Dear Friends,
The day of the
Opportunity March was a truly historic day as
the Florida Supreme Court heard the Opportunity Scholarship
case. Over 2,000 people came to Tallahassee to march and rally
on the Florida Supreme Court, from as far away as Miami. It
was an exceedingly moving sight to see everyone marching up
the Madison Street to the Supreme Court. Dr. Howard Fuller,
Chairman of Black Alliance For Educational Options (BAEO), was
a powerful leader of the March, reminding the parents and
children how important their struggle is. Virginia
Walden Ford and former Senate President John McKay (founder of
the McKay Scholarships), also represented magnificently. As
did the President and CEO of the Florida Hispanic Chamber of
Commerce, Julio Fuentes and Edwin Rodriguez, Chairman of the
Florida Black Chambers of Commerce, who publicly committed
their organizations to school choice.
There are references in every major
newspaper regarding parents and children coming from their
local community to Tallahassee. It seems that
every story has a reference to the March/Rally and its size.
This is a significant departure from past reporting, when the
press ignored the human side of the story. We are told that TV
coverage was extensive, with many local shots of people
boarding buses.
Please view the following
segment. We could not have asked for a better visual and
the lawyer for the union is drowned out by the parents. Once
in the site, click on the voucher story:
http://www.wtsp.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=14689
We want to thank all of you who
participated in the Opportunty March. We know the
logistical challenges of bringing people to the state capitol
in the summer, when school is out, vacations are planned and
you have to leave earlier in the morning. You truly are
Spartans.
Thank you for Stepping Up For
Students,
Michael A. Benjamin
Executive Director,
F.A.C.E.
Florida Alliance for
Choices in Education
* THE
FOLLOWING ARTICLES APPEARED IN VARIOUS
PAPERS EITHER THE DAY OF OR AFTER
THE
OPPORTUNITY MARCH IN
TALLAHASSEE *
We
have a date for the 2006 March/Rally. It is February
23rd.
The
event will be during legislative session; therefore we will
unequivocally be including legislative visits that day.
Never too soon to start planning…
Thousands
vouch for system
Florida
Supreme Court justices hear arguments on school
program
By
Nancy Cook Lauer
Tallahassee
DEMOCRAT
CAPITOL BUREAU CHIEF
One
lawyer calls school choice the "civil rights issue of the 21st
century," and the rally of some 2,000 people outside the
Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday bore many similarities to
those rallies of the past.
There
was chanting and clapping and impassioned speeches. Uniformed
police ringed the perimeter, and several guarded the
courthouse doors. Inside, Supreme Court justices in a packed
courtroom listened to an hour of arguments on whether the
state's voucher program violates the state
constitution.
The
case is being watched nationwide because Florida is
the only state with a statewide voucher program. While the
ruling won't set precedent for other states, it could very
well provide the impetus for them to increase or decrease
their use of vouchers, attorneys said.
Opponents
say using taxpayer money to send children to private schools
not only violates constitutional separation of church and
state, but also guts the constitution's requirement that the
state provide free, uniform, high-quality education of
children through a public-school system.
John
West, an attorney representing families in the public-school
system, said the framers of the Florida Constitution
recognized the importance to society of children from all
walks of life learning together, rather than being taught
separately.
"The
free public-school system ... is the cornerstone of our
civilization upon which the very future of our form of
government may well depend," he said.
Proponents
say Gov. Jeb Bush's 1999 A-Plus program offers children a
chance to get out of a failing school and has improved the
public school system by providing competition. They note that
in 1999, the state had 78 schools graded "F" under the Bush
program. Now there are just 14.
"At
the end of the day, school choice is the civil rights issue of
the 21st century," said Clark
Neily,
attorney for the families currently using vouchers. "There's
no other single issue in the country that truly divides the
haves and the have-nots about who gets to choose their child's
education and who's stuck with what they're
given."
The
Supreme Court got the case after a circuit court and then the
1st District Court of Appeal found the law
unconstitutional.
