F.A.C.E. to FACE
F.A.C.E. BULLETIN
11/28/06
Thousands of New Scholarships Available for Low-Income K-12 Students
(More scholarships available! See bottom of Newsletter!)Statements on the loss of Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and school choice pioneer…
Opinion & Analysis, Jeb Bush: My legacy to Florida schools, Special to the Orlando Sentinel.
Don’t forget, School Compliance Forms are due March 1, 2007!
There are new requirements this year like fingerprinting, background checks and standardized tests.
Thank you for Stepping Up For Students,
Michael A. Benjamin
Executive Director, F.A.C.E.
Florida Alliance for Choices in Education
Remembering Dr. Milton Friedman
INDIANAPOLIS --Nobel laureate Dr. Milton Friedman passed away early this morning, in his San Francisco home, of heart failure. He was 94.
Dr. Friedman will be remembered around the world as one of the 20th century’s greatest champions of freedom. When Dr. Friedman began writing about politics, freedom looked to many like an all but lost cause. Half the world was in slavery, and the other half badly hobbled by a crisis of confidence in its central political idea: government based first and foremost on the liberty of the individual.
In the fifty years that followed, Dr. Friedman helped restore the free world’s confidence in freedom. The voluntary choices of individuals, not the dictates of the state, should be the default mode of human life; government is justified only insofar as it preserves, protects, and defends people’s liberty.
In his prolific writing and speaking in defense of this creed, Dr. Friedman became one of the world’s most powerful and influential defenders of freedom.
Dr. Friedman began his fight for freedom in his professional work as an economist, where he was one of a handful of thinkers who rejected the nearly universal consensus in favor of government management of the economy in the mid-20 th century. His revolutionary work in economic theory earned him the Nobel prize in 1976.
Throughout his life, Dr. Friedman insisted that economics was his only true “vocation,” preferring to describe his broader fight for human liberty as his “avocation.” He lived to see the overwhelming consensus in favor of big-government economics completely reversed among his peers in favor of economic individualism.
His primary economic interest was monetary theory. Among many other contributions, Dr. Friedman vindicated “monetarism,” which upholds the central economic importance of the money supply. As a leader of the “Chicagoschool,” a group of free-market economists at the University of Chicago, Dr. Friedman was one of the most important figures in the successful movement to place the choices of buyers and sellers, not government management, at the center of professional economic thought.
In the last ten years of his life, Dr. Friedman concentrated on promoting educational freedom through school choice policies, which allow parents to choose the public or private school that is best for their children. Dr. Friedman is well known as the father of the modern school choice movement, owing to his 1955 proposal for vouchers that parents could use to purchase education at the schools of their choice. He and his wife Rose founded the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in 1996 to promote school choice.
Dr. Friedman is survived by his wife Rose, his son David and daughter Janet, four grandchildren and three great grandchildren. In accordance with his wishes, Dr. Friedman’s body will be cremated and the ashes scattered overSan Francisco bay.
Nov. 16, 2006
STATEMENT BY CLINT BOLICK ON LOSS OF MILTON FRIEDMAN
PHOENIX - Clint Bolick, president and general counsel of the Alliance for School Choice, today issued the following statement in response to the death of Nobel Prize-winning economist and school choice pioneer Milton Friedman:“Among the greatest champions of freedom in all of history, Milton Friedman was a giant. His greatest legacy is the tens of thousands of children who now attend high-quality schools because of the idea of school choice that Dr. Friedman pioneered in 1955. He leaves that precious legacy to a new generation of leaders who must nurture and expand it. I will personally miss a dear friend, but he will serve eternally for me and countless others as a source of towering inspiration.”
For more information, visit the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation website at: http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/.
November 16, 2006
Statement on Death of Dr. Milton Friedman
INDIANAPOLIS—Today, upon news of the death of Nobel Laureate economist Dr. Milton Friedman, Gordon St. Angelo, president and CEO of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, offered the following statement:
America has lost a true visionary and advocate for human freedom. And I have lost a great friend.
Milton’s passion for freedom and liberty has influenced more lives than he ever could possibly know. His writings and ideas have transformed the minds of U.S. Presidents, world leaders, entrepreneurs and freshmen economic majors alike. The loss of his passion, incisive mind and dedication to freedom are all national treasures that we mourn for today.
Milton never chose to slow down; even at 94 he kept fighting to bring educational equality to all of America’s children. And it’s this vision, this drive for educational liberty that the Friedman Foundation will continue to bring to families throughout America.
His impact on my life over the last 33 years was significant. His impact on the world was momentous. Without a doubt, few people have done more to advance civil and economic liberties throughout the world during their lifetime than Dr. Milton Friedman.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Jeb Bush: My legacy to Florida schools
Gov. Jeb Bush
Special to the Sentinel
November 12, 2006
Thanks to the hard work of our Florida teachers and the philosophy that every child has the God-given ability to learn, remarkable progress has been made in Florida's schools during the past eight years.
Eight years ago, our students' test scores ranked at the bottom in the nation; our school librarians could track school books better than we could track our students' progress; and we had more schools under-performing than performing well.
Then we put the A-Plus Plan into action -- a plan based on high standards and expectations, clear measurement and accountability, and rewards and consequences for results. We made student learning the organizing principle of our schools.
Today, Florida's education reforms serve as a model for the nation, and are even being emulated in places like New York City. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the nation's report card, our fourth-graders are now above the national average in reading and math. In fourth-grade writing, we are eighth in the nation. And now, hundreds of thousands of Florida students are attending a higher-performing school and receiving a better education.
