Florida’s school vouchers are working. That’s why they’re being sued | Opinion

Florida’s public schools are posting the highest graduation rate in state history. Per-student funding has risen 35% since 2018, outpacing inflation, according to state data. Hundreds of thousands of families have gained access to educational options that work for their children.

This week, a lawsuit filed by the Florida Education Association, the state’s teacher union, and allied public school advocates took aim at all of it.

The lawsuit challenges Florida’s educational scholarship programs — also known as school vouchers — on the theory that they undermine the state constitution’s requirement that Florida maintain “a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools.”

Florida’s scholarship programs allow each child to find the best education for them. Every child is eligible for a scholarship of approximately $8,000 that can be used toward private school, virtual school, home school, tutoring, therapy and even part-time public school classes.

According to the plaintiffs, directing public funds toward private educational options weakens public education and improperly sends taxpayer dollars to schools that are not subject to the same accountability structure as the public school system. At its core, the lawsuit attempts to pit Florida families against one another by portraying public schools and private schools as locked in a budgetary zero-sum game.

But the lawsuit’s central premise collapses under the weight of reality.

Nothing in the Florida Constitution’s mandate to maintain a strong public school system prohibits the state from also supporting private educational options. Nor does strengthening public education require limiting educational opportunities for families who choose alternative schools.

Florida has demonstrated that investing in educational opportunity and supporting strong public schools are not competing goals. They are complementary ones.

That is precisely what makes this lawsuit so misguided. Rather than recognizing that educational opportunity can coexist with strong public schools, the plaintiffs are asking Floridians to believe that helping one group of students — those in traditional public schools — comes at the expense of another: those attending private school on vouchers.

For families across Florida who rely on scholarship programs to access the educational environment best suited for their children, that argument is divisive and doesn’t reflect the results Florida has achieved.

Indeed, since Florida expanded educational choice, more than 500,000 students now participate in the state’s scholarship programs, while per-student public school funding rose from $8,560 in the 2018-19 school year to $11,531 in 2024-25 — a 35% increase that outpaced inflation over the same period, according to state data. And despite repeated claims that expanding scholarship programs would weaken public education, Florida’s public schools have continued to post record-setting outcomes, including the highest graduation rate in state history at 92.2%, according to the Florida Department of Education, and significant academic gains across virtually every major student subgroup.

Florida’s experience demonstrates that expanding educational opportunity strengthens outcomes for students across the board. That is why Teach Coalition, a national organization advocating for equitable government funding and educational opportunities for nonpublic schools, has long championed policies that expand educational opportunity and strengthen educational infrastructure for all students. Empowering families and investing in educational excellence are not mutually exclusive goals.

Floridians should urge their elected officials to continue investing in the infrastructure that makes genuine choice possible — strengthening schools across the board rather than pitting them against one another.

Interpreting Florida’s Constitution to mandate a zero-sum view of education is wrong as a matter of law, wrong as a matter of policy and ultimately bad for Florida’s children.

Sydney Altfield is CEO of Teach Coalition.