DeSantis Upbeat About Education Priorities

DeSantis Upbeat About Education Priorities

By The News Service of Florida Staff

With this year’s legislative session in its final three weeks, Gov. Ron DeSantis took time Monday to rally support for his education priorities at a Tampa Christian school. He told a crowd that he thinks his administration is on track to deliver on a number of his priorities this session, his first as governor.

His education agenda includes proposals that would expand school choice with a new voucher program, give bonuses to teachers, put in place a bad-actor list for certain education employees and bolster vocational training programs.

“I think that when we are committed to that broad mosaic in Florida, we are going to have an array of options for people so that the parents can look and make the best decisions for their kids,” DeSantis said.

State lawmakers, whose annual session is slated to end May 3, have been moving forward with proposals that are similar to the priorities of the governor. But both legislative chambers and the governor’s office differ on details.

That includes differences on DeSantis’ top education priority: creating a new state-funded voucher program that would send low-income children to private schools. Both the House and the Senate want to create the program, but requirements on student eligibility and household income thresholds vary.

4 Responses to "DeSantis Upbeat About Education Priorities"

  1. Jason, schools receive an allotted amount of money for every student, it’s called FTE money. Basically, if you wish to send your child to a private school you can transfer them and the FTE money will follow them to a private school. It won’t cost you any extra tax money since your already paying it. I really like this idea because it opens up options to send your kid to a school that doesn’t have as many social problems.

  2. Shouldn’t Rocky Hanna be charged with filing and false report to state and federal authorities? After all he did admit to the school board attorney had no knowledge of any wrongdoing. He filed a false report costing taxpayers $600,000. Why is our elected school board silent when someone cost them $600,000 by filing a false report?

  3. Does anyone know what is meant by “creating a new state-funded voucher program that would send low-income children to private schools”? It reads like tax payers will be forced to pay for private school for other people’s children, even if they can’t afford it for their own kids.

  4. I hope that Tallahassee Reports has sent the two informative articles about the unbelievable homeschool enrollment and the lack of oversight by Leon Schools to the Commissioner of Education and Governor. This along with Rocky Hanna’s bullying tactics toward charter schools along with his deliberate misleading of state and federal authorities are ethical violations warranting suspension from office for gross malfeasance. In addition, one can only wonder what the school board members remain silent on the issue of Rocky Hanna costing taxpayers over $600,000 on an investigation that Rocky admitted to the school board attorney that he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing.

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