Florida House expands school vouchers without LGBTQ student protections

Share
lgbt
Gay pride flag. By WMNF News (June 2013).
Equality Florida logo lgbtq+
Equality Florida logo

This week the Florida House voted to expand the state’s voucher program for students attending private schools. But an Orlando Sentinel investigation found that dozens of the schools that get money from the program discriminate against LGBTQ students or their families. And an anti-discrimination amendment to the bill failed last week.

For reaction, WMNF spoke with Joe Saunders, senior political director of the LGBTQ rights group Equality Florida. He is a former State Representative from Orlando.

“We think it’s deeply troubling that the State’s voucher program has failed to address the very real reality that some of the schools that receive public education dollars for the state voucher program are openly discriminating against LGBT students and LGBT parents. This, over time, has grown into a program that receives hundreds of millions of dollars of public money. And having a policy that says your kind is not allowed here is not okay.

“It’s deeply troubling. It’s something that the legislature should have addressed. There were many opportunities to and many recommendations brought forward. And the failure of this legislature to address overt discrimination against LGBT students in the education system is deeply troubling.”

SK: So, if this bill gets signed by the Governor, it could happen where a school can say, ‘We will expel a student who is LGBTQ.’ Or not take a student in yet still receive government funding?

“Well, the reality is that that is happening right now. This bill expands the state voucher program. It increases the cap on who’s eligible, in terms of income. But right now, this is a program that receives — even without the legislation that is moving to the governor after this session – it’s a program that receives hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money that would normally be going to public schools.

“The Orlando Sentinel was a big part of breaking this story a few years ago. But they’ve done some deep investigative analysis. And they found, at least, just in their analysis, 83 schools that overtly hold policies that threaten to expel a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender young person if they are discovered to be LGTB and attending the school. So we know that the discrimination is happening right now. We know that it is a problem right now. And, what this bill does, is expand this program to even more students, and even more schools, without addressing these very serious problems within the system.”

Listen to much more of this interview here:

 

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

student meal
Next school year Hillsborough public schools are offering free meals

Hillsborough Public Schools are offering students free meals for the...

Correspondence Through Poetry. A Mind-Numbing Week.

Father Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems by Herbert Gold...

The sound of change: Music’s influence on anti-war and human rights movements

Throughout history, music has served as a powerful catalyst for...

a man in a tye dye shirt talking on a radio microphone
Recreational pot for Florida is on the ballot this fall—let’s talk about it

In four months, Florida voters have the opportunity to vote...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Follow us on Instagram

Surly Voices
Player position: