F.A.C.E. to FACE
F.A.C.E. BULLETIN
6/13/06
ALERT
Thousands of New Scholarships Available for Low-Income K-12 Students
(More scholarships available! See bottom of Newsletter!)
Splendid article in School Reform News, Jenny Rothenberg, Florida Parents Respond to Court's Scholarship Program Shutdown.
Pro School Choice Column in Denver Post, Archdiocese lets students have a choice.
Gov. Bush signs bill giving new vouchers to kids in stricken program, Associated Press.
Thank you for Stepping Up For Students,
Michael A. Benjamin
Executive Director, F.A.C.E.
Florida Alliance for Choices in Education
8,000 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 PanhandleHYPERLINK "http://www.childrenfirstcf.org/" \t "_blank"
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 Parents Respond to Court's Scholarship Program Shutdown
Author: Jenny Rothenberg
Published: The Heartland Institute 06/01/2006In mid-April, local parents and a school choice advocacy group launched a radio advertising campaign urging Florida state Sens. Tony Hill (D-Jacksonville) and Gary Siplin (D-Orlando) to support a bill to provide constitutional protection for state-funded scholarship programs threatened by a Florida Supreme Court decision. By the end of the month, both senators vowed they would not do so.
"We still haven't funded [public education] correctly, so I won't support vouchers until public education is properly funded," Siplin said. He cited large class sizes, underpaid teachers, and lack of books as challenges currently facing the public school system. Hill did not return calls for comment.
In January, the Florida Supreme Court declared Opportunity Scholarships unconstitutional. Opportunity Scholarships--essentially, vouchers--had been available to children assigned to public schools that earned two "F" grades in any four-year period. The scholarships allowed parents of these children to receive state funds to pay tuition at the private school of the parents' choice. More than 90 percent of the children participating in the program were minorities. The court ruled the scholarships violated the state's obligation to create a "uniform" public school system and ordered the children back to the public schools.
Serving StudentsThe state supreme court ruling, and a November 2005 ruling by a state appellate court prohibiting the use of funds at faith-based schools, threaten several other state-funded scholarship programs, including the McKay Scholarship Program for Children with Disabilities and the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program for low-income children.
Statewide, there are more than 30,000 K-12 students who could be forced to return to their assigned public school if the remaining voucher programs are struck down.
When asked how a system he said needs help could handle an even larger burden of students, Siplin said he was "not convinced the system isn't working properly.
"People have kids every day," Siplin said. "We're always going to add to the system."
Protecting ProgramsThe appellate court ruling also threatens other popular education programs. Currently, parents using the new state-funded pre-kindergarten program, which began last August, may use their grants at faith-based institutions. College students may use Bright Futures scholarships and Florida Resident Access Grants at faith-based colleges such as Bethune Cookman College, Edward Waters College, and Florida Memorial College.
To protect the remaining state-funded scholarships, concerned local parents have been encouraging their elected officials to support legislation that would put the issue on the November ballot for voters to decide. If approved by voters, the measure would create a constitutional amendment protecting state-funded scholarships from pre-kindergarten through college. In February, the same parents joined almost 4,000 scholarship supporters for a rally at the capitol in Tallahassee.
Since then, parents in Orlando and Jacksonville have been calling and writing letters to their legislators, and more than 100 contributed to the radio ad campaign asking Hill and Siplin to support the bill. Also supporting the ad campaign was the Florida Committee for Educational Freedom, a nonprofit group that supports school choice for low-income parents.
Changing LivesTwo of the scholarship programs at risk, the McKay Scholarships and the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarships, together serve more than 2,600 children in Hill's district and more than 2,100 children in Siplin's. One parent featured in a radio ad, Betty Saltares, discussed how an Opportunity Scholarship transformed her child's life.
"This program has made such a difference in Alex's life," Saltares said in the radio spot. "He went from failing to earning A's and B's."
Hill's district is home to 52 schools accepting scholarship students, and Siplin's houses 47. One of them, El Bethel Christian Academy in the Orlando neighborhood of Washington Shores, serves 50 children enrolled in the programs--which is why Bishop Ed Thomas and his wife Carolyn, senior pastors, agreed to appear in an ad.
"These programs are helping children right here in Orlando," Bishop Thomas said. "We see the benefits every day, and it is vital to our community that we continue to offer children the opportunity to attend the best school for them."
Jenny Rothenberg (jrothenberg@stepupforstudents.com) is a public relations associate at Step Up for Students, a Tampa-based initiative of the Florida Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program.
