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Disney tickets, PS5s, and big-screen TVs: Florida parents exploit DeSantis’ school vouchers Judd Legum
Florida parents are taking advantage of an expanded school voucher program championed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R), according to messages from private Facebook groups obtained by Popular Information. The private Facebook messages reveal how parents are using the new Personalized Education Program (PEP), which provides about $8,000 annually to thousands of homeschooled students to get taxpayer-funded theme park passes, big-screen TVs, and other items with an attenuated connection to education. PEP is limited to 20,000 students for the 2023-24 academic year but will expand dramatically in future years, increasing by 40,000 students annually.
In one exchange posted in a private Facebook group last month, a parent inquires if anyone has had luck getting passes to Disney World approved through the program. Another parent responds that she was able to get passes for Disney World and Universal Studios paid for with taxpayer funds.
The members of the group then discuss how to characterize unlimited annual and semi-annual passes in order to secure approval.
Voucher funds are available to many more students this academic year as a result of legislation signed by DeSantis last March. DeSantis hailed the new law as “the largest expansion of education choice in the history of these United States.” Previously, the voucher program was restricted mostly to low-income families. The money could only be used for private school tuition or transportation to an out-of-district public school. The new law eliminated the income caps and allowed thousands of homeschooled students to receive the approximately $8,000 voucher as an Educational Savings Account, which can be used for any approved expense. (Students who attend private school and have leftover funds can now also spend the money this way.) A small number of these accounts existed prior to the new law, but they were limited to students with special needs.
Florida has delegated the administration of the vouchers to two private non-profit organizations, Step Up for Students and AAA Scholarship Foundation. These non-profits generate revenue based on how many students they can attract. So, they are incentivized to meet the demands of parents who receive vouchers.
As the Tampa Bay Times reported, Step Up for Student’s new guide to approved expenses for recipients of PEP vouchers in the 2023-24 academic year authorizes the purchase of theme park tickets. Theme park tickets were previously a prohibited expense, but Step Up for Students’ “reconsidered after hearing from parents about the potential benefits.”
In another private Facebook message obtained by Popular Information, dated August 9, one parent laments that she has an “old” TV that “could really use replacing.” She asks whether she could use voucher funds to replace the TV if she was also buying a “screen and projector.” One group member tells her that she can buy a new 55-inch TV while another assures her she can buy “all three” — the new TV, a screen, and a projector — with voucher funds.
The Step Up for Students purchasing guide authorizes the purchase of TVs up to 55 inches. Public schools also purchase televisions but those are used by hundreds or thousands of students. Televisions purchased through the PEP voucher program will only benefit a few students, at most.
In another August 2023 message, a parent sorts through the logistics of using taxpayer funds to buy “an $800 lego set for my kid for Christmas.”
Step Up for Students permits all voucher recipients to spend up to $400 annually on Legos.
In a private Facebook message dated June 12, a parent says their PlayStation 3 “isn’t doing great,” and she needs “to get something new.” She asks whether she will be reimbursed for a $500 PlayStation 5 bundle that includes “God of War,” even though the game is “not age appropriate” for her 5-year-old daughter.
Step Up for Students authorizes voucher funds to purchase video game consoles, but only for special needs students. Other approved expenses for all homeschooled students this academic year include swing sets, foosball tables, air hockey tables, skateboards, kayaks, standup paddleboards, dolls, and stuffed animals.
Jeanne Allen, founder of the National Center for Education Reform and a proponent of vouchers, defended these kinds of expenditures in an interview. Allen said, “young people today… expect 21st century approaches to learning and recreational opportunities for their physical and mental well-being.”
While Florida spends billions on vouchers, the state’s public school teachers remain underpaid
The Florida voucher program for homeschooled students is part of a larger and rapidly expanding state voucher program. Doug Tuthill, President of Step Up For Students, posted on August 26 that his organization had already awarded vouchers to 410,000 full-time students.
With an average award of about $8,000, that means Florida is spending over $3.3 billion on these student vouchers. And there are many more students who receive vouchers through AAA Scholarship Foundation. Many students will use their vouchers to pay for private school tuition. Beneficiaries include wealthy families who have sent their children to private schools for years without subsidies.
Holly Bullard, Chief Strategy Officer for the Florida Policy Institute, told Popular Information that the “real scandal” is that, while DeSantis pumps billions into vouchers, Florida teachers are grossly underpaid compared to their counterparts in other states.