As
is typical, high-court justices peppered attorneys on both
sides with questions, leaving lawyers little chance to use
their prepared arguments. The court, as is its policy, didn't
make an immediate ruling but will release a written ruling
sometime in the future.
Chief
Justice Barbara Pariente asked voucher proponents where the
Legislature gets the authority to "have other forms of
education, other than the public education that is provided
for in (the constitution)."
"So
when you read Article IX Section 1, doesn't that give, isn't
that an expression of the way that the Legislature is to, in
fact, educate the children of this state? That is through a
system of free public education," Pariente
said.
Justices
grilled both sides fairly evenly, but both sides left the
hearing optimistic.
Students
have been allowed to keep using vouchers while the case wends
its way through the legal system. Of some 2.5 million K-12
students in Florida,
719 are using tax-backed Opportunity Scholarships, with 58
percent of them going to religious schools. Combined, the
state's three voucher programs have about 25,000 students. In
addition, many of the estimated 90,000 to 150,000 students are
eligible for the new voluntary pre-kindergarten program will
also attend on vouchers.
Voucher
opponents include the Florida Congress of Parents and Teachers
(Florida PTA), the League of Women Voters of Florida, the
American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, the Florida
Education Association, People for the American
Way
and the Florida Chapter of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.
Supporters
include Gov. Jeb Bush, Attorney General Charlie Crist, the
U.S. Department of Justice, the Florida Catholic Conference
and a coalition made up of the Black Alliance for Educational
Options, Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options,
Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, McKay Coalition
and the Florida
African American Education Alliance.
The
2,000 supporters - many with children in tow - formed a sea of
red T-shirts as those who were early enough to get a seat
inside the courtroom exited the building. The matching shirts
bore the universal symbol for "warning" and the words "200,000
scholarships at risk" on the back.
The
crowd was organized from around the state and came to
Tallahassee on
50 buses.
"We're
here to say," said Howard Fuller, chairman do the Black
Alliance for Educational Options, "that it's un-American for
only those with money to choose their
education."
MORE
ABOUT VOUCHERS
Types
of taxpayer-backed education vouchers in use in Florida:
Opportunity
Scholarships:
A key component of Gov. Jeb Bush's 1999 A-Plus Plan, these are
given to parents of children who attend schools that have been
graded F twice in the past four years, based on Florida
Comprehensive Assessment Tests. This is the voucher being
challenged.
McKay
Scholarships:
Vouchers given to parents of children with learning
disabilities. They are named for former Senate President John
McKay, who championed the measure.
Corporate
Scholarships:
Corporations get tax breaks for giving money so that children
of low-income families can attend private
schools.
Jun 8,
2005
2,000 Rally In
Support Of Vouchers
By GARRETT
THEROLF, Tampa Tribune
gtherolf@tampatrib.com
TALLAHASSEE
- Just outside the
Florida Supreme Court's heavy metal doors, an estimated 2,000
chanting parents and students made their case for school
vouchers in the court of public opinion.
Inside,
attorneys debated the constitutionality of giving public money
to private schools.
``The court will
make its decision on the legal arguments and so forth, but I
think it's important that the people let the policy-makers and
everyone else know this is important,'' said Howard Fuller, a
former superintendent of Milwaukee public schools who has
become a national spokesman for the voucher movement.
Fuller and the
other protesters acknowledged they are trying to get ahead of
the fallout from the court's decision, whatever it may be.
For that reason,
and because vouchers exist only in a handful of states, a
consortium of national organizations funded 38 buses to gather
protesters from across the state and outfit them with matching
red T-shirts proclaiming ``200,000 Futures at Risk.''
A spokeswoman
for the demonstration, Kim Collins, declined to say which
national organizations funded the operation and with how much
money, but she said the organizations that carried it out
included the Black Alliance for Education Options and the
Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Parents said
they were coached to speak about ``parents' choice'' and the
point that ``this is not a debate about public versus private,
it's about how best to teach our kids.''
They
dramatically outnumbered voucher opponents, who included
public school teachers and Floridians who say vouchers erode
the strength of public schools.
