The number of Florida students awarded school vouchers jumped by more than 117,500 this year, mostly due to a new state law that made all students eligible for scholarship programs once targeted to low-income children.
By Aug. 11, more than 382,000 students had received vouchers for the 2023-24 school year, giving them access to money for private school tuition, homeschooling services or therapies for children with disabilities, according to Step Up For Students, the private group that administers most of Florida's scholarship programs.
That represents a 44% increase from a year ago when about 264,400 scholarships were awarded by the same date.
The voucher programs that previously served low-income children this year received far more applications, and they awarded far more scholarships than they did in 2022. Those scholarship awards jumped by more than 12,000 in Broward County, for example, and by more than 6,400 in Orange County, Step Up's data showed.
The scholarships are worth an average of about $7,800 a year, though actual amounts vary by student's grade level and by county. The voucher programs are still required to prioritize giving awards to children whose families earn no more than 185% of the federal poverty limit, or a family of four earning $55,000 a year or less. But everyone, whether middle class or very rich, is now eligible to apply.
Step Up is collecting and will release family-income data, but it is not yet available, said Scott Kent, a spokesman for the organization, in an email.
That data will show how many families who were awarded scholarships this year would not have been eligible prior to the passage of the new legislation (HB 1). He did not answer questions about how prioritization worked except to say the lowest income group "always has first priority."
The hike in scholarships was expected after Gov. Ron DeSantis in March signed the new law, which he called a "major game changer" that would boost educational options for families. The law was celebrated by GOP leaders, school choice advocates and parents already paying for private school who are now eligible for state assistance.
They argued families who never opted for free public schools still pay school taxes and so it makes sense to provide them school vouchers to help offset private school costs.
This week, the Archdiocese of Miami credited the new law with boosting enrollment at its Catholic schools and creating waitlists at some campuses. "Step Up Blew Up," it wrote on its website, like many, using Step Up as shorthand for Florida's school scholarship programs.
The archdiocese noted that at one Catholic school in Coral Gables, with about 900 students, the number of families receiving state scholarships leapt from 160 last year to more than 560 this year.
But the new law also faces fierce critics. They worry its price tag -- one estimate says it will cost the state $4 billion in its first years -- will devastate public school budgets and dislike that private schools that take vouchers face little regulation from the state.
"This is the design, to undermine our public schools," said Karen Castor Dentel, an Orange County School Board member during a board budget discussion earlier this month.
"The public dollars that they have given to private schools, those are our public school dollars that they are now giving to people to go to a private school," Castor Dentel said. "Those are public school dollars they are now handling over to unaccountable private schools where you don't have to have a qualified teacher."
Private schools that take state vouchers are mostly religious schools, and they make their own decisions as far as teacher qualifications, curriculum and facilities. Some have hired teachers without college degrees and employees with criminal convictions, set up in rundown buildings and offered curriculum outside mainstream academics, the Orlando Sentinel has reported.
Providing scholarships to families whose children already were in private school or were being homeschooled "is absolutely taking away from public school dollars," said Norin Dollard, a senior policy analyst with the Florida Policy Institute, a progressive think tank that warned in February that the new law would cost the state billions of dollars.
Dollard said the state earmarked about $3.3 billion for all its scholarship programs this school year and likely will run through that by the end of October, given the number of awards announced so far.