Gov. Ron DeSantis released his proposed education budget this week, and despite asking the Legislature for a historic $29.7 billion for K-12 education, and Florida's largest teachers union says it’s not enough.
DeSantis asked for a record $1.5 billion for teacher pay, an increase of about $246 million. He’s also asked for about $1.7 billion for early childhood education.
Yet, many teacher advocates are concerned that the budget only increases per pupil spending by about $222 dollars at a time of record inflation. That includes the Florida Education Association teachers union.
“The fact that school districts are having to buy materials and supplies and resources and spending at a much higher rate now, as every family is, right, and to not give enough resources to our districts to make sure we're meeting the needs of students, is a failure, in my mind,” said Andrew Spar, the union's director.
Spar said he’s also worried that $3 billion of the budget is earmarked for the state’s universal voucher program, which he said siphons money away from public schools.
He said the impacts of underfunding and understaffing public schools can be seen in the state’s latest Nation’s Report Card. Students’ math and English scores in Florida plummeted to the lowest in over 20 years.
“Draining dollars out of public schools leaves our public schools short on the ability to really meet the needs of every child, and we cannot forget even with the voucher program here in Florida, the overwhelming majority of students in this state attend their neighborhood public school,” said Spar.
DeSantis says vouchers make getting a high-quality education without going into debt possible for all students.
In a statement, the governor said his education budget “continues to drive Florida’s education forward by investing in our students and families and providing them with choices that best fit their needs.”
Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that administers most of the vouchers, said it has already received a record 120,000 applications since its portal opened Saturday. During the previous cycle, the portal received 72,596 applications over the first few days.
While announcing the budget Monday, DeSantis highlighted raises for teachers, and an additional $632 million for Florida’s Bright Future scholarships, which provide funding for college education to qualifying students.
“We're very proud of the fact that if you're a good student and you want to attend one of our state universities, and you got the grades and you got the board scores that you can get a free ride, or 75% depending on where you rank,” said DeSantis. “That makes getting a quality education without going deep into debt, something that is attainable for all these talented, hard-working students.”
He also noted that the budget ensures that there won’t be any tuition or fee increases at Florida’s public universities or colleges again this year.
“We want it to be affordable for people. And as somebody who, I had to work all these jobs when I was kind of going through and playing sports, which is fine, but I also had to take out loans,” said DeSantis. “Isn't it great where you can go, if you're a good student, and you can get it paid to go to a really high-quality school?”
Here are major highlights from the education budget:
- $1.5 billion, an increase of $246.7 million, in funding for salary increases for eligible teachers and other instructional personnel.
- $1.76 billion in funding for early child education, including a total of $465.8 million for Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten initiatives.
- $29.7 billion in funding, of which $16.1 billion is record state funding, for K-12 public schools. This covers costs associated with the projected statewide enrollment of over 3.2 million students, including almost 358,000 projected to participate in the Family Empowerment Scholarship program.
- $1.7 billion in operating funding for the Florida College System.
- $3.9 billion in operating funding for the State University System.
- $130 million in total funding to reward quality nursing education programs to address nursing vacancies.
- $100 million for the State University System for the recruitment and retention of highly qualified faculty.
- $632 million for the projected student enrollment for the Bright Futures Scholarship program.
- $146.5 million for Florida’s historically Black colleges and universities: $17 million in operating funds for Bethune-Cookman University, $7 million in operating funds for Florida Memorial University, $7.5 million in operating funds for Edward Waters University, $115 million in operating funds for Florida A&M University.
Read over the governor’s full education budget below:
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