Tuesday, December 16, 2014

School Choice Helps Low Income Families : Florida System Challenged

As this isn't just what common sense would dictate for help struggling families to educate their kids so they can have a better life then their parents. It's readily clear this system of freedom to chose a school that actually educates rather then one that is based on the statue quo.

The free market of ideas works and always has, it's that so many people are afraid of change that threatens the security of people and organizations that control they system now but are about to lose.

This can be explained in a simple statement concerning moving beyond what is familiar and secure, 'familiarity breeds contempt'. Attacking a proposal or idea what one doesn't or won't confront as a problem is born strictly form fear, ignorance and or greed for keeping the power to control.

School Choice in Florida Helps Low-Income Families
Source: Brittany Corona, "Parents Fight Back Against Teachers Union Suing Nation\'s Largest School Choice Program," Daily Signal, December 11, 2014.

December 15, 2014

Florida's school choice program has been under fire from unions since August, when the Florida Education Association and other groups filed lawsuits challenging the state's tax credit program.

Florida's tax credit program allows corporations to voluntarily donate money to nonprofit groups who provide educational scholarships to children of low-income families -- in return for those donations, the corporations receive a tax credit. The program began in 2001. Since then, 400,000 students have used the program to attend a private school of their choice. Almost 69,000 students received scholarships this year after businesses donated more than $357 million to the program.

According to Brittany Corona, research assistant at the Heritage Foundation, the unions claim the program gives aid to private and sometimes religiously-affiliated schools, violating the state's constitution. The plaintiffs see the program as giving public support to religious education. But Corona contends that's not so, as the program is funded entirely through private contributions, not public funds.

Florida's program grants children educational opportunities they would otherwise lack; over half (54 percent) of the students receiving scholarships come from single-parent families with household incomes of just $24,067.

According to Corona, a 2011 study found that children in the scholarship program were performing "slightly better" than their counterparts in traditional public schools, and other studies have indicated that Florida public schools are improving due to competition created by school choice in the state.
 

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