Muslims Flock to Florida School Voucher Program, Prompting Outrage

Call it the law of unintended consequences.

In 2023, Florida passed a bill to expand the state’s school choice program and provide vouchers for families to bypass public schooling and send their children to private religious schools. The vast majority of these private institutions are Christian, but a growing minority are focused on other faiths – including Islam.

Now, some parents and politicians in Florida are outraged to see taxpayer dollars going to subsidize private Muslim schools. 

Ironically, some of the same Florida politicians who helped shepherd the bill into law are crying foul, arguing that the state shouldn’t be bankrolling attendance in classrooms they claim are teaching “Sharia Law.”

Is “school choice” only for Christians?

What is School Choice?

For decades, politicians have pushed to publicly fund private schools through voucher programs like Florida’s, often at significant cost to taxpayers. Florida’s program allows any family, regardless of income, to receive a voucher containing the amount that their local public school would have received from the state were they enrolled there. The family can then use the voucher to pay private school tuition or to offset homeschooling costs.

The 2023 bill dropped all income and enrollment restrictions – essentially opening up the program for use by any Florida household with a school-age child. In the years since the program’s expansion, hundreds of thousands of students have taken advantage, to the tune of about $3 billion in taxpayer funds per year. 

Critics have long alleged that school voucher programs are thinly veiled means to defund public schools and siphon funds to faith-based institutions. But the program’s sponsors say the intention is merely to give Florida families an informed choice on where their kids are educated.

But… wait. Not like that. 

Muslims Take to the Program

Administrators of Florida’s handful of private Islamic schools say they’re using Florida’s voucher program to attract Muslims from all over the country to their campuses, advertising the fact that most of the tuition costs will be legally paid for by Florida taxpayers. 

For some, that’s a problem.

A recent post by anti-Islamic activist Amy Mek highlighted interviews from heads of some of Florida’s Islamic schools, detailing the Quran-based education their students receive. She alleges the schools are “fundamentally hostile to American freedom,” as they do everything from enforce Sharia Law to harbor terrorist sympathizers to ban Christmas.

Mek says that Florida is “subsidizing the construction of a permanent Islamic power base” through the voucher program, and she suggests the only way to stop it is to formally declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, find links between these schools and the Brotherhood, and shutter them. 

And her post caught the eyes of some of Florida’s most powerful political figures.

School Choice For Me, But Not For Thee…

Two former champions of the school choice program, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and Agriculture Commissioner (and former Senate President) Wilton Simpson, expressed their concerns over state funds going to Islamic schools.

But it's not clear that Florida has a choice in the matter. The constitution says that government cannot preference one religion over another, so removing funds for one type of school but allowing another would inevitably face legal challenges. 

Experts point out there’s a solution for this fear of "Sharia Law" in classrooms: Banning public funds from bankrolling private religious schools altogether. But they say if “school choice” is on the table, it must be on the table for all. 

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