.

·       Converts the merged scholarship programs into Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), which gives families more flexibility in how they spend their scholarship funds. Families may purchase education services from providers such as district schools, private schools, charter schools, virtual schools, and tutors, and education products such as books and software from approved education vendors.

·       Makes FES and McKay-Gardiner students eligible for transportation scholarships not to exceed $750 to attend a public school other than their assigned zoned school.

·       Allows McKay-Gardiner students to spend ESA funds on music, art, and theatre programs, and mainstreamed summer and after-school programs.

·       Increases the FES scholarship award from 95% to 97.5% of the operational funding a public-school student receives (called the Florida Education Finance Program or FEFP). Scholarship students receive no portion of the non-operational funding, which accounts for about 25% of total state and local spending per public-school student. Also, the scholarships are paid solely through state taxes with no local taxes used.

·       Reduces the administrative funding for scholarship-funding organizations to an amount not to exceed 2.5% of the total amount of scholarships funded.

·       Ensures FES scholarship priority for renewal students, students under 185% of the federal poverty level, students in foster or out-of-home care, and bullied students.

·       Maintains the annual audit requirement of eligible nonprofit scholarship-funding organizations and aligns the frequency of the additional audit by the state Auditor General to that of school districts, which is at least once every 3 years.

February 2, 2021 2 comments
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