Florida’s Commissioner of Education wants to see the state’s $4.5 billion school voucher system supersized by changing the way the state channels public education dollars. The Florida voucher program is already the largest in the country, by a long shot.
At a Board of Governors meeting on Thursday at Florida International University, Commissioner Henry Mack told WLRN the state’s education landscape can only benefit from increased competition with public schools.
“The more money that can go to vouchers the better,” Mack said.
The universal voucher program is already transforming traditional and charter public schools across the state. In Miami-Dade County Public Schools this year, the state sent more taxpayer money to vouchers used for private education than it did for the district. Of the $1.5 billion the state allocates to the district, a bigger portion — $766 million — is going to vouchers.
Across the state, schools are closing at quick rates due to fewer students attending public school. The increased access to vouchers has captured young students who, in the past, would have started their K-12 schooling at their local public school. With an announced expansion of vouchers, the underenrollment crisis in school districts is sure to intensify.
“What I think you're seeing right now is a right-sizing in the education market because we're adopting free principles of economics and applying it to education,” said Mack.
The state enrollment forecast predicts that statewide enrollment in the universal voucher program is expected to grow to 618,0400 students in 2031. That means a smaller cut for school districts and the students within them.
Money for school vouchers, or scholarships, as the state calls them, flows through districts first. Voucher money and money intended for public schools and home schools gets mixed up and makes it harder to track where the funding goes.
By state law, vouchers "may not" be awarded to school districts if the amount going to vouchers exceeds 99% “of the school district’s share of state funding.” The law acts as a cap on the statewide voucher program on a district-by-district level — vouchers cannot fully swallow up state money meant for K-12 education in traditional public schools and public charter schools.
Mack wants to get rid of the limitation on vouchers that's baked into the formula the state uses to disburse state education money.
“ We're taking that cap out of the funding formula. Or — we're trying to propose taking it out,” he said.
“ In truth, there's no cap on the voucher program at the moment. However, the way the districts are appropriated, the money can appear as if there's a shortfall of funding for choice and optionality that needs to be resolved,” he added.
WLRN asked Mack's office for a more detailed breakdown of the proposal but did not receive an immediate response. The Florida Legislature begins its organizational meetings for the 2027 legislative session later this month. No bills have been filed yet.
The state formula, called the Florida Education Finance Program, requires the Department of Education to send a certain amount of money to each school district based on a complex calculation. In the most recent calculation, Monroe County in the Florida Keys and Charlotte County had over 71% of mandatory state funding go toward vouchers, the two highest in the state. Sarasota County followed with just over 70%. Collier, Indian River, Jefferson and Palm Beach counties all had over 60% of mandatory state funding going to vouchers, according to state data.
On top of the required funding, the department sends discretionary funding to districts.
If the proposed removal of the 99% cap is approved by lawmakers, some school districts might receive zero mandatory direct state funding, although they would still be eligible for discretionary funding.
The sheer amount of money going to vouchers has already made districts more reliant on discretionary funding in recent years. For example, Miami-Dade received $178 million in discretionary funding this school year. A whopping 76% of money required to go to the district by the formula went to vouchers in the district; the discretionary funding put some of that money back.
Overall, Mack's proposal would make local school districts much more dependent on discretionary funding controlled by the Florida Department of Education.
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Mack said that as the cap on vouchers is raised, he wants to ease restrictions on how public schools spend state money that is given to them. The state currently sets limitations on how much money can be spent on teacher salaries, how much on buses, how much on textbooks and other line items.
“We control those categoricals pretty rigidly,” said Mack. " If we want real [school] choice and optionality, the public schools deserve greater flexibility, too. The superintendents deserve greater flexibility, at least in terms of what they do with their money and how they spend it."
“ I think the legislature will consider freeing up how money is appropriated to school districts so that school districts can thrive in the competitive market now," he said.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and Governor-elect Republican Byron Donalds both hinted that changes to the statewide school formula were being considered. But the hints that came just after Election Day were short on specifics.
The universal voucher program has caused numerous issues for the state government since it was introduced in 2023.
The initial rollout deeply impacted schools that serve students with disabilities, a group that had access to vouchers before the program went universal. As WLRN reported last year, state funding for those schools was in some cases lost as the program rapidly expanded.
The Florida Auditor General last year concluded the state Department of Education was riddled with pitfalls in how it manages vouchers, resulting in vouchers receiving $398 million more than what was originally allocated to them.
On Friday, Governor-elect Byron Donalds addressed that fiasco. He said the main problem was how students are counted throughout the school year. The structure of checking enrollment three times a year is due for an update, he said, because of how much and often students move schools at any given point of the school year.
“That was basically built when you had a traditional public school environment where you knew there wasn't really much movement amongst children,” Donalds told WLRN. “That's going to change.”
To be sure, the legislature has tried to change how the state handles education funding. State Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Crestview, proposed legislation last year that would have separated public school funding from voucher money to prevent chaos and mismanagement. It passed the Senate but failed the House.
Miami-Dade school board member Roberto Alonso told WLRN that he agrees with the direction the state is going under Mack's leadership with regards to school vouchers.
" I have the ultimate faith in the Commissioner of Education, the state legislature, as well as our new incoming governor and even Gov. DeSantis, and the work that they've done," he said. "It's something new. Everything new in life is gonna have its challenges. But the important thing that we're seeing is that families are happy. They're finally being able to decide where it is that their child is going, and I think that's important. But yes, guardrails do need to put in place."
"The approach is real simple. The dollars have to follow the students, and the families are the ones that decide where it is that they want those dollars invested when it comes to their child's education," Alonso said.
Governor-elect Donalds said that no matter what happens in the coming years with traditional public school closures that are already in the works, public schools are "not going anywhere."
" They're gonna be with us for a very, very long time," said Donalds. "They have a lot of the infrastructure. They're embedded in communities all through the state."