Speaking for the
opponents on the street was one of their lead attorneys, Ron
Meyer, who kept his comments mostly to the legal points,
focusing on state constitutional requirements.
Public money to
private schools, Meyer said, is ``not only unconstitutional,
it's bad policy, and we think we already know that very
well.''
Melvin Coleman,
of Tampa, whose son
Jordan attends
Tampa Baptist Academy with state
voucher money, said, ``My son wasn't learning anything in
public school. For that reason, the people you see here will
continue pushing for alternatives to public schools regardless
of what happens with this particular case.''
Reporter
Jerome R. Stockfisch contributed to this report. Reporter
Garrett Therolf can be reached at (850)
222-8382.
School vouchers on line as justices
tackle issue
BY JAMES DEAN
FLORIDA
TODAY
Carrie Garrison isn't putting her son
Tyler back in public schools, even if Florida's
Supreme Court justices decide the state can't continue to pay
his tuition at a Catholic school.
When the court begins hearing
arguments today about the constitutionality of Gov. Jeb Bush's
school voucher program, parents of more than 600
Brevard County students that use vouchers -- and
the schools they attend -- will be watching closely.
"I think any parent should have a
choice of whether to put their child in private or public
school," said Garrison, 36, of Palm Bay. "It's
not just about religion, it's about their education and where
they're going to do better."
The case specifically concerns
Opportunity Scholarships, for which no Brevard students are
eligible. That's because no local schools have earned F grades
twice in the last four years.
But a ruling against Opportunity
Scholarships likely would affect other vouchers, like the
McKay Scholarship for disabled students that Garrison last
year used to enroll her son in second grade at
St. Joseph's Catholic School.
It could also affect the state's new
voluntary prekindergarten program and Bright Futures
scholarships.
Garrison credits St.
Joseph's with helping Tyler, who suffers from Auditory
Processing Disorder, catch up to grade level after he'd been
lagging in a public school. She's determined keep him there
whether the voucher is available or not.
For some parents, however, losing the
voucher would mean a return to public schools, which might be
strained to create classroom space and hire qualified
teachers.
Meanwhile, jobs could be threatened at
some private schools, like R. F. M. Christian
Academy in Melbourne, which depends on McKay Scholarships for
about half of its 120 students.
"A lot of children will suffer because
of the fact that public schools are overpopulated anyway,"
said Ezella Parker, the principal.
Enrico Pucci, principal at
Park Avenue Christian Academy in Titusville,
expects the legal fight to continue, whatever the state
Supreme Court decides.
"It puts us and legislators on notice
that we want to begin the process of legislating a little more
clearly and efficiently how choice programs in
Florida will work," he said.
Contact Dean at 242-3617 or jdean@flatoday.net
Voucher case may affect
thousands
BY AARON DESLATTE
FLORIDA
TODAY
TALLAHASSEE - Brenda
McShane never asked to be a test subject in the cultural and
legal clash surrounding school vouchers in Florida.
McShane was one of the first wave of
parents in Pensacola to benefit from Gov. Jeb Bush's
"Opportunity Scholarships," the nation's first statewide
voucher program that lets children opt out of failing public
schools.
It was a chance the mother of four
considers a blessing from God, but one that groups from the
National Education Association to the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People call a cancer sucking the
lifeblood of public schools.
Today, the six-year-old legal fight
concerning Florida's landmark voucher program lands before the
state Supreme Court, and no matter how the legal pendulum
swings, some parents will be on the losing end. A decision
after today's oral arguments could be months
away.
Usually by 7 each morning, McShane
drops off her 12-year-old daughter, Brenisha, at the
Montessori School of Pensacola, a private, exclusive setting
where her tuition, field trips and after-school care are paid
for by the state.
"People should look at the big picture
and forget about the separation of church and state. This is
about educating children," said McShane, 48, a Head Start
supervisor who will attend today's Supreme Court arguments
with other voucher parents.
