Last week I told the story of the Whittler. This week, the same story set to music. Two songs, two settings, one set of receipts. The first is for the beach at Crandon Park. The second is for a street party on Calle Ocho. Every number in both videos comes from my own work and the reporting it cites, and every one is listed below.
Wastin’ Away in Charter-Voucherville
¿Dónde Está la Plata?
The receipts
A state that quit putting in its share
- Florida ranks 46th in fiscal effort. K-12 spending fell from 2.6% of the state’s economy in 2013 to 2.2% in 2024, against a U.S. average of 3.1%. (America’s Worst States for Education; SFID, 8th ed.)
- Had Florida kept its 2006 effort, schools would have had about 29% more revenue over 2016-23. The money is there. The state chose not to spend it on schools.
- Average teacher pay ranks 50th in the nation. (WUSF, citing NEA data)
- 64 of 67 districts spend less than it would cost to reach national-average outcomes. The statewide shortfall was $15.7 billion in 2024. Districts average 70% of adequate, and the highest-poverty fifth averages 63%. (The Red State Miracle That Wasn’t; National Education Cost Model data)
- The 37 districts in the poorest fifth, including Dixie, Gadsden, Hamilton, Putnam, DeSoto, Bradford, Suwannee and Madison, run at about 65 cents on each adequate dollar. About 683,000 students attend them. (Short term plan to Un-Florida Florida’s Public Schools)
- Cost-adjusted spending per pupil in 2024 was $6,425 in Florida and $6,627 in Mississippi. Grade 8 reading fell 10.5 points from 2019 to 2024, 48th of 50 against expectations. (There Is No Alabama Miracle; NAEP)
The charter company store
- A charter school with a “nonprofit” board can rent its building from the founder’s LLC and pay a management fee to the founder’s own firm. Public money comes in, and the books going out are often private. (The Charter Money Trail; The Charter School Company Store, Revisited)
- Five Florida charters paid two firms more than $30 million over four years.
- One virtual school’s payments to its vendor went from about $1.1 million (2023) to $2.1 million (2024) to $15.7 million budgeted this year.
- No charges have been filed, there is one civil suit, and nothing has been found illegal. That is the point: it’s all allowed. (Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald reporting, via The Company Store Goes to Tallahassee)
Vouchers for kids who were already there
- Florida made vouchers universal in 2023. They now cost about $5.0 billion a year (2025-26). (Time to Rein in Vouchers)
- Their share of the state’s main school formula went from 12 cents on the dollar to 24 cents in four years.
- 69% of new voucher users were already in private school. The state picked up a tab families were already paying. (An Economically Conservative Approach to Deciding Whether to Adopt or Expand Vouchers)
- A state audit found about $270 million the program had trouble tracking. (Florida Phoenix; Spectrum News)
What was promised
“…a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools…”
Florida Constitution, Art. IX, § 1, as revised by voters in 1998
The Legislature is back this spring. Fill a chair at the school board. Call your legislator. Ask for the 2006 share back. You’re here.
Lyrics by me. Music made with Suno. The pelican and the gator are fictional. The numbers are not. These are trends and associations, not proof that any one officeholder caused any one result. Florida is in the bottom five on effort but not literally last; North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada put in a smaller share. The full report: Financing a High-Quality System of Free Public Schools for Florida’s Children.
