Bedrock, we have a problem

A funny thing happened in the Legislature last week. While the House was holding an “AI Week” to talk about all sorts of futuristic possibilities straight out of “The Jetsons,” the Senate Appropriations Committee passed a school choice “glitch bill” that seems better suited for the Stone Age of “The Flintstones.”

To its credit, the Senate wants to address a problem that has arisen in Florida’s highly popular school choice programs — namely, tracking students as they move from one mode of education to another during the school year.

Thankfully, such mid-year movements don’t occur very often. But when they do, they can throw a wrench in things because Florida’s public school computers don’t talk with our state’s scholarship program computers.

Thus, when a mid-year schooling change takes place — due to a family emergency, a bullying situation or some other reason — there’s a chance a student could end up being counted twice (once by each system).

Now, the seemingly obvious solution to this “double counting” problem would be to fix the computers and create a single point of entry for every Florida K-12 student to be registered in the state. Then, as students move from one mode of schooling to another, it would be easy to track them (and to ensure that the dollars for their education follow them wherever they go).

The Senate “glitch bill” sponsor acknowledges this. But instead of getting the techies involved, he wants Florida parents to start filing paperwork — every month! — confirming that their child is still in the scholarship program and wishes to remain there. And get this — if parents slip up and miss a deadline, their child would not receive any education funding for that month.

Bedrock, we have a problem.

Now, maybe someone in the Stone Age would find it reasonable to require parents to submit monthly attestations that they are still doing what they did last month. And maybe in the town of Bedrock it would seem fair to tell taxpayers that they can’t have any of the dollars they’ve paid into the K-12 system unless they jump through monthly hoops and barrels.

But here in the Digital Age, the Senate sponsor’s proposed remedy seems very draconian.

Which is a great shame. Because no one denies that “double counting” is a problem. And no one denies that the Senate sponsor is well meaning.

The only question is whether we need a “solution” that seems straight out of Bedrock. Or a true remedy that shows greater respect for Digital Age parents living in a world with AI.

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William Mattox is the senior director of the Marshall Center for Education Freedom at The James Madison Institute.