On the other side of the courtroom
will be Susan Watson, a Pensacola mother whose
children are plaintiffs in the suit. Watson came to
Tallahassee on Monday with her two teenage children, Seth and
Sybil, to argue public schools have done an excellent job.
"Public schools are free and open to
all children, they are accountable to parents and taxpayers
alike, and they are essential to our democracy," Watson
said.
Education groups have charged the
vouchers violate a 120-year constitutional provision that
blocks using state funds "in aid of any church, sect, or
religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian
institution." Since Escambia County teacher Ruth
Holmes first filed suit in 1999, lower courts largely have
agreed.
Holmes, a Navarre Beach
resident who now is retired, said Monday she remained
convinced the threat of vouchers doesn't help public schools
improve.
"I think teachers work just as hard
today as before Jeb Bush ever mentioned the word 'vouchers,'"
Holmes said.
Recent research on
Florida's voucher program suggests it might.
Harvard University professor Paul Peterson presented a study
in March of individual student scores on Florida's state
assessments that found schools on the verge of being declared
"failing," thereby qualifying its students for vouchers, had
shown improvements.
Groups ready to rally in
capital
State Supreme Court to hear lawsuit
today
By JENNIFER BOOTH REED
Ft. Meyers News Press
JREED@NEWS-PRESS.COM
Auriel Williams bent over a
poster-sized sheet of white paper, and in her best handwriting
printed "Educational Freedom is a Civil Right."
The
Mount Hermon Christian School seventh-grader was
getting ready Monday for today's rally in Tallahassee urging
the state's highest court to preserve the school vouchers that
make it possible for her and her younger brother to attend the
private school. A total of 27 current and former Mount Hermon
students will attend the rally.
The Florida Supreme
Court today begins hearing oral arguments in a six-year-old
lawsuit over school vouchers. Vouchers are state scholarships
that families can use in certain instances to send their
children to private schools.
At issue is whether taxpayer money can
be used to pay tuition at faith-based schools such as
Mount Hermon.
Justin Perry, 13, didn't
receive a voucher to attend Mount Hermon, but thinks it's
important to make private schools available for all
students.
"It's important to me. It'll help me
in the future and I know it'll help a lot of kids in the
future," he said of his private school education.
Ten
Mount Hermon students receive vouchers now, but
administrators expect that number will grow as Lee families
become more aware of their availability.
The vouchers
that Lee students can tap into are not the ones being
challenged in the Supreme Court. The vouchers cited in the
lawsuit are the "Opportunity Scholarships" the state offers to
students whose public school earned F's twice in a four-year
period. Lee has no F-rated schools.
Instead, Lee families can participate
in voucher programs that serve low-income or disabled
students.
But some observers say if the court finds
Opportunity Scholarships unconstitutional, the Florida Pride
Scholarships for lower-income families and the McKay
Scholarships for students with disabilities will be challenged
next. They also fear the Bright Futures Scholarships for
college students and the universal prekindergarten amendment
will be in jeopardy. Both allow students to apply state money
to faith-based programs.
"All of those programs are on the
chopping block if this one goes down," said Clark Neily, a
senior attorney for the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for
Justice, which is fighting to preserve the Opportunity
Scholarships. "The implications are huge."
The last
court to rule on the case, the First District Court of
Appeals, found the vouchers unconstitutional.
In Lee,
relatively few students — 492 — have a McKay or Florida Pride
Scholarship. The number of parents using pre-kindergarten
money to send their children to a faith-based preschool won't
be known until later this summer.
Local private school directors are
watching the case. The Department of Education lists 15
faith-based private schools
in Lee eligible to receive McKay
Scholarships and 23 that will accept the Florida Pride
Scholarships. Some of them can receive both.
Some local
schools, such as the Father Anglim Academy at
Dreams are Free, exist almost entirely because of state
voucher money. Eighty percent of the academy's 65 students
receive a state voucher. The school serves students with
special needs.
A typical academy student gets $5,000 to
$7,500 from the state, and the school frequently offers
financial aid to those who can't pay the remaining tuition,
$12,000 per year.