Archdiocese lets students have a choice
By David Harsanyi
Denver Post Staff Columnist
DenverPost.com
Why are well-funded teachers unions so fervently opposed to school choice for poor, mostly minority, kids?
For the answer, you could visit the Presentation of Our Lady School in west Denver this morning.
A couple of years ago, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the state's school voucher law was in violation of the state constitution. In doing so, the justices temporarily pulled the rug out from underneath hundreds of poor Denver kids.
And since the Democrats in the legislature - heavily supported by union dollars - won't help fix the technicalities necessary to restart the voucher program, other avenues have to be taken.
Today at Presentation of Our Lady, Seeds of Hope, a Catholic charity, will take on some of the responsibility that government has ignored.
This private program will supply 250 poor kids with $3,000 vouchers each. The families will then be able to shop and pick one of the 30-plus Denver-area Catholic schools. The only stipulation placed on them is that the families demonstrate an "economic need."
The voucher is good for one year, but it is renewable for up to four years - as long as the kids "stay in good citizenship" and make good use of the opportunity.
"We have a very simple application to fill out which gives us basic family data, the reason they would like a voucher, and verification of their economic status," said Richard Thompson, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Denver.
Thompson said there already has been significant interest in the program.
"The interest we're receiving is far greater than we expected," he said. "I've already reviewed 100 applications, and the program hasn't even been officially announced yet."
Which isn't surprising. Whenever parents in low-income areas are given the option to take their kids out of public schools, they clamor for the chance.
Unions know that's bad for business.
This program, Thompson said, isn't only about this batch of underprivileged kids, but it will help the church study the positive impact it can have on the community.
"It's measuring a premise for us," he said. "People indicate that money is a factor that makes the difference in attending Catholic school. I'm never so sure of that. The rigorous academic environment, the requirements we place on parents to be engaged, may also have something to do with it."
According to Thompson, there are too many parents who simply can't be involved as much as they'd like to in their child's life.
"When a family's making $14,000 with four kids, it's obviously really hard for them," he said. "It's not that we reject them for that reason," but they often don't believe they really belong or can be a part of a Catholic school. "By giving them this economic incentive, we're hoping to engage them positively."
By fear of a "rigorous academic environment," Thompson doesn't mean these families fear the hard work but rather that they may worry that it's too much for them to handle or that they may lack the tools to compete.
He said they needn't worry.
"We take many kids who don't even speak the language. I've had a least 30 of these applications who are in Spanish. That's kind of what we're dealing with."
As always with these types of programs, expect many disappointed families to be turned away.
But don't expect voucher programs to be shut out for too long. Across the country, Democrats have also begun to support the school choice movement.
Milwaukee and Washington, D.C., support giving families this chance, along with the incoming Democratic mayor of Newark, N.J., Cory Booker - a graduate of Stanford, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and Yale Law School.
It's an idea whose time has come.
(Today's news conference is at 10 a.m. at Presentation of Our Lady School, 660 Julian St., near U.S. 6 and Federal Boulevard.)
David Harsanyi's column appears Monday and Thursday. He can be reached at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
Gov. Bush signs bill giving new vouchers to kids in stricken program
The Associated Press
June 6, 2006, 7:37 PM EDTTALLAHASSEE -- About 700 students who received unconstitutional vouchers can transfer to an another taxpayer funded program that pays for private schooling under a bill Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law Tuesday.
The measure also imposes new accountability requirements on parochial and other private schools that voucher students including fingerprinting and background checks of teachers and other staff.
The Florida Supreme Court in January ruled the Opportunity Scholarship Program, a cornerstone of Bush's ``A-Plus'' plan for school accountability and improvement, violated a provision of the state constitution that requires a uniform system of free public schools.
Students from public schools that received failing grades from the state in two years out of four were able to private schools at public expense.
The new law will allow those students, if they qualify, to receive vouchers from an unchallenged program for children from poor families, which is financed through corporate tax credits.
It applies only to those who previously had opportunity vouchers. The Legislature declined to pass another bill that would have provided corporate vouchers for future failing school students.
Another existing program offers vouchers to disabled students. About 30,000 children receive the disabled and corporate vouchers.
Bush had urged the Legislature to put a proposed state constitutional amendment on the ballot to get around the Supreme Court ruling and allow lawmakers to create voucher programs for virtually any reason. It failed by a single vote in the Senate.Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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