In Florida, only 52 percent of Hispanic students graduate from high school, and only one in 25 will attend college. Many believe that the way to help increase the graduation rate for Hispanic high school students is to give more funding to the public schools. However, most public schools in low-income areas spend over $8,000 per-pupil and yet have extremely low graduation rates; on the other hand, there are many private schools which charge under $4,000 for tuition and provide a higher quality education.
Hispanic CREO has been working hard to educate parents about all the opportunities they have available to improve the quality of their children's education. If private schools are charging less than what public schools are being paid for each child, why shouldn't parents be able to send their children to the cheaper and better-performing private schools? The new school choice programs in Florida are so beneficial to parents and since Florida leads the country in providing educational options for children, Hispanic CREO wants to make sure that parents know how to get their children the best education possible.
1996: Named the eighth strongest in the nation, Florida’s Charter School Program was passed this year, serving over 92,000 students in over 300 schools.
1999: With the help of Governor Jeb Bush, Florida began the nation’s first statewide school choice program called the A+ Education Plan, enabling students to opt out of failing public schools and into better-performing public or private schools.
The scholarships included in the plan are:
The McKay Scholarship for Children with Disabilities Program which offers a scholarship for parents of students with physical and learning disabilities to pay a private school’s tuition and fees so they can choose the school that meets their children’s needs,
And in addition, the Opportunity Scholarship Program which allows students who attend an underachieving Florida school to transfer to a better school chosen by the parents with the help of a voucher.
2000: In March, a state judge struck down the private school choice provision of the new program. The court ruled that the Florida scholarship program violated the constitutional mandate that the state “provide a free education through a system of public schools.”
Fortunately in October of that same year, the Florida First District Court of Appeals ruled that the school voucher program was constitutional and could remain in effect, thus canceling the previous ruling by the state judge.
2001: The Florida Step Up for Students Scholarship Program was initiated, allowing corporations to get tax credits when they contribute to qualified Scholarship Funding Organizations (SFO) which provide low-income students with scholarships.
Not only do the scholarships allow parents to send their children to the private school of their choice, but they may also be used to provide up to $500 in transportation grants for students wishing to attend an out-of-district public school.
2005: The Florida Voluntary Kindergarten Program was initiated this year and provides every four year old in Florida with a high-quality, and free pre-kindergarten education. Approximately 140,000 children participated in the first year alone.
2006: Florida Supreme Court struck down the Opportunity Scholarships as a violation of the state constitution, stating that the program limits the state’s ability to provide a “uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools.”
Opportunity Scholarships for students attending failing public schools can now only be used to transfer to a different public school on a space-available basis. This ruling against school vouchers threatens the remaining school choice programs in Florida.
Nevertheless, Governor Bush signed a bill to allow about 700 students from the Opportunity Scholarship Program to transfer to the corporate tax credit scholarship program.
There is still work to be done in Florida to protect the rights of parents to exercise school choice!
For this reason, approximately 150 parents, business and faith based leaders gathered in Miami in 2006 for a one-day summit that captured, educated, motivated and mobilized participants to become leaders in school choice.
