TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Fifty-thousand Florida families can’t be wrong.

The growing waiting list for Florida school vouchers is convincing lawmakers to accelerate the expansion of the program that helps low-income students escape dismal public schools for a private education.

The Miami Herald reports legislators have made expanding the private school voucher program a top priority for the 2014 legislative session that began this week.

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The program offers corporate tax credits to businesses that help fund scholarships for students to attend private schools, and is currently capped at $286 million per year, which funds about 60,000 scholarships.

“That number is already set to grow over time. But lawmakers are considering adding another $30 million, or up to $120 million over the next four years, to reach a cap of $874 million in 2018-19 …” the news site reports. “The move would accommodate the nearly 50,000 children on the waiting list.”

The proposed changes to the program would also allow businesses to claim credits on sales taxes as a new stream of revenue for the voucher program, and would eliminate the current requirement that students must first attend a public school for a year before being eligible for a voucher, according to the Herald.

Critics of the program, including state Sen. Dwight Bullard and the state’s teachers unions, vehemently oppose the plan, but are struggling to maintain their influence in Tallahassee after decades of dominating education in the Sunshine State.

That’s due in part to a growing number of Florida business, nonprofit and political committees that are exerting more pressure than ever to provide education options outside of traditional public schools for Florida families.

“Those forces include the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity and influential think tanks like the conservative James Madison Institute and former Gov. Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future,” the Herald reports.  “All have thrown their considerable weight behind the expansion.”

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Several of the state’s most influential lawmakers are in support of the bill, including Gov. Rick Scott, House Speaker Will Weatherford and Senate President (and former school superintendent) Don Gaetz, though Gaetz would also like to require voucher students take the same standardized tests as public school students.

Much of the Herald article drones on about the financial investment pro-voucher groups have made in public awareness campaigns, as well as political campaigns of aspiring lawmakers who favor school choice options. The Florida Federation of Children, for example, “has channeled more than $2.3 million into political advertisements and direct mail to help favored candidates since 2010,” the news site notes.

But what’s conspicuously absent from the news report is any mention of the tens of millions of dollars that the state’s teachers unions have invested in lawmakers and public campaigns to fight education reforms that are good for students, but bad for school employees.

The Herald acknowledged the $365,000 the Florida Education Association, the statewide teachers union, has raised for the current election cycle, but that figure is a mere fraction of the FEA’s total political spending over the last decade or so.

The unions, school boards association, and other groups like the Florida Parent-Teacher Association, contend they oppose school choice and the expansion of vouchers because it “takes taxpayer dollars away from public schools,” Mindy Gould, legislative chair of the Florida PTA, told the news site.

But that’s the problem – state officials have continuously poured more and more money into Florida’s public education system with very little return on the investment.

The state’s private schools, and the voucher program, provide a path to a better education for Florida students that’s free of the union work rules and special employee perks that have been weighing down student achievement and school budgets across the state.

Fifty-thousand Florida families want something better for their children, and it appears the state’s most influential lawmakers are prepared to make that happen.