Starting this coming school year, Florida students in K-12 schools will be eligible to receive approximately $8,000 to use towards tuition and other educational expenses, with no income eligibility requirements.
This expansion revolutionizes the school choice movement, not just in Florida, but across the country. Agudath Israel of America’s Florida office is grateful to Governor Ron DeSantis and to all of the legislators that took this bold step in paving the highway of opportunity and success for all our children.
“It was an honor to be with Governor Ron DeSantis and legislative leaders at the signing of this historic bill,” said Rabbi Moshe Matz, executive director of Agudath Israel’s Florida office. “Agudath Israel has had the privilege of working with a dedicated school choice coalition in Florida for more than twenty years. So many people helped along the way, but no one deserves more thanks than the parents who shared their stories, marched to Tallahassee, and have waited so long for this day.”
“Florida is just an example of what can be accomplished across the country,” said Rabbi A.D. Motzen, Agudath Israel of America’s national director of government affairs. “Our Agudah directors have been at the forefront of the school choice movement on the state and federal levels and we look forward to working with coalition partners, elected officials, and families to ensure that every parent in every state has the opportunity to choose the educational setting that best meets the need of their child.”
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14 Responses
Schools will just raise the tuition $8,000. parents will never see a dollar.
NY has free universal pre k. Did anybody ever get a discount on tuition after getting thousands from the government for a Pre-K kid
The incentives to move to Florida for frum families is huge now.
So the schools will charge $20k for tuition and the parents will still be on the hook for 12k so at the end of the day working class parents will still struggle
comments here are correct
all benefits will go to school
not parents
just like PPP CARes
sba loans etc……
during covid schools were on zoom schools never gave a penny back to parents
a private business that hooks in the oilam
Great news. Competition among existing and new schools will assure that the benefit of this voucher program will accrues to families.
I am afraid I agree withYossies, YG and GIT Meshige. Almost all Yeshivos need to raise funds outside of tuition in order to survive. This will lift the burden off the Yeshiva administration, not off the parents.
besalel, you are no doubt correct regarding the need for fundraising but I would not be too pessimistic. If you have School A which fails to continue its fundraising in earnest and simply raises tuition by $8K per year, and School B which continues its fundraising as before and thus effectively offers an $8K discount (i.e., the voucher) per student, which school will end up being the choice of parents (all other things being equal, of course)? Thus, I do think administrations will need to be attentive to this.
Regarding upk: frum schools generally get funding for half day upk so the yeshiva (and by extension the parents) are still on the hook for the morning.
ohrchadash1. That’s an administrator answer. The realityy is Parents don’t get any break for upk.
My bill this year for Pre-K is Zero. You need to do your homework to get quality and the right price. They can still make a killing $8,000 a child times 35 children in a class $280,000 teacher cost about $70,0000. Plus lunch program. They should break even.
Do you really think that schools would have the audacity to get up one random day and raise the tuition another 8,000? Don’t think so…
And folks will choose to move to FL due to this entitlement.
The state of florida already pays $5,000.00 per year for every child enrolled in a private school.
So now that the state of florida will start paying out $8,000.00 per year, that is an increase per child of $3,000.00
The local Jewish school that passes on the full benefit to the parents, will charge you next year (and subsequent years) $3,000.00 less than they charged you this year.
If your child is enrolled in a private Jewish school that refuses to reduce tuition by at least $2,500.00 you can always switch to one of the many chabad schools (which usually charge a lower tuition to begin with; one of the chabad schools in south florida, is:Lubavitch Hebrew Academy (located in Margate).
Hopefully, many Jewish parents who don’t yet enroll their children in Jewish schools, will start enrolling their children in Jewish schools, especially since the annual contribution of the parents will be merely $4,000.00 per child (or less), depending on the particular school