According to the National Education Association, Florida K-12 teachers were paid an average of $51,230 during the 2021-22 academic year, which ranked 48th in the nation. The national average was $66,745. Florida also ranks 43rd in the amount spent per public school student. Moreover, many Florida teachers “spend their own money on necessary classroom supplies.” According to A Gift for Teachers, a central Florida non-profit that purchases school supplies, “some teachers will spend up to $500 or more.”
The underinvestment in Florida public schools is having an impact on teacher recruitment and retention. The Florida Education Association reports that, as the new school year starts, there are “8,000 teachers and 6,000 support staff vacancies across the state.” The group describes the situation as “one of the worst teacher shortage situations in the nation.”
Yesterday, U.S. officials arrested Ismael Zambada García, or “El Mayo,” cofounder of the violent and powerful drug trafficking organization the Sinaloa Cartel, and Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of its other cofounder. That other cofounder, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, or “El Chapo,” is already incarcerated in the U.S., as are another of El Chapo’s sons, alleged cartel leader Ovidio Guzmán López, and the cartel’s alleged lead hitman, Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, or “El Nini.”
In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said: “Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.” El Mayo has been charged with drug trafficking and money laundering.
U.S. officials exploited rifts in the cartel to get Guzmán López to bring El Mayo in. The successful and peaceful capture of the two Sinaloa Cartel leaders contrasts with Trump’s insistence that the U.S. must bomb or invade Mexico to damage the cartels, a position echoed by Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and increasingly popular in the Republican Party. Mexico, which is America’s biggest trade partner, staunchly opposes such an intervention. Opponents note that such military action would do nothing to decrease demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. and would increase the numbers of asylum-seekers at the border as their land became a battleground.
Trump seems to think that governance is about dominance, but that approach often runs afoul of the law. Today the Justice Department reached a $2 million settlement with former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who became the butt of Trump’s attacks after their work on the FBI investigation into the ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. Trump’s Department of Justice released text messages between the two journalists. Today’s settlement appears to reflect that the release likely violated the Privacy Act, which bars the government from disclosing personal information.
Tonight, speaking to Christians at the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump made his plans to become a strongman clear: “Get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what: it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians…. Get out, you’ve got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”
This chilling statement comes after Trump praised autocratic Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán in his speech at the Republican National Convention last week and then publicly praised China’s president Xi Jinping for being “brilliant” because he “controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.” It should also be read against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States that a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his “official duties.”
The Harris campaign reacted to Trump’s dark statements by ridiculing them, and him: “Tonight, Donald Trump couldn’t pronounce words [he mispronounced “landslide” as “land slade], insulted the faith of Jewish and Catholic Americans, lied about the election (again), lied about other stuff, bragged about repealing Roe, proposed cutting billions in education funding, announced he would appoint more extremist judges, revealed he planned to fill a second Trump term with more criminals like himself, attacked lawful voting, went on and on and on, and generally sounded like someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant—let alone be President of the United States.
“America can do better than the bitter, bizarre, and backward looking delusions of criminal Donald Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris offers a vision for America’s future focused on freedom, opportunity, and security.”
Harris continually refers to Trump as a criminal in her speeches, but her campaign has taken the approach of referring to him and J.D. Vance as weirdos. On Tuesday, Minnesota governor Tim Walz said, “These guys are just weird.” Senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Brian Schatz of Hawaii recorded a video together about Vance’s “super weird,” “bananas,” and “offensive” idea that people with children should be assigned additional votes for each child, making their wishes count more than people without children.
As J.D. Vance continues to step on rakes, the “weird” label seems correctly to label the MAGAs as outside the mainstream of American thought. Today, Vance doubled down on his denigration of women who have not given birth as “childless cat ladies” but assured voters he has nothing against cats. In addition, a video surfaced of Vance calling for the federal government to stop women in Republican-dominated states from crossing state lines to obtain abortions.
Mychael Schnell of The Hill reported today that while MAGA Republican lawmakers like Vance, a number of House Republicans are bashing his selection as the vice presidential candidate. “He was the worst choice of all the options,” one said. “It was so bad I didn’t even think it was possible.”
“The prevailing sentiment is if Trump loses, [it’s] because of this pick,” another said, a sentiment that suggests Vance will be a scapegoat if Trump loses. Considering what happened to Trump’s last vice president after Trump blamed him for an election loss, Vance might have reason to be concerned.
Last night’s “Answer the Call” Zoom has now raised more than $8.5 million for Harris; the organizers thanked Win With Black Women “for showing us how it’s done.” Today the Future Forward PAC, which had threatened to hold back $90 million in spending if Biden stayed at the head of the ticket, began large advertising purchases in swing states for Harris.
