Contending that all schools receiving Florida taxpayer support are not treated equally, the Florida Education Association and seven parents, including one from Tampa, have asked a Leon County court to find the state’s education voucher and charter school systems unconstitutional.

In their 39-page lawsuit, filed Tuesday, they argue the current model violates the Florida Constitution’s requirement that the state adequately provide for a “uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools.”

“We are going through all the ways in which we do not have uniformity and how that hurts the children of the state of Florida,” said Andrew Spar, Florida Education Association president.

He observed how the traditional public education system must follow more than 1,400 pages of law, compared to about 20 pages for charter schools and nearly nothing applied to private schools that accept vouchers from parents.

The state puts about $5 billion a year into vouchers as part of its overall education budget, serving more than 500,000 children who attend private or home schools. At the same time, Spar noted, the base student allocation for public schools has not kept up with inflation over nearly two decades, with the state’s average teacher pay at the bottom nationally.

“Uniformity means more than simply offering options,” the lawsuit states. “It means that every publicly funded school must meet consistent expectations in areas that matter most: safe learning environments, strong and consistent curricula, services for students with disabilities, access to extracurricular opportunities, and the responsible and transparent use of taxpayer dollars.

“The Constitution also places a clear responsibility on the Legislature, the Governor, and the Department of Education to make sure this system is enforced and maintained as one uniform system. That is not what is happening today.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the Florida Education Association is “once again wasting taxpayer dollars and members’ dues on a frivolous lawsuit.”

Education commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas added on his X social media page that Florida stands “unapologetically convicted” to the principle of putting students first.

Twenty years ago, the Florida Supreme Court found the state’s previous voucher program, called Opportunity Scholarships, unconstitutional on the uniformity argument.

“It diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools that are the sole means set out in the Constitution for the state to provide for the education of Florida’s children,” court wrote in its 2006 Bush v. Holmes decision.

That case also was brought by the Florida Education Association.

The state transitioned to tax credit scholarships, giving donors credit for their financial support without the money moving through government coffers.

The Bush v. Holmes ruling largely fell by the wayside since it was rendered, though.

It did not resurface when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the new state-funded Empowerment Scholarship into law in 2019, even as lawyers anticipated another challenge to taxpayer-funded vouchers.

Until now, that fight has not emerged.

Spar said it likely would not have happened if lawmakers had taken some of the steps the state Senate advanced during its spring session to add more transparency to the voucher program and reduce some of the mandates placed on districts.

“It’s really about fairness,” he said of the lawsuit. “It’s about strong public schools, and that we’re abiding by the constitution.”

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