How school choice supporters fared in Florida primaries

Next year, Florida will likely be home to new pro-school choice Democratic members of Congress.

State Sen. Darren Soto, who was one of three Democrats who backed legislation expanding Florida’s tax credit scholarship program in 2014, won an Orlando-area primary election and is now favored to win a deep-blue, heavily Hispanic seat in Congress.

Former state Sen. Al Lawson, who repeatedly backed voucher and tax credit scholarship programs in Tallahassee, defeated 24-year incumbent Corrine Brown in a Democratic primary, and is now favored to win a Congressional seat redrawn to encompass large numbers of black voters in North Florida.

Lawson is a member of the governing board of Step Up For Students, a nonprofit that administers the tax credit scholarship program. Step Up publishes this blog and pays my salary.

School choice was a factor in races up and down the ballot in Tuesday’s contentious Florida primary elections, affecting the makeup of local school boards and the state Legislature. Sometimes the maneuvers of the statewide teachers union and choice backers like the Florida Federation for Children played out behind the scenes and in political ads that focused on unrelated issues. But in a few closely watched campaigns, the role of school choice was explicit.

In a Tampa Bay-area state Senate race, Rep. Ed Narain denounced private school vouchers in an online video, in which he touted his endorsement from the Florida Education Association, pledged to fight on the union’s behalf, and denounced “privatization” in education.

“That’s what voucher programs are [doing], is taking money that should go to our public education, pulling it out, and under the guise of saving students, giving them these vouchers to go to these private schools,” he said.

Narain currently trails Rep. Darryl Rouson by a slim margin in a hard-fought Democratic primary, which was touted by the American Federation for Children Action Fund as one of two Democratic state Senate primaries in which school choice advocates prevailed. The final outcome will likely be decided by a series of recounts in the coming weeks.

But some races in which school choice figured prominently went the other way, including an Orlando-area Democratic state Senate primary won by state Rep. Randolph Bracy.

In a three-way Broward County primary, prominent trial lawyer Gary Farmer knocked off state Rep. Gwyn Clarke-Reed and former Rep. Jim Waldman. In its endorsement of Farmer, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel noted:

Farmer is running a no-holds-barred campaign. His mailers have criticized Clarke-Reed and Waldman for having hurt public schools by supporting the corporate tax scholarship, which lets low-income students attend private schools. Clarke-Reed says her district “has kids that need to go to these schools.” Waldman says these vouchers also save public schools money. “This is a choice. It gives kids a chance to succeed.”

At the school board level, a pair of pro-school choice candidates in Collier County who faced a six-figure surge of PAC money against their campaigns this summer both lost their races. Longtime Florida School Boards Association leader Caroline Zucker prevailed in Sarasota County over an opponent who had backing from local Republican officials, in an outcome that could be seen as a victory for the old guard.

Erika Donalds, the president of the Florida Coalition of School Board Members, a new organization that’s competing with the statewide association and recruiting members who support school choice and fiscal conservatism, said supporters largely maintained their positions on school boards statewide, and likely gained some new allies. For example, Laura Zorc, an anti-Common Core activist and local PTA leader, won her race and will help solidify a pro-school choice majority on the Indian River County School Board.

“The unprecedented amount of special interest money poured into opposition of conservative school board candidates demonstrates perfectly the importance and value of our coalition,” Donalds said.

One of the breakaway group’s earlier supporters was Jason Fischer, a Duval County School Board member who repeatedly bucked fellow district leaders to back school choice. He prevailed in a Republican primary for the state House in a conservative Jacksonville district.