Carl Quintanilla of CNBC reported that a week ago, those on a phone call of more than 400 people from Bank of America’s Federal Government Relations Team believed that a Trump victory was a “foregone conclusion.” Now that conviction is gone. “[T]here’s been a palpable sentiment reversal.”
The Harris campaign announced that it will launch 2,600 more volunteers into its ground game in Florida, a state where abortion rights will be on the ballot this fall, likely turning out voters for the Democratic ticket. The volunteers will write postcards, make phone calls, and knock on doors.
Today, Vice President Kamala Harris filled out the paperwork officially declaring her candidacy for president of the United States.
Notes:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/us/sinaloa-cartel-ismael-zambada-custody-report/index.html
https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/mexico-surpasses-china-us-biggest-trading-partner-exports/
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/10/gop-bomb-mexico-fentanyl-00091132
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/26/peter-strzok-lawsuit-settlement-00171498
https://www.vox.com/culture/363230/jd-vance-couch-sex-hillbilly-elegy-rumor-false
https://thehill.com/homenews/4793818-vance-vp-trump-house-republicans/
https://ballotpedia.org/Florida_Amendment_4,_Right_to_Abortion_Initiative_(2024)
X:
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Oh, no, it’s the sister again, for another slow news week. Let’s get to it.
→ Biden dropped out: Six years ago emotionally, but technically this past Sunday, Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. He did it via X and promptly threw his support (and cash) behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Then he got Covid and hunkered down in Delaware—or depending on what hooch you’ve been drinking, died and was reanimated so he could appear before the cameras on Wednesday to address the nation. Joe’s family, including Hunter, sat along the wall of the Oval Office as he spoke. The president talked about the cancer moonshot, ending the war in Gaza, putting the party over himself, and Kamala’s tenacity, as Kamala’s pistol dug ever-so-slightly harder into his back. Right after, Jill, the First Lady of passive aggression, who apparently wanted to outdo her heart emoji, tweeted a handwritten note “to those who never wavered, to those who refused to doubt, to those who always believed.” I respect a First Lady who stands by her man and her energetic stepson. A First Lady who sees the high road way up there and says to herself, “If they want us out of here so bad, they can clean out the fridge and strip the beds themselves!”
→ Kamala is brat, Biden is boots, please God send the asteroid today: I’ve learned the hard way—and by that I mean my parents once asked me what “WAP” meant—that certain things should never be explained with words. It’s not that it’s impossible, it’s just that it embarrasses everyone.
That’s how I feel about the whole Kamala-is-brat thing. Brat is a good album about partying and getting older and having anxiety that was released earlier this summer by Charli XCX. But it’s since been adopted by too-online and very young people as a personality, and by Kamala Harris’s campaign as a mode to relate to those very young people. Her campaign is leaning into the whole green look of the album to try and win over Gen Z, and generally recasting her many viral moments—“You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” “I love Venn diagrams” “What can be, unburdened but what has been”—as calling cards. It’s like when Hillary went on Broad City, only this time more cringe.
And now we have Jake Tapper and Greg Gutfeld grappling with the “essence” and the “aesthetic” and overall vibe of brat girl summer. We used to be a serious country. We used to make things.
Here’s the thing about Kamla: she is hilarious and campy, but unintentionally so. Any goodwill that her goofy dances or weird turns of phrase garner should be considered bonus points, not game play. Was there ever any doubt that Fire Island would go blue? We’ve been debating whether Kamala’s meme campaign is a good move for her prospects in the Free Press Slack, and here I’ll borrow from my older and wiser colleague Peter Savodnik: “There is nothing more pathetic than an older person who cares what a younger person thinks is cool.”
→ Boomer behavior: While Kamala’s campaign is being run by a 24-year-old twink with an Adderall prescription, J.D. Vance’s speechwriter seems to be a drunk Boomer who just got kicked out of a 7-11. Vance, appearing this week at a rally in Middletown, Ohio, riffed, “Democrats say that it is racist to believe. . . well, they say it’s racist to do anything. I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today, and I’m sure they’re going to call that racist too.” Crickets. Horror. Major “Thanks, Obama” energy. There was also a bit on fried bologna sandwiches and a lot of “lemme tell you another story.” The guy is 39 but sounds older than Biden.
Fresher, 35-to-60-year-old blood is exactly what we’ve been begging for. Let the Boomers boom, let the Zoomers zoom. Kamala and J.D.: act your age.
July 26, 2024 Heather Cox Richardson
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