Anybody watching the scrum over the tax credit scholarship bill in Florida has been treated to quite the display of dueling op-eds.
Educators (like here and here) have been among those weighing in against the bill and/or the scholarship program, which is administered by Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog. But it’s noteworthy, given prevailing narratives, that a number of educators have been on the pro-parental choice side, too.
Their views and backgrounds are diverse (see here), so pigeonhole at your peril. But several respectfully stressed that support for expanding school choice does not pit public vs. private.
Wrote Stacy Angier, principal of Abundant Life Christian Academy in Margate, in the South Florida Sun Sentinel:
“Our scholarship parents tell us, all the time, that their children are doing better, that their children love school now. I don’t bring this up as a knock on their former schools. It doesn’t mean our school is better; it means we’re different – and for individual students, different may be better.”
Wrote Steve Knellinger, lead administrator at St. Petersburg Christian School, in the Tampa Bay Times:
“We view public schools in Pinellas County as partners, not adversaries. We believe we are helping them, and they are helping us. If students want to attend a traditional neighborhood public school, or a fundamental school, or a magnet school, because that’s where they’re most likely to find success, why not? At the same time, if students who are not successful in public schools can find success at a private school like ours, why not?”
Wrote Nadia Hionides, principal of The Foundation Academy in Jacksonville, in Context Florida:
“I know that the more choices we offer, the more opportunities there are for children to succeed. Only in the diversity that is offered by all of these choices, public and private, can we possibly meet the endlessly diverse needs of all our children.”
Several of the op-eds also have this thread in common: Respect for parents’ ability to know what is best for their kids.
In a particularly moving post on the EdFly Blog, Mary Laura Bragg, a former teacher who is now director of state policy implementation at the Foundation for Excellence in Education, wrote about one of her former students and his mom. “James,” a good football player but a terrible student, was tanking in school until his mom, at wit’s end, secured a tax credit scholarship.
At his new school, things changed. Teachers and administrators held the line on high standards, at one point putting James on academic probation in the middle of football season. He got the message, and he got in gear. Now he’s in college.
“Anyone who says that choices for parents are bad for the education system should meet James’ mom,” Bragg wrote. “She’ll set you straight.”