"If you cut out that amount of money,
that's another car payment, that's another mortgage,"
Principal Lori Moreau said.
Moreau, a former public
school teacher, once opposed vouchers and the idea of putting
special-needs students in separate schools. Her experience at
the academy changed her mind on both issues.
"I firmly believe in public schools
and their place in our system, and I would be opposed to any
voucher program that would threaten the stability of the
system," she said.
She thinks her program is an
alternative, not a competitor. She said some students with
disability fare better at the academy because of the small,
intimate setting and the school's practice of grouping
together children with similar disabilities. That allows
teachers to concentrate on specific needs, she
said.
The academy, housed in a former convent, is part
of the Diocese of Venice but gets no money from the area's
Catholic headquarters. Students must take a daily religious
class, but Moreau said the emphasis is on values, ethics and
religious tolerance — not Catholic
indoctrination.
Vicki Burnett transferred her son from
public school to the academy three years ago.
"He's
really come a long way with their help," said Burnett, whose
son has dyslexia.
She doesn't think she could pay for
tuition without the McKay scholarship.
Opponents of
vouchers not only dislike the idea of taxpayer money going to
religious organizations, they don't think the private schools
can prove they're doing a better job.
Mark Pudlow, a
spokesman for the Florida Education Association, said the
state ought to pump money into smaller class sizes and more
teacher training, which he said were proven methods of
boosting student achievement.
"Why don't we fix the problems instead
of farming them off?" he said.
Lee County School Board
member Jane Kuckel said parents have enough choices with the
district's focus on offering special programs and with charter
schools, which must take the same standardized tests and are
held to the same standards as traditional public
schools.
"I don't see a need for vouchers at
this time. I think we have plenty of opportunities for
choice," Kuckel said. "Secondly, I support the separation of
church and state. I am not in favor of offering money to
schools that teach religion."
EDUCATION
School
voucher case in court's hands
The Florida Supreme Court is scheduled to hear
arguments today on whether the state should be using public
money to help students attend religious schools -- a case
that's drawing national attention.
BY MARC CAPUTO and GARY
FINEOUT
mcaputo@herald.com
TALLAHASSEE - A cornerstone of Gov.
Jeb Bush's education legacy that has blurred some lines
between church and state heads to oral arguments today at the
Florida Supreme Court in a nationally watched case concerning
God, the papacy and the Founding Fathers.
Central to the case: 39 words written
120 years ago into Florida's Constitution that
basically ban spending money ''directly or indirectly in aid
of'' religious institutions.
Bush's education system has allowed
thousands of children to use tens of millions of public-money
scholarships to attend private -- mostly religious -- schools
since 1999, just after Bush campaigned for his classroom
reforms and assumed office.
But before the first checks were
written, largely to Roman Catholic schools, the state
teachers' union and a coalition of other groups, including the
American Civil Liberties Union, sued on two constitutional
counts: the so-called ''no-aid'' church-and-state provision
and another that requires the state to run a ``high-quality
system of free public schools.''
With Bush repeatedly appealing, the
union and its allies have won at every court level on its
no-aid claim, but has a mixed record on the free
public-schools issue. Meantime, Bush and the Legislature have
expanded the number and types of scholarships, known commonly
as vouchers.
If Bush loses before
Florida's high court, he might head to the U.S.
Supreme Court to determine the extent to which church and
state can mix. The case has drawn dozens of political
special-interest groups from around the country to intervene.
The state justices won't decide the case today, but will hear
arguments for about an hour.
GOVERNOR'S
OPTION
''I don't know what the [state]
Supreme Court will do,'' said Bush, who shied away from
speculating on whether he would take the case to the nation's
top court should he lose once again. ``We're hopeful they will
protect the rights of parents to make
choices.''
The governor, quoting a dissenting
appeals court judge, predicts in court filings ''catastrophic
and absurd'' consequences if the court sides with the union:
Cash-strapped parents will lose the right to choose schools
for their kids, religious schools will be discriminated
against unfairly, and other religious-based aid organizations
-- from Baptist hospitals providing services to the poor, to
religious colleges that accept students on public
scholarships, to religious-based schools participating in the
state's new voluntary prekindergarten program -- will face the
ax.
