Catholic
Education
Choice alters Florida education landscape
By JUDY GROSS
During his gubernatorial campaign, Jeb Bush declared himself the
“education governor.” True to his word, under his tenure the
educational landscape in Florida has changed.
At first glance, his A Plus Plan and School Choice Program seems
nothing but good. Tuition vouchers for kids from failing schools, scholarships
for disabled students, big business paying the way to private schools for kids
from poor families and parents choosing the schools they want their children to
attend. With only a 52 percent high school graduation rate, there is lots of
room for improvement.
Following the lead of his younger brother, President George Bush
modeled his “No Child Left Behind Act,” on Florida’s program,
promising to erase the achievement gap between rich and poor students.
However, a chorus of protests suggests that all is not rosy in
Florida’s education scene. In fact, state courts have declared parts of
the school choice program unconstitutional.
In 1999, Florida became first to institute a statewide school
voucher, or “Opportunity Scholarship” program. Immediately it
provoked court challenges from a teachers’ union, the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People and other opponents. The Florida Supreme
Court let stand a lower court ruling that the program complies with a state
constitutional provision for a system of free public schools. Other issues,
including whether vouchers violate the principle of church-state separation,
are pending at the appellate court level.
Until Bush changed the rules, Florida’s parents had little
choice in where their kids went to school. A controlled open enrollment plan
allows parents to enroll their children in any district public school that has
room for them. Currently, 18 local school districts are implementing the plan,
backed by significant tax money for transportation and administration. Parents
may send their children to schools that perform better on the Florida
Comprehensive Assessment Test or to schools closer to child care or to
parents’ workplaces.
Before signing the Bush/Brogan (Frank Brogan was lieutenant
governor, at the time) A Plus Plan and School Choice Program into law, the only
choice parents had was to buy a house in a particular school zone or send a
child to a private school. The A Plus Plan gives parents of students in failing
public schools tuition vouchers for private schools. The plan was built upon
two principles: Each student should gain a year’s worth of knowledge in a
year’s time in a public school; and no student will be left behind.
Reaction to an old story
Florida Catholic Conference Education Associate Larry Keough
characterizes the choice program as a 21st-century reaction to a 19th-century
congressional amendment never signed into law. The Blaine Amendment contained
strong anti-Catholic sentiment and precluded federal aid to religious schools.
At the time Catholic schools educated large numbers of immigrant children.
States began writing Blaine-type language into their constitutions.
Florida’s Choice Plan skirts the restrictions by allocating dollars to
parents who then decide which schools their children will attend.
Parent Jill Rowan works in rural Gadsden County, west of
Tallahassee, one site of poorly performing public schools. She makes the daily
50-mile commute from Tallahassee to her job in the poverty-stricken county so
her three children could have a better education. “I only moved here for
the schools,” she said.
Another feature of the program, the Corporate Tax Scholarship
program pays tuition to private schools for needy children, while giving a
dollar-for-dollar tax deduction to businesses. Critics say the tax break, which
the Florida Catholic Conference is asking the state legislature to increase,
actually reduces the tax base in a state with severe budget shortfalls.
A Jan. 5 Palm Beach Post editorial asserts, “Florida
is spending $50 million on an experimental education program that hasn’t
been evaluated. Without any proof that the program works, advocates will be
asking the state legislature to spend even more on it. The experimental voucher
program at issue allows companies to donate as much as $5 million to a voucher
fund and deduct the full amount from taxes owed to the state.”
Adding to Florida’s budget woes is a constitutional amendment
reducing class sizes. Opposed by Bush, who in a meeting with a delegation of
constituents, pro-mised a plan to derail it, Amendment Nine was nevertheless
overwhelmingly passed by voters. Florida Catholic schools accreditation
standards cap class size at 35 students. The new amendment lowers public school
class size to 18 in pre-kindergarten through third grade, 22 in grades four
through eight and 25 in high school.
