Florida's new voucher law allows private schools to boost revenue

[In It to Win It]

Tampa Bay Times

Preparing for classes to resume next fall, St. Paul Catholic School in St. Petersburg told its families not to expect much difference in its tuition charges.

That changed after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a measure making state-funded private school vouchers of about $8,000 available to all school-age children, regardless of income. That’s the approximate amount Florida will pay next year to educate most students in public schools.

After consulting the Diocese of St. Petersburg, parents and other area Catholic schools, “we decided that we need to take maximum advantage of this dramatically expanded funding source,” Monsignor Robert Gibbons, the St. Paul pastor, said in a YouTube video the school shared publicly.

“Otherwise,” he added, “we would be negligent.”

So instead of paying $6,000 per child, families at the school who are St. Paul parish members will now be charged $10,000 per child. Nonmembers will be charged $12,000 per child, instead of $7,000. Discounts for multiple-student families will be eliminated.

With $8,000 from the state covering most of that cost, families will owe far less than what they had been paying and the school will receive more.

“If we don’t take full advantage of this funding source, we will be leaving money on the table and it will revert back to the state,” Gibbons said in the video, listing teacher pay raises and capital improvement projects among the areas the school would bolster with the added revenue.

[Takket]

1. how come you can get a voucher without a means test but food stamps without a means test is

considered an abomination?

[BOSSHOG]

2. Another justification to do away with

The separation of church and state and turn loose the assessors.

Catholics know how to whine and spend billions on themselves

I was born, raised and groomed Catholic but the spell didn’t stick. And my work is more Christian then those who value fetuses.

[Freethinker65]

3. Are these Private schools banned from teaching certain subjects and subject to book bans?

If they are able to take taxpayer money, they should be required to provide inadequate education just like the public schools.

Many private schools, including Catholic ones, provide rigorous academic educations. They should all be subject to DeSantis' dumbing down of Florida education if they accept taxpayer money.