GAINESVILLE – Florida’s expansion of vouchers for families who want to enroll their children in private schools is leading to tighter budgets at public schools across the state.
In 2023, the Republican-led Legislature passed a bill that eliminated the income requirement for families to receive the vouchers, called family empowerment scholarships and Florida tax credit scholarships.
These vouchers, intended to help families who could not afford private education, allow for public state aid to be redirected to families to cover the costs of the private school.
State funding diverted to private school vouchers increased from 12% for the 2021 school year to 24% for the 2025 school year, according to data from the Florida Policy Institute, an Orlando-based nonprofit whose mission is to support equitable access to health care, education, housing and jobs.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP-led Florida Legislature praised vouchers as a way for more students to be able to attend private schools.
“Florida is No. 1 when it comes to education freedom and education choice, and today’s bill signing represents the largest expansion of education choice in the history of these United States.” DeSantis said in March 2023 when he signed the new law. “When you combine private scholarships, charter schools, and district choice programs, Florida already has 1.3 million students attending a school of their choosing.”
Then-Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, was a strong supporter of vouchers. When the Legislature passed the voucher bill, she said that public schools “will have a meaningful chance to compete right alongside other school choice options.”
Data from the Florida Policy Institute shows that the growing number of students using these vouchers since 2023 were not previously in public school; many students were already attending a private school and paying for it out of pocket. About 69% of students new to using the voucher were already enrolled in private schools, according to Step Up for Students, the nonprofit in charge of the scholarships.
These vouchers – and other reasons for declining enrollment – have led to declining funding among the largest school districts. Teachers say they are feeling the effects.
“Our public schools are struggling to make ends meet,” said Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association. “That means fewer programs for kids, larger class size for our students. It also is impacting teacher pay.”
Florida ranks 50th in the nation in average teacher pay, at $54,875, according to the National Education Association, one of the largest teacher unions. The Legislature in recent years has raised the minimum salaries for new teachers in Florida, which now ranks 17th in the U.S., at $48,639.
“Unlike in the private sector, as much as people who say this is about choice and this is about competition, it's about neither: it's about money,” Spar said.
Orange County is the fifth-most populated county in Florida. For the current school year, 24% of Orange County’s state aid is being redirected to vouchers, while enrollment in public schools has dropped only 3%.
Veteran Teacher, Laurie McLeod, has been teaching in Orange County schools since 1998; she has seen noticeable changes in the past couple of years.
“I have more students assigned to me personally than I have in the past six years,” she said. She added, “I have over 35 students in my advanced studies Cambridge classes.”
On top of increased class sizes, Mcleod reports cuts to intensive reading classes and stagnant teacher pay.
“We are underfunded, not because we're under-enrolled but because our money keeps going to private schools and businesses,” she said.
McLeod does not support the use of public dollars for private education.
“Private schools are a great option for families who want to pursue and pay for them, but I don't think that taxpayer dollars and public money should fund private schools.”
At least 17 states have at least one program in which public taxpayer money can be redirected to private schools.
“There's this scramble to survive in this political landscape; I don't think that public schools should be weaponized in any way.” Mcleod said.
The amount of money redirected from state aid for vouchers averages about $8,000 per student, meaning for every student that receives a voucher, that amount is reduced from the public school district where they live.
Florida’s voucher program, created in 2019, is funded with money from the Florida Education Financial Plan, the same source for public schools.
The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, created in 2001, allows businesses to receive a tax cut for every dollar they donate to a scholarship-funding organization.
Prior to 2023, both programs had income limits. Recipients could not exceed a certain percentage of the federal poverty level.
“I don't call them scholarships because scholarships implies that there's some kind of merit that is necessary to obtain them, so I call them school vouchers,” said Norín Dollard, senior policy analyst at Florida Policy Institute and director at Kids Count Data Center.
Dollard worked on a Voucher Budget Report in January, and most recently finished the 2025-26 Education Budget Report in August.
Dollard said $3.8 billion in Florida public school funds will be directed toward vouchers during this school year, compared to only $1.4 billion during the school year that started in 2022, when the income limit was first eliminated.
“These voucher expenditures have grown so exponentially” Dollard said. “They obviously threaten public schools and most of them go to folks who are already in private school, anyway.”
This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at kmccormack@freshtakeflorida.com.
