“蓝州”州长们请注意：联邦政府正把数十亿美元的“学校选择”资金摆在你们各州面前，佛罗里达州的经验恰好说明，这笔钱实际上能买到什么。
Blue-state governors take note: The federal government is dangling billions of dollars in school choice money in front of your states, and Florida’s experience shows exactly what that money actually buys.
它换来的是一项每年价值40亿美元、几乎不附带任何条件的福利。没有人能通过可靠账目查清哪些孩子正在领取这笔资金；没有强制要求私立学校聘用合格教师；也几乎无从有效判断学生究竟有没有学到东西。
It buys a $4 billion-a-year entitlement with almost no strings attached. There is no reliable accounting of which children are receiving the funds, no requirement that private schools hire qualified teachers and no meaningful way to know whether students are learning anything at all.
作为佛罗里达州参议员，我亲眼看着本州如何沦为一个警示案例，说明政客拿问责制度去换取一句政治口号会付出什么代价。在你们动用哪怕一美元联邦教育券资金之前，请看看我的州发生了什么。
As a Florida state senator, I’ve watched my state become a cautionary tale for what happens when politicians trade accountability for a talking point. Before you accept a single federal voucher dollar, look at what’s happened in my state.
自20世纪90年代以来，佛罗里达州一直实行教育券，将税收资金转用于私立学校和居家教育学生。但从2023年开始，佛州议会取消收入资格上限，使纳税人出资的全民教育券几乎覆盖全州所有学龄儿童。在亚利桑那州通过类似立法后，佛州成为第二个采取这一做法的州。
Florida has had education vouchers that divert tax dollars to private schools and homeschool students since the 1990s. But beginning in 2023, the Florida legislature eliminated income eligibility caps and made taxpayer-funded universal vouchers available to virtually every school-aged child in the state, making it the second state to do so after Arizona enacted similar legislation.
如今，佛罗里达州纳税人每年要为超过40亿美元的教育券资金买单，而这些资金几乎不受任何问责。对于接受教育券资助的私立学校，其财务状况、学术标准以及教师招聘也几乎没有什么监管。
Florida taxpayers are now on the hook for more than $4 billion of taxpayer-funded school vouchers annually. There is virtually no accountability for these dollars. There is little oversight of the finances, academic standards or hiring of teachers at voucher-funded private schools.
过去三届立法会议中，两党人士加强问责和监管的努力均告失败。这引出了许多值得追问的问题。
Bipartisan attempts to increase accountability and oversight have been stymied in each of the last three legislative sessions. Which invites many questions.
如果佛罗里达州真的是一个保护儿童和纳税人血汗钱的州，为什么仍未能落实这些 safeguards？这究竟是为了扩大所谓“学校选择”，还是为了推动公共教育私有化并从中牟利？我们的钱最终究竟流向了哪里？
If Florida is truly a state that protects our children and our tax dollars, why is it failing to implement these guardrails? Is this about expanding so-called school choice or about selling off public education for privatization and profit? And where is our money really going?
亚利桑那州存在“幽灵儿童”领取教育券资金的现象；北卡罗来纳州去年发给私立学校的教育券，按2024—2025学年任意一天的在校生人数计算，甚至超过了这些学校的实际学生人数。相比之下，佛罗里达州却无法查明3万名儿童在哪里上学，也无法追踪与他们相关的2.7亿美元资金究竟花在了哪里。
Whereas Arizona has ghost children receiving voucher dollars and North Carolina last year sent more vouchers to private schools than there were students in them on any given day in the 2024-2025 school year, Florida could not account for where 30,000 children were attending school or where $270 million associated with them was being spent.