Accountability is the issue
The most visible part of Florida’s school choice plan is the
tuition voucher program. Leon County Director of Planning and Policy James
Croteau, a Catholic, says: “The issue is not accreditation, but
accountability. There is no quality control in private schools, except for the
parents’ option to take their child out.”
Florida public school and home-schooled students must take the
Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test, which tests math and reading, and the
entire school is graded on how students score.
Catholic school administrators counter with their use of national
exams such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, which “tests the progress in
every subject in every grade,” according to Notre Dame Sr. Mary Caplice,
school superintendent for the Pensacola/Tallahassee diocese.
Asked about progress of public school children who initially got
Catholic schools vouchers in the westernmost part of the diocese, she said,
“It amazed me. I checked their grades after their first year and they are
consistently above grade. We must be doing something right.”
Only one of the 39 children has left the program, besting the 18
percent average in districts where vouchers are being used. Most return to
their old schools because they miss friends and familiar places. Mandatory
parental involvement in Catholic schools may be a factor in the success.
Cassandra Galloway’s son, Jonathan, attends Sacred Heart
School in Pensacola, on a tuition voucher. She says she “jumped at the
opportunity,” when she discovered her son was unable to read in the fourth
grade, never had homework, yet was bringing home As and Bs on his report card.
“Jonathon used to hate school, now he loves it,” she
said. Galloway said his teacher came to her home to tutor Jonathan privately,
to help him catch up with the rest of the class. When Galloway expressed her
fear of the program being cut due to falling state revenues, the teacher
assured her, “We’ll find a way to keep him here.” Galloway is
not Catholic and reports no difficulty or pressure on her son to participate in
religious activities.
On the other hand, parent and former public school teacher John
Occhiuzzo, a Catholic whose daughters attend Trinity School in Tallahassee, is
vehement in his opposition to using tax money to send public school students to
private schools.
“I pay my taxes too and I believe in Catholic schools. But
taxpayers should not be paying private school tuition. And private does not
always mean better,” he said.
Christian Br. Richard DeMaria, school superintendent for the Miami
diocese, agrees that some tuition-paying parents may have problems with the
voucher program. He added, “We’re forced to be accountable every day,
knowing parents can pull their children out any time.”
Catholic schools are full
School administrators report most Catholic schools are at
capacity. The Florida Catholic Conference, representing the state’s seven
dioceses, is firmly behind the voucher program and supports the expansion of
it, even while admitting most Catholic schools have little room for additional
students. However, a proposal made Jan. 6 by the federal Department of Housing
and Urban Development would extend the scope of President Bush’s
Faith-Based Initiative to allow building, buying or rehabilitating buildings
used for religious activities, so long as sections of them are used for
non-religious purposes, like education.
Keough said, “The one thing that will destroy school choice
is if private schools say they have no vacancies.” Currently there are
more than 95,000 students in Florida’s 233 Catholic schools.
“Entre-preneurial” private schools have sprung up where Catholic
schools are full, Croteau adds. Although his North Florida school district has
higher than state average of students enrolled in private schools, the trend is
statewide.
Florida private schools must only demonstrate fiscal soundness by
being in operation for one school year and meet state and local health and
safety laws and codes to be eligible to participate in the Opportunity
Scholarship Program. They must also, by state statute, “determine on a
random and religious-neutral basis … which opportunity scholarships to
accept.”
As in most Florida public schools, Catholic schools are facing
teacher shortages. One oft-repeated argument against the voucher program is
teacher certification. Public school educators must be certified by the Florida
Department of Education, requiring additional and continuing education.
Florida statutes specify only that teachers in private schools
must “hold a baccalaureate or higher degree, or have at least three years
of teaching experience in public or private schools, or have special skills,
knowledge or expertise that qualifies them to provide instruction in subjects
taught.”
Speaking the faith
DeMaria said that all elementary and high school teachers in his
diocesan schools are required to be state certified. Traditionally, parochial
school teachers earn significantly less than in public schools. The answer to
why teachers would choose Catholic schools over public schools lies in the
statement, “They want to teach where they can speak their faith and be
supported by it,” said Caplice.