We debunked several myths along the way:
We showed how retaining and assisting low-performing third-graders gives them a greater chance for long-term success.
We witnessed firsthand how holding all students -- including Limited English Proficient students, students with disabilities and minority students -- to the same high expectations leads to greater student success and higher graduation rates.
We proved that teachers are not "teaching to the test," but teaching to the standards established by educators. This was validated by the Norm-Referenced Test, on which Florida's students scored significantly better than the national average in all eight grades tested.
Finally, we demonstrated that accountability works. Teachers now brag about using research-driven data to creatively educate their students and school boards are having rich discussions about how their districts will improve low-performing schools. Holding districts, principals and teachers accountable ensures everyone is focused on helping Florida's students learn.
By measuring our students' progress, we know our education reforms are working. If we didn't measure, we wouldn't know that 223,000 more students in grades three through 10 are reading at or above grade level and 234,000 more students are performing math at or above grade level compared to 2001. We wouldn't know our dropout rate has been cut in half, while our graduation rate has improved from 60 percent to 72 percent.
Measuring shows progress, it shows results, and it shows we really care about education in Florida.
Even with our many successes, more still needs to be done.
We need to continue to raise our education standards. We need to recruit more mentors. We need the state board to incrementally raise the bar on school grades, and we need to implement pay-for-performance for our teachers.
We also need our middle schools to continue building on their great learning gains by implementing the reforms passed earlier this year.
This means ensuring every middle-school student completes 12 core courses, takes a course in career planning, receives a high-quality intensive reading course if they are struggling, and that advanced middle-school students are able to take high-school courses for credit.
More work must also be done in our high schools. Starting next school year, high-school students will have the opportunity to declare a major. There are already 180 state-approved majors, and districts have submitted more than 750 additional proposed majors. Whether it is science, performing arts or a career-oriented major -- majors will make high school a more relevant and interesting place for students.
We also need to continue to expand the number of Advanced Placement classes being offered.
Building a brighter future for our students -- starting with pre-K and continuing all the way through college -- is not only good for our students, it is also a good investment for Florida.
Currently, we are leading the nation in job growth, but we don't just want new jobs, we also want better jobs. A well-educated, highly skilled workforce is critical to our continued success.
We can offer the biggest company incentives, friendliest tax codes, miles of beautiful beaches and the best weather, but if we can't provide businesses the workers who can do these high-tech, high-skilled jobs, we won't receive our share of the growth.
When we look at our education system, it took a full generation of school decline to bring us today's problems, and it will take at least half that long to fix them. But, if we get education right -- and I believe we have built a strong foundation -- then all other issues at the state level become easier, from fostering strong economic development to strengthening our communities.
It is my sincere hope that Florida's next big crisis will be having an avalanche of educated students all wanting to study at Florida's community colleges and universities.
It will be up to all Floridians to ensure we continue our education reforms and give our students the high-quality education they deserve, so they are better prepared to compete in the global marketplace and make the Sunshine State a better place.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush wrote this commentary for the Orlando Sentinel.
Don’t forget, School Compliance Forms are due March 1, 2007!
There are new requirements this year like fingerprinting, background checks and standardized tests.
4,000 New Scholarships Available for Low-Income K-12 Students
Florida P.R.I.D.E. and Children First Florida, Florida Corporate Tax Credit scholarship funding organizations, will award approximately 8,000 new scholarships for the 2006-2007 school year to Kindergarten through 12th grade students who qualify for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program. Applicants must be currently enrolled in a public school, unless they are entering kindergarten or first grade. Those who qualify may receive up to a $3,750 scholarship for tuition at an eligible private school of their choice or a scholarship for up to $500 for travel expenses to an out-of-district public school. The scholarships provide a fresh start for students who are not succeeding in their current school setting.
This year, $70 million in scholarships will be awarded to qualifying Florida students until funding is exhausted so applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. Income limits for scholarship recipients are determined by household size. For example, a family of four can earn no more than $37,000 to qualify. To apply, log on to www.floridapride.org or call (813) 258-2700 for Florida Pride and www.scholarshipfunding.org or call (904) 247-6033 or (407) 702-2607 for a Children First Florida application.
The Florida Corporate Income Tax Credit scholarship program provides K-12 scholarships that currently allow over 14,000 low-income Florida students to attend an eligible private school or out-of-district public school. One hundred percent of corporate contributions go directly to funding scholarships - not a single penny can be used for administrative costs.
Children First Florida - Serving Orlando, Central Florida, Jacksonville and Panhandle
P.O. Box 49099
Jacksonville Beach, Florida 32240
(904) 247-6033 or (407) 702-2607
cforster@scholarshipfunding.org
Florida P.R.I.D.E. - Serving Tampa Bay, South Florida and Marion County
P.O. Box 1670
Tampa, Florida 33606
(800) 782-9140
info@floridapride.org
School Year 06 - 07 Income Eligibility Guidelines
Persons in Household
Annual Household Income
2
$24,420
3
$30,710
4
$37,000
5
$43,290
6
$49,580
7
$55,870
8
$62,160
9
$68,450
10
$74,740
11
$81,030
12
$87,320
13
$93,610
For each additional person, add
$6,290
Effective from June 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007
Florida Alliance for Choices in Education (F.A.C.E)
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