Overview
- Florida’s largest teachers union filed a civil case in Leon County naming Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas and the State Board of Education, asking a judge to declare the funding scheme unconstitutional and to stop state payments to voucher programs.
- The suit targets the Family Empowerment Scholarship, which uses state money for private‑school tuition, and the Schools of Hope initiative that places charter operators in unused public school space at no charge.
- The union says about $5 billion a year, or roughly 24% of state K‑12 funding, now goes to vouchers and some charters, and that about 69% of 524,000 scholarship users were already in private schools.
- Governor Ron DeSantis denounced the lawsuit on X and vowed to defend school‑choice programs, and the Florida Department of Education called the filing frivolous.
- Classes continue as the case moves forward, and teachers, parents, and students have protested lost electives and services they link to funding shifts toward vouchers and charter expansion.