MIAMI — With a stroke of his pen, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the ability for all students in the Sunshine State to attend a charter or private school, with few exceptions — the largest expansion of school choice in the state's history.
HB 1, an in-depth 114-page bill, expands the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program to all Florida students. This means parents can receive a voucher for their child to attend a participating private or charter school, regardless of income or where they live.
All the schools must do to participate in the program is to meet certain baseline requirements, DeSantis said.
DeSantis and other Florida leaders attending Monday's news conference at Christopher Columbus High School touted this bill as the largest expansion of "education freedom."
"Parents are going to be able to have the ability to get money for their student, for their child, and they can do tuition. They're also going to be able to use it for other things like tutoring and for other things that can be very important in a child's development and wellbeing," DeSantis said Monday.
Critics of the legislation like Andrew Spar, who is the president of the Florida Education Association, say it misuses public tax dollars for private schools that don't have to follow the same state education regulations.
“The universal voucher bill signed today by Gov. DeSantis will drain billions of taxpayer dollars away from the neighborhood public schools that nearly 90 percent of Florida’s parents trust to educate their children," Spar said in a statement. "Additionally, this new law will hand over that public money to unaccountable, corporate-run private schools."
"Average Floridians will be helping pay for millionaires and billionaires to send their kids to elite private schools that hand-select their students," the statement continued. "Once again, we see Gov. DeSantis putting his political ambitions ahead of Floridians, including our students. We are deeply concerned that children will pay the ultimate price for the governor’s politics.”
But Hera Varmah says she utilized the scholarship during some of her time in K-12, and she says it changed the trajectory of her life. She spoke in favor of the bill becoming law during DeSantis' news conference and bill signing.
“It takes the choice out of the legislators' hands, and puts it back into the parent's hands,” she said previously. “Parents know their children the best, and they make the best decisions for their child, so why not give them the option to choose what school best fits them?”
Varmah also says the expansion would help parents who have children with special needs find schools that best support their students.
Previous reporting contributed to this report.