Florida House passes sweeping schools and voucher bill

Gary Fineout:

Following a sharply worded partisan debate, the Republican-controlled Florida House on Thursday passed a sweeping education bill that would add yet another private-school voucher program in the state while also making a vast array of changes on everything from school testing to how much money charter schools can receive.

It’s the second year in a row that House Speaker Richard Corcoran and GOP leaders have pushed to overhaul Florida’s schools, which have been constantly altered and reshaped during the nearly 20 years that Republicans have controlled state government. It’s not clear the entire measure will pass, although Senate Republicans say they support many key provisions.

The fierce debate echoed previous ones in which Republicans asserted they were creating more choices for parents, while Democrats said the sweeping scope of the bill was designed to divert money from traditional public schools to schools run or controlled privately.