Sunshine Sentinel

More than 130,000 K-12 students would lose their scholarships and be required to attend their local public schools if Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden wins the White House.

Biden has vowed to end school choice programs, effectively terminating state-facilitated funding for students attending 1,825 private schools in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Education.

During the 2018-19 school year, state scholarships in the amount of $1.01 billion were awarded to a total of 149,470 Florida K-12 students enrolled in 1,825 participating Florida private schools.

Florida state taxpayers spent $23.9 billion on public K-12 education in 2019-20.

Biden, a staunch ally of public school employee unions, has promised he will aggressively pursue their political agenda if he wins the White House in November. .

“You don’t just have a partner in the White House, you’ll have an NEA (National Education Association) member in the White House,” Biden told teachers union leaders after receiving their endorsement last month. 

The National Education Association, which claims more than 137,000 members here through its state affiliate the Florida Education Association, wants to do away with school choice programs like Florida’s, which force public schools to compete for students with charter, private and Catholic operators.

Florida has several “school choice” programs, all inaugurated in 2001 by then-GOP Governor Jeb Bush.

It’s largest, the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program, awards scholarships to children from low-income families. McKay and Gardiner Scholarships are reserved for students with disabilities. Hope scholarships go to students who have been the victims of crime.

The state’s newest program, Family Empowerment Scholarships, were signed into law last year as part of the largest state school choice expansion in U.S. history. These private school vouchers aimed at low and middle income families; 18,000 students received them in the program’s first year and 35,000 were on waiting lists.

Approximately 13 percent of Florida K-12 students attend private schools.

Biden, 77, attended Catholic grammar and high schools himself as a boy in Scranton, Pennsylvania. and Wilmington, Delaware. His two sons, Beau and Hunter, also attended Catholic high schools.