FEA Takes Issue with OPPAGA Report on Voucher Savings

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Mark Pudlow
December 16, 2008  

FEA takes issue with OPPAGA report on corporate tax voucher program “savings”

Florida Education Association President Andy Ford said today that a draft report from the state Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) provided a misleading accounting of “savings” to the state through the corporate income tax voucher program.

“The FEA agrees with Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson’s call for a re-examination of the findings in this report,” Ford said. “Senator Lawson cites ‘limitations placed upon OPPAGA’ in coming up with its findings that certainly need to be looked at.”

Ford noted that the OPPAGA report said it based its information on savings largely on records provided by the groups overseeing the voucher programs and in focus groups with administrators of the program and the schools receiving the vouchers – exactly the groups that benefit the most from the perception that there are savings to the state through this program. No one with an opposing view – or who could offer other outlooks on the supposed savings – was listed as being used to gather information for this report. He also noted that OPPAGA made assumptions in the report that may not be accurate.

“The report also doesn’t offer any information on the quality of the schools who participate in the corporate voucher program,” Ford said. “These schools do not face the same accountability measures that public schools face, so making any kind of quality comparisons are impossible.”

“FEA supports authentic and meaningful accountability,” Ford said. “We want to work together with the state to make our schools a priority. We agree with Senator Lawson that OPPAGA needs to dig deeper and provide a report that isn’t based on assumptions and hypotheticals that may not be valid.”

The Florida Education Association is the state’s largest association of professional employees, with more than 140,000 members. FEA represents pre K-12 teachers, higher education faculty, educational support professionals, students at our colleges and universities preparing to become teachers and retired education employees.