Matt Walsh: Court ruling puts school system ahead of children

Matt Walsh: Court ruling puts school system ahead of children

Pity the children.

The Florida Supreme Court's recent ruling that Gov. Jeb Bush's failing-school voucher program is unconstitutional is tantamount to issuing a 12-year jail sentence to hundreds of Florida kids stuck in lousy schools.

Once again, the government machinery - educrats who fought Bush's Opportunity Scholarship Program and now aided by liberal justices - scored another victory that entrenches the government- and union-conrolled state school system at the expense of the students.

Can you imagine, for instance, what Chief Justice Barbara Pariente would do if her child were stuck in one of Florida's failing schools? Leave her to waste away intellectually?

Or better still, imagine what Justice Pariente would do if she bought defective shoes? She'd demand her money back and go patronize another competing store.

But this is exactly what the justices said could not be done with the Opportunity Scholarship Program. Pariente and four of her colleagues said the OSP violates the 1998 amendment to the state constitution that says it is a "paramount duty" of the state to provide "a uniform" system of free public schools.

The court majority interpreted the law that gives students the opportunity to transfer equivalent dollars from a failing public school to a private school not to be a uniform system. They argued that private schools aren't required to follow the same standards as public schools. (Thank goodness!)

But as dissenting Justices Kenneth Bell and Raoul Cantero III argued, the majority's arguments are flawed. It's preposterous to argue that Florida has anything close to a "uniform" system of free public schools.

They are not free. If you add up the annual budgets of the four public school districts in the accompanying chart, the annual tax-appropriation in these four counties alone is $1.76 billion to educate 182,440 students. Maybe admission is "free," but ask the residents of Longboat Key, for instance, how "free" the schools are. Longboat property owners, the vast majority of whom have no children in public school, are coerced to pay more than $30 million a year to Sarasota and Manatee public schools.

More important is the court's argument about a "uniform" system. Again, look at the accompanying table. No one in his right mind would claim that the students in Collier, Lee, Manatee and Sarasota counties are receiving a uniform education. Just the budget expenditures per student tell you they are not.

Justices Bell and Cantero also punctured the majority's flimsy, liberal arguments this way:

"There is no language of exclusion in the text. Nothing in either the second or third sentence of article IX, section 1 requires that public schools be the sole means by which the state fulfills its duty to provide for the education of children. And there is no basis to imply such a proscription...

"... The text does not provide that the government's provision for education shall be 'by' or 'through' a system of free public schools. Without language of exclusion or preclusion, there is no support for the majority's finding that public schools are the exclusive means by or through which the government may fulfill its duty to make adequate provision for the education of every child in Florida..."

The clincher to the dissenting opinion is as follows:

"... It is nonsensical to hold that article IX allows the Legislature to fund education outside the public school system when the public school system fails to uphold its constitutional duty in regard to disabled students but prohibits it when that school system fails to uphold the duty in regard to disadvantaged students. The majority's distinction between 'special' and 'routine' in determining when the Legislature can provide education through a nonpublic school is untenable. As I said before, this is more of a policy distinction than a legal one, and absent an express or necessarily implied mandate to the contrary, our constitutional form of government leaves such policy distinctions to the legislative branch."

In other words, how can the courts reject the governor's Opportunity Scholarship Program when there are special education and college voucher programs operating similarly to the Bush plan?

What a pity. It now appears as if Gov. Bush won't have the support he needs in the Florida Senate to revise the voucher program or get a repeal of the 1998 "uniform" school amendment on the statewide ballot.

Defenders of the status quo in the public school system are thrilled that Bush's voucher program has been ruled unconstitutional.

But at what price the victory?

Take the 700 kids who transferred out of their poor-performing, failing schools. Even the justices of the Supreme Court should be able to see that none of these children benefits by being denied the opportunity to attend a school of their choice.

How to turn the school Titanic

Study the table above. One of the conclusions you might reach is that the more taxpayers spend per student the better the results. Sarasota County spends the most per student of the four Gulf Coast counties compared, and Sarasota's FCAT scores are the highest.

This, undoubtedly, gives fuel to the argument that one of the chief solutions to improving students' achievement levels is to raise taxes to spend more money on our public schools.

But be assured: Not much would change overall. The fundamentals would still be the same - a one-size-fits-all system that is not controlled by the customers but by the providers.

In Sarasota, for instance, Superintendent Gary Norris should be commended for his passion in trying to persuade taxpayers to extend a one-mill property tax four more years. Part of his pitch is to be able to have $306 million to implement what he calls his "Next Generation" learning plan.

Norris envisions every Sarasota public high school student enrolled in what he describes as "small learning communities in which students will have rigorous and relevant experiences around their career interest." It's intriguing and appealing.

But even in Sarasota, which isn't among Florida's largest school districts, implementing dramatic change is the proverbial "turning the Titanic," thanks to an entrenched teacher union culture.

There's a better, even more dramatic way. Imagine a world in which compulsory-attendance laws were abolished and parents owned the entire responsibility for their children's education.

