Monday, March 20, 2000 in Miami Herald
New York billionaire financier Ted Forstmann, who along with Wal-Mart fortune heir John Walton started a nationwide scholarship program for needy schoolchildren, has offered to pick up the tab for the 52 students now attending Pensacola private schools on the public’s dime.
Forstmann’s offer came after a Tallahassee judge ruled that Florida’s publicly funded vouchers for private schools — the cornerstone of Gov. Jeb Bush’s first year in office — violate the state Constitution.
The judge said the 52 children can finish out the term, but the state can’t pay their tuition next year. Bush has vowed to raise money to keep them in school, and a spokesman for Forstmann’s New York-based Children’s Scholarship Fund said Forstmann is willing to put up the estimated $185,000 it would cost to keep the students in the private schools next year. Forstmann has also offered to help pay for more schoolchildren who might qualify for vouchers if their schools flunk state standards again this spring.
Bush said he has spoken to the families in the Panhandle to assure them their children will remain in private schools next year.
“I’ve told them they don’t have to worry,” Bush said. “They don’t have to cut off their telephones or cut their cable off, or do other things, get a night job, which one of the ladies said she would do to make sure her child stayed in the school that was best for her.”
Meanwhile, Bush and his lawyers are trying to figure out their next move — whether to take their appeal of Circuit Judge L. Ralph Smith’s ruling straight to the state Supreme Court or take their chance at the First District Court of Appeal.
“We haven’t made the final decision, but we’ll make it probably early next week,” Bush said. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of give and take amongst the team on that.”
What’s at stake is timing, Bush said, and whether the administration can get what it expects will be a favorable court ruling in time for next fall.
“One of the factors is to determine how quickly the courts will respond, and frankly, I think the conclusion that we’ve made is that we have no control over that,” Bush said. “We have no certainty about timing once it gets into the court.”
Under the voucher program, students at schools that are graded F by the state on two out of four years can use tax dollars to attend another school of their choice, private or public.
House Republican leaders are looking at another way to save Bush’s centerpiece legislation: a proposed amendment to the state’s Constitution that would allow state money to be used for vouchers. One suggestion being proposed is an amendment that would say, not withstanding any other provision of the Constitution, the Legislature may create and pay for a program to help children attend private schools.
Smith ruled that because a 1998 amendment to the state Constitution guarantees a “high-quality system of free public schools,” lawmakers violated the Constitution by spending state money for some students to be educated in private schools.
House staffers said lawmakers believe they could fix the problem in November, rather than wait for a court decision.
Such legislation would require passage by a three-fifths vote each in the House and Senate, and would then have to be approved by voters.
It could be a tough sell. Though vouchers were on the Republican fast track, they passed by less than a three-fifths vote in the House, 70-48, and 25-14 in the Senate. A spokeswoman for Senate President Toni Jennings said the issue had not been raised in the Senate, and Jennings has not been interested in other efforts to override the judiciary.
Voters have been fickle about vouchers. Although Bush made his “opportunity scholarships” the cornerstone of his successful 1998 bid for the governorship, a majority of Florida voters said in an October 1999 survey that they oppose taxpayer-funded private schooling.
The statewide telephone survey of 600 voters, conducted by the Washington, D.C., research firm Schroth & Associates, found that 55 percent of voters oppose vouchers, with 38 percent supporting the concept. Seven percent didn’t answer the question or were undecided.
Bush’s office disputed the findings at the time, saying the poll reflected the feelings of a public influenced by news media that had “incorrectly portrayed” vouchers.
But a spokesman for one of the teachers’ unions that filed suit against vouchers said voters endorsed the 1998 amendment to the Constitution because they wanted more money for public schools.
“It’s arrogant of these legislators to try to go around the will of the people,” said Gary Landry, a spokesman for FEA-United. “I think voters have spoken already, and they’ll see this as an end run around what they’ve done and turn it down, hands down.”
Democrats criticized the governor and House Republicans for continuing to pursue a court battle to retain vouchers rather than putting effort into improving schools.
“Vouchers are soon to be dead, and it surprises me that they’ve got tons of energy when it comes to preserving vouchers, but none when it comes to making those schools better,” said Tony Welch, a spokesman for the Florida Democratic Party.
But Bush said his education plan is helping the poorly performing schools by directing more resources their way and forcing them to compete.
“It’s the catalyst for the improvement that we’ve seen,” Bush said. “There’s been a significant increase in funding for D and F schools that otherwise would have languished, that would not have gotten the money, that would not have gotten the attention.”