Fraud & abuse in FL voucher schools
I nearly vomited while reading the Miami New Times’ account of some of the horrors taking place in Florida’s poorly regulated voucher school system, under the McKay scholarship program that gives tuition vouchers to special needs students. Abuses like these are a prime example of why it is so important to have a robust, healthy public school system, with real oversight by officials who are directly accountable to the public. De-regulating that system doesn’t typically encourage innovation, as privatization proponents argue; at best, most of these schools do no better than the schools they’re with which they’re meant to compete. But often, de-regulation does encourage fraud. (According to the article, administrators receiving tax-payer funds for voucher schools include “criminals convicted of cocaine dealing, kidnapping, witness
