Jac VerSteegIf Florida lawmakers are such “school choice” advocates, they should give public schools the same choices enjoyed by the private voucher schools.
The voucher schools never were required to give students the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and won’t be required to administer the tests involved in Florida’s switch to a testing system based on Common Core State Standards.
Instead, the voucher schools administer standardized tests that are not comparable to the comprehensive public school tests. The private voucher schools – most of which are religious schools – also enjoy freedom from the school grading system that, despite its serious shortcomings, has become the be-all and end-all for Florida’s public schools.
The voucher programs raise money for student “scholarships” via a law that gives donors to the “scholarship” funds a dollar-for-dollar tax break. Critics say this amounts to giving public money to private religious schools, which is unlawful. And, critics say, vouchers violate Florida’s requirement to run a uniform system of education. Fresh legal challenges are attempting to gut the voucher programs.
But it is likely that, even if voucher opponents succeed in court, the Legislature’s voucher fans will come back with slightly modified versions. It will be a never-ending battle.
In that context, giving public schools the same options as private voucher schools – and vice-versa – could at least maintain the façade of a uniform education system. It also would answer the growing number of parents and educators who say Florida’s public school system is detrimentally awash in mandated high-stakes testing. And, appealing to conservatives, increasing public school testing options would allow public schools whose boards wish to do so to back away from the Common Core Standards that are anathema to some on the right.
It is a safe bet that not a single private voucher school would opt to start giving tests mandated for all public schools. It is not so clear how many public schools are run by elected boards that would opt to give the more generic standardized tests given by voucher schools.
But, obviously, giving public schools the option to mimic their voucher cousins would increase “school choice.” And, in whatever overlap there would be between voucher students and public school students taking the same set of tests, for the first time it would be possible to directly compare test scores of students in voucher schools to students in regular public schools. (This is something that, of course, voucher fans have tried since the beginning to avoid.)
It also would end a blatant inequity. Voucher proponents always have claimed that voucher kids don’t need to take the FCAT because parents are the best judge of whether their children are being well-educated. But if voucher parents can do that, why haven’t regular public school parents been allowed the same choice?
Voucher proponents – as well as charter school proponents – also have made the argument that parents of modest means should be able to have the same kind of choices enjoyed by wealthier parents who can afford private school tuition.
That might be the only example in which conservatives are bothered by the effects of the income gap. Nevertheless, a modified form of that argument also would justify allowing lower income public school students to sink or swim by the same tests taken by voucher students.
Jac Wilder VerSteeg is editor of Context Florida. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
