Special Interests, Unions, and Lobbyists Want Total Control over Florida's Students, Taxpayers, and Families....
Several
leading (self-anointed) state education advocacy associations, led by the
statewide teacher’s union, have filed a lawsuit Thursday assaulting school
choice for some Florida families. This lawsuit
seeks to end the nation’s largest tax-credit scholarship program, a program
that serves nearly 70,000 students statewide and 944 in Escambia County
alone. This wildly popular program serves primarily
poor minority students and all taxpayers benefit- as the cost per pupil in this
program runs about 50% of the cost per pupil in the traditional public school
systems.
Accountability
is built-in. Student progress is
measured, and the gains made by students in this program roughly equate to the
progress the students in traditional public schools achieve year over
year. Opponents counter that the system
isn’t fair because students in this scholarship program “don’t take all the
exact same tests and FCATs-like public school students must.”
So,
to follow that logic of these tax-credit scholarship critics, because traditional
public schools waste so much time over-testing and drilling students on how to
take tests-we should foist this same nonsensical practice on tax-credit
scholarship schools? That is ridiculous. We need to test less across the board-we all
know this!
The
plaintiffs in this lawsuit want this program killed so they can monopolize
education and leave parents NO choices; they think it’s all their money and “We
know what’s best for your kid” is their mentality. But I think we deserve a greater voice in how
our tax dollars are spent educating our own children-don’t you?
The
plaintiffs state that they worry about the amount of taxpayer money “diverted”
from local districts by this tax-credit scholarship that primarily benefits
underprivileged minority youth. But what
really worries these special interest groups is the loss of the money “diverted”
to their own coffers -via dues memberships fueled by taxpayer funded employees-
if this scholarship program grows!
The plaintiffs espouse the naive belief that
money is the panacea to improve school performance and this scholarship program
robs Florida of additional money for schools. But they know full well that throwing
more taxpayer money at schools doesn't make such schools better. Look no further than poor quality DC