随着教育券全面使用的人数超过入学人数预测，超支规模呈指数级增长，佛州不得不匆忙向教育资金账户拨入1.18亿美元。在向助学金资助机构付款后，即使这些学生实际上就读于公立学校，该州仍不得不向学区补拨4700万美元。而上一年度向助学金资助机构多付的资金仅为1840万美元。这还只是冰山一角。
Cost overruns have increased exponentially when universal voucher use exceeded enrollment projections to the point where Florida had to hastily transfer $118 million into education coffers, and the state had to backfill $47 million to school districts after payments had been paid to scholarship funding organizations, even though the students were actually enrolled in public schools. This is up from the $18.4 million overpaid to scholarship funding organizations in the prior year. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
佛罗里达州一所私立学校被发现接受了居住地距该校130英里的学生所使用的教育券，多名家长也因诈骗教育券系统被捕。2025年，一名佛罗里达州男子被起诉，罪名是涉嫌捏造不存在的儿童，并在多年间为这些儿童提交申请，骗取亚利桑那州教育券系统资金。这证明，即便身处州外，也可能利用监管不力的系统牟利。
One Florida private school was found to have accepted vouchers for students who live 130 miles away, and multiple parents have been arrested for defrauding the voucher system. In 2025, a Florida man was indicted for allegedly scamming the Arizona voucher system by creating fictitious children and submitting applications for them over multiple years. This proved that someone could take advantage of an unregulated system even from beyond the state’s borders.
尽管显然有必要保护领取教育券的儿童，使其免受不法分子侵害，但推广教育券的理由在于，它承诺为学生和家庭带来学业提升。在佛罗里达州，由于持券学生不被要求参加与公立学校学生相同的考试，因此几乎没有关于两类学生学业结果的对比数据。
Although there is a clear need to protect children receiving vouchers from bad actors, the reason vouchers are promoted is the academic gain promised to students and families. In Florida, there is scant data on academic outcomes of students as compared to students in public schools, because voucher students are not required to take the same exams.
但来自路易斯安那州、俄亥俄州和印第安纳州等多个州的大量权威学术文献均表明，教育券学生的学业表现逊于公立学校。研究人员乔什·考恩将教育券学生经历的学习损失与卡特里娜飓风过后所见的学习损失进行了比较。
But there is a body of respected academic literature from multiple states, including Louisiana, Ohio and Indiana, documenting that voucher students’ academic outcomes suffer in comparison to those of public school students. Researcher Josh Cowen compared the learning loss experienced by voucher students to that seen after Hurricane Katrina.
居家教育同样引发了 accountability 方面的担忧。尽管一些居家教育学生在学业上取得成功，但没有明确且可直接比较的证据表明，居家教育的效果优于公立学校教育 Likewise，也没有公布任何毕业率，因此这些学生的发展轨迹尚不清楚。
Homeschooling raises the same accountability concerns. Although some homeschooled students succeed academically, there is no clear apples-to-apples evidence that homeschooling produces better outcomes than public schools. Likewise, there are no published graduation rates, so the trajectory of these students is unknown.
因此，佛罗里达州正动用数十亿美元公共资金补贴居家教育，却不要求采用可比的措施衡量学生进展。如果纳税人在资助私立教育，他们理应知道孩子是否真正学到了东西。
So Florida is using billions in public dollars to subsidize homeschooling without requiring comparable measures of student progress. If taxpayers are funding private education, they deserve to know whether children are actually learning.
佛罗里达州和其他实行普遍教育券制度的州所提供的教训十分明确：当公共资金流向不受问责的私人利益时，孩子和纳税人都会受损。奖学金资助机构无法说明成千上万的孩子每天身在何处，更无法证明这些孩子学到的知识比公立学校的同龄学生更多。联邦税收抵免教育券计划只会进一步加剧这些问题，并让纳税人承担更高成本。
The lesson from Florida and other universal voucher states is clear: When public funds flow to unaccountable private interests, children and taxpayers both lose. Scholarship funding organizations cannot say where thousands of children are on any given day, let alone prove those children are learning more than their public school peers. The federal tax credit voucher scheme will only deepen these problems at an even greater cost to taxpayers.
全国各州的州长和立法者都应吸取佛罗里达州的警示教训，拒绝这一不受监管的联邦计划，并要求对用于私立教育的每一美元纳税人的钱实行真正的问责。
Governors and lawmakers across the country should heed Florida’s cautionary tale and reject this unregulated federal scheme and demand real accountability for every taxpayer dollar spent on private education.
卡洛斯·吉列尔莫·史密斯是一名民主党人，自2024年11月起担任佛罗里达州参议员，代表第17选区。
Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democrat, is a member of the Florida State Senate representing District 17 since November 2024.