Public education in Florida and across the United States is in trouble.
Schools are closing, teachers are being laid off, support for special‑education and other vital programs are disappearing and class sizes are expanding.
In Sarasota County, 180 first‑year teachers and support staff will be jobless next year.
During a March 3 Sarasota County School Board work session, Superintendent Terry Connor also announced a raise in staff health insurance costs and an increase in class size.
One slide in Connor’s presentation warned, “For the first time in our history, public education access for all students and communities is in doubt.”
The problem is not a bloated bureaucracy, an overly powerful teachers’ union or any other excuse hyped by those seeking to destroy public education.
The real problem is a deliberate, decades‑long underfunding and defunding of public education. Florida now ranks 50th in the nation for average teacher pay and near the bottom for per‑student funding.
As a result, education funding is not keeping up with inflation.
For example, the Sarasota County Schools’ 2025-2026 “Budget Book” shows current per‑student funding at $10,134 – a figure that, according to the district website, would be $15,050 if 2008 funding had kept pace with inflation.
Massive defunding comes from public money diverted to for‑profit charter schools and school vouchers.
State voucher funding exploded to $5 billion this year – nearly 25 % of the education budget – after the Florida Legislature removed the income cap in 2023.
By doing so, the Legislature made every student eligible for vouchers – and 70 % of the recipients in 2024 were already in private schools.
In Sarasota County alone, vouchers consume about $45 million – enough to erase the current budget deficit if redirected back to Sarasota County’s public schools.
Our local politicians must act
With huge state deficits looming for next year’s state budget, the situation will worsen.
A declining birthrate has played a role in Sarasota County’s falling enrollment, but it is largely due to students leaving for voucher‑funded private schools and homeschooling.
It has set up a vicious cycle: as budget deficits worsen and education services decline, more families opt out of public education.
The Sarasota County district will also lose $5 million or more next year when Charter Schools USA – the nation’s second‑largest for‑profit management corporation and one known for raking in huge sums of money – opens its second charter school here.
Unlike for-profit managed charter schools, true nonprofit and locally operated charter schools like the Dreamers Academy provide unique student opportunities.
Given the funding crisis, one would have expected the 2026 Florida legislative session to have addressed school‑funding shortfalls. Instead, Sarasota County’s state representatives – Fiona McFarland, James Buchanan and Danny Nix Jr. – did nothing.
While a voucher reform bill passed the Florida Senate unanimously, the House ignored it.
Instead, all three state representatives voted for an anti‑union bill that threatens teacher‑union protections.
Last year they supported the Schools of Hope co-location legislation, and in 2023 McFarland and Buchanan voted to make vouchers universal.
Sarasota County’s legislators have one more chance to push for vastly increased education funding and to place guardrails on voucher and for-profit managed charter school growth.
A special session in the Florida Legislature, which is likely to begin shortly, will decide the 2026‑27 budget.
Neither chamber’s current proposals approach the minimally needed $15,000 per student – a one‑third increase over current funding.
Will our local legislators fight for Sarasota County’s public students?
This is an election year, and voters can replace the legislators who engineered this crisis with candidates who will protect and fund public schools.
And to ensure Sarasota County has a School Board whose first allegiance is to public education – and not privatized options – you should ask candidates in the Aug. 18 School Board race these questions:
Do you support vouchers that hurt public education?
Do your children attend public schools?
Vote only for those who truly support public education.
For more on the Sarasota County schools and how to mobilize community action, Support Our Schools and several nonprofit advocacy groups will host “Stronger Together: For Parents, Educators & the Community,” on Saturday, April 18 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Unitarian Universalists of Sarasota, 3975 Fruitville Rd.
This free forum will feature national, state and local speakers, as well as panels and workshops with a special focus on empowering parents and supporting teachers.
Lunch and child care will be provided during the forum.
Visit www.supportourschools.com to register for the event.
Carol Lerner and Lisa Schurr are the directors of Support Our Schools in Sarasota.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota County’s school crisis must be solved. Here’s how. | Opinion
Reporting by Carol Lerner and Lisa Schurr Guest columnists, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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