Twenty years ago, a Christian school teacher in Oregon, Rolf McEwen, described such a world in an article for the Foundation for Economic Freedom:

"If it is in the interest of people to develop knowledge and skills to acquire desired employment and financial success, will they neglect their education? Quite the contrary, students will yearn more eagerly for education than they do under the compulsion of current law. They will perceive education not as a requirement, but as an opportunity. Administrators will not be burdened with trying to provide discipline for uninterested students, and schools would arise to meet the demands of various student interests and abilities. The market would soon be competing for students, and students would be competing for the best schools and the best teachers. The entire psychological atmosphere surrounding schools and education would be improved, would be more positive, and there would be excellence in a variety of programs. Of course, there would be some who would choose not to attend school. But those same students are not attending under the present circumstances."

Pipedream? Perhaps. But we'll never give up hope that one day the revolution will come. Parents and legislators will wake up to the fact that what we're doing now isn't working. Freedom and competition has always trumped government compulsion. - MW

Here's a comparison of Gulf Coast counties' school districts, showing how and where taxpayers' school tax dollars are spent. the bold-face figures highlight the greatest or least amounts. Figures are from the 2003-2004 year, the most recent available.

Collier Lee Manatee Sarasota

Total population 318,560 537,180 302,002 364,954

PK-12 Enrollment 39,344 65,535 38,632 38,929

Students per 1,000 population 123 122 128 106

Avg. Teacher Salary $44,847 $41,215 $40,081 $43,980

Basic K-12 Program Cost/Student $5,909 $5,315 $4,898 $6,282

Exceptional Student Cost/Student $11,209 $8,316 $9,408 $9,700

Total Educational Operational Cost/Student $6,926 $6,033 $6,014 $7,210

K-12 REVENUES

Local Property Tax Revenues $200,724,015 $264,514,949 $111,686,890 $223,682,403

Total Operating Revenues $293,964,058 $452,981,557 $261,870,021 $304,146,818

Local Operating Revenues $212,999,588 $285,122,004 $120,068,195 $236,402,529

State Operating Revenues $44,586,646 $113,867,782 $109,571,131 $42,385,272

% of Total Operating 15.10% 25.10% 41.80% 13.90%

Federal Operating Revenues $36,377,824 $53,991,770 $32,230,694 $25,359,016

Total Revenues (all sources) $403,411,642 $629,807,804 $332,574,455 $400,613,243

Total Revenues/Student $10,253 $9,610 $8,608 $10,290

K-12 EXPENSES

Total Operating $310,358,204 $454,695,551 $258,996,000 $306,788,961

Capital $150,992,569 $158,454,107 $93,961,332 $85,149,078

Total K-12 Expenses $486,127,941 $649,798,263 $375,990,998 $403,230,357

Instruction $178,796,264 $250,059,215 $153,951,999 $185,459,603

Instruction/Student $4,544 $3,815 $3,985 $4,764

% of Total Operating 57.60% 54.90% 59.40% 60.40%

Support $62,193,097 $95,533,545 $57,556,575 $57,617,657

% of Total Operating 20% 21.00% 22.20% 18.80%

Operations/Maintenance $39,136,452 $53,028,530 $25,660,958 $35,775,746

% of Total Operating 12.60% 11.60% 9.90% 11.60%

OPERATING MARGINS/RESERVES

Operating Revenues $293,964,058 $452,981,557 $261,870,021 $304,146,818

Operating Expenses $310,358,204 $454,695,551 $258,996,000 $306,788,961

Surplus (Deficit) ($16,394,146) ($1,713,994) $2,874,020 ($2,642,142)

Unreserved General Fund Balance $7,973,580 $46,830,122 $7,464,202 $61,004,088

% of K-12 General Fund 3.18% 11.99% 3.29% 22.42%

General Fund Assets $17,640,064 $84,899,316 $21,011,027 $71,795,972

General Fund Liabilities $5,143,497 $21,054,569 $6,657,470 $5,711,600

Current Position % of Oper. Revs 4.25% 14.09% 5.48% 21.73%

TAXES

Property Tax Revenue/Student $7,290 $5,319 $3,744 $7,392

Tax Rate/$1,000 Property Value 6.524 8.346 8.296 8.793

Taxable Property Value (in millions) $49,816,130 $47,018,010 $19,276,670 $37,099,290

Taxable Property Value/Student $1,254,623 $718,590 $490,437 $947,113

DEBT

Long-term Debt $295,489,707 $461,488,550 $213,009,503 $78,772,199

Long-Term Debt/Student $7,442 $7,053 $5,419 $2,011

Annual Debt Payments $24,777,168 $36,648,605 $23,033,665 $11,292,317

Debt Payments as % of Expenses 8.00% 8.10% 8.90% 3.70%

FCAT RESULTS

% At or Above Grade Level 2005

Grade 4

Reading 69% 71% 71% 78%

Math 67 64 59 71

Writing 90 90 89 93

Grade 10

Reading 29 30 30 39

Math 63 62 58 70

Writing 89 90 87 90

Source: Florida Department of Education