DeMaria adds, “There is discipline in Catholic schools. For
the teachers it’s a real vocation, a commitment and a feeling that
‘I’m getting something done.’ ”
Some of Jeb Bush’s strategies to mandate class size reduction
and reduce teacher shortages are streamlining certification and expanding the
voucher program. Keough said he hopes part of the plan is extension of the
“student loan forgiveness” policy public school teachers have, making
teaching at Catholic schools attractive.
State Rep. Beverly Kilmer said, “We’re going to get sued
no matter what we do,” citing proposed voucher and charter school
expansions. “I think the governor has set out some clear goals, and
he’s going down the road we need to follow.”
Another component of the school choice program is the John McKay
Scholarship, which pays tuition to private schools for mentally and physically
disabled students. The McKay Scholarship has led to a mushrooming of private
schools for the disabled.
Public schools are federally mandated to provide assistance to
disabled students as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act.
“They don’t have to prove their ability to
educate,” Croteau said of the nonpublic schools. Approximately 10,000
disabled students are in Florida private and Catholic schools.
Most students attending private schools and students with
disabilities who access the McKay scholarships, are not required to pass the
Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test to receive a standard diploma. Nor are
private schools required to provide any special assistance to the disabled
student. DeMaria says his schools are “good at working with children with
learning disabilities,” and do the best they can for physically disabled
students.
Florida School Choice Program Director J. Bowman, is almost a
cheerleader for the A Plus Plan. “The program raised the standards and
most schools have risen to the challenge,” he said. “It’s
morally wrong to compel a child to go to a failing school. The A Plus Plan
equals accountability and lasting systemic changes.”
Charter schools proliferate
Charter schools, part of the public school system, but operating
with flexible programming, have proliferated under the school choice plan.
Currently 223 charter schools operate in the state with another 117 waiting for
approval. Pembroke Pines, near Fort Lauderdale, has carved out its own Charter
School District, separate from the rest of their public school system.
Croteau says Florida has led the nation in the creation and
management of charter schools. At the same time, another 44,000 children are
being home-schooled.
Bowman scoffs at the idea only middle-class white parents take
advantage of the Opportunity Scholarships to move their kids out of less
desireable schools. “Ninety-six percent are minority children,” he
said. He reports more than 13,000 students with disabilities are on waiting
lists for McKay Scholarships, despite the number of private schools opening,
sometimes with only five or six students, and run by parents.
With parents insisting on better education, the Florida Catholic
Conference sees an advantage in promoting its agenda for more government
dollars flowing into the state’s Catholic schools through all parts of the
choice program. A pastoral letter signed by the state’s bishops supports
universal pre-kindergarten education and the expansion of the Choice program.
They write, “For every child educated in a Catholic school, the state
realizes a minimal savings of $6,000 annually.”
Those figures are dubious to Occhiuzzo who says he believes the
voucher program siphons taxpayer money out of the public school system.
Croteau supports the part of the program that allows parents to
move their children around in public schools, but adds, “The concern of
public schools for open vouchers is that if any student can go to any school it
will be like the camel’s nose under the tent,” when it comes to
moving tax money away from an already financially stressed public school
system.
Florida’s constitution guarantees a quality education to all.
Keough says, “Keep in mind it’s about children, not defending a
system. It’s the parent’s money, not the government’s.”
Judy Gross is a free-lance writer who lives in Tallahassee,
Fla.
Related Web sites
Florida Catholic Conference
Education
Issues
www.flacathconf.org/Issuesinfo/EducationPage.htm
Florida
Comprehensive Assessment
Test
www.myfloridaeducation.com/sas/fcat.htm
Florida
Department of Education
www.firn.edu/doe
Florida School Choice
Scholarships
www.opportunityschools.org
National Catholic Reporter, March 21,
2003
|