`FEAR-MONGERING'
The union's lawyer, Ron Meyer, says
Bush is ``fear-mongering with this parade of
horribles.''
Meyer said Bush is ignoring one
essential fact: ``The hospitals they're talking about don't
promote religion. These religious schools teach religion. They
inculcate religion. They promote religion. That's why they're
religious schools.''
The union's court filings are replete
with testimony from the principal of Pensacola's
St. Michael Interparochial School, which received a third of
the first scholarships in 1999, where teachers ''provide a
Christ-centered and gospel-based education'' that forms the
basis for ``why we exist.''
Bush has argued in court papers that
the benefit to any religion is
``incidental.''
About 75 percent of the 1,200 schools
that accept vouchers are religious schools, which accept
nearly 90 percent of the money. All told, more than 26,000
children in Florida received one of three types
of vouchers last year.
Since 1999, the state has spent about
$260 million on vouchers for kids in failing schools and for
disabled children.
The lawsuit specifically targets the
failing-schools voucher program but would likely affect the
one for the disabled, which was created in 2000 and is 20
times larger and 32 times more expensive than its
predecessor.
NO-AID
PROVISION
The third type of voucher, for poor
kids, might not be affected if the court rules the vouchers
violate the Constitution's no-aid provision. These are
underwritten by corporations that get a tax write-off in
return, so technically no money is spent from the state
treasury.
However, the state's Pre-K program
that could enroll upwards of 170,000 children would likely be
affected by a ruling against the voucher program because many
of the school providers are religious.
Bush has trumpeted the voucher
programs, which passed along with the high-stakes Florida
Comprehensive Assessment Test, for bringing ''rising student
achievement,'' a claim backed up by a recent
Harvard University study that found poorly
performing schools do better when faced with the ''threat'' of
losing students and being branded as failing.
Black and Hispanic students have
received a disproportionate number of the vouchers in question
and would be most hurt by a ruling against vouchers, said
Bishop Harold Ray, a pastor at West Palm Beach-based
Redemptive Life Fellowship and its affiliated school. Standing
on the Supreme Court's steps during a January press
conference, he called this a ''civil rights''
case.
Rather than discuss the potential
civil-rights aspect of the case, Bush has attacked the
foundation of the no-aid provision as rooted in
``anti-Catholic bigotry.''
The language was first inserted into
Florida's Constitution in 1885, a few years
after James Blaine of Maine -- a one-time Speaker of the House
and Republican candidate for president -- sought to include
the no-aid language into the U.S. Constitution.
Italian immigration was starting to
increase at the time and Anglo-Saxon Protestants sought
various means to control the new arrivals, including blocking
Catholic schools from getting public money.
A host of states subsequently adopted
the language.
But Meyer points out that notions
regarding the separation of church and state preceded the
so-called Blaine amendments, and go all the way
back to Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Benjamin Rush and Noah
Webster.
Plus, the provision remained in
Florida's Constitution as it was rewritten in
the '60s, with some authors of that document saying it was
kept specifically to prohibit vouchers.
So far, the governor hasn't received
much help from judges. The nine-member First District Court of
Appeal has twice shot down the voucher
program.
But while Bush has suffered at the
hands of the court, there's one area he has mastered:
political campaigns. Some of his supporters and like-minded
Christian conservatives have argued that the best way to deal
with the no-aid provision is to pluck it out of the
constitution.
POLITICAL
DIVIDENDS
The political dividends of such a
campaign against ''anti-Catholic bigotry'' and in support of
''school choice'' and minority education could be rich:
involving Catholics, an active Republican-leaning voting bloc,
as well as religious blacks and Hispanics, who tend to be
Democrats.
But Bush has repeatedly shied away
from proposing a constitutional initiative campaign. ''I'm
keeping my powder dry,'' he says.
