Bishop Curry
An especially notable voice has joined the chorus calling on the Florida teachers union and Florida School Boards Association to drop their lawsuit against the nation’s largest private school choice program: Bishop Victor T. Curry, one of Florida’s leading black ministers.
In an op-ed today for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Curry, who leads the New Birth Baptist Church in Miami, called it a “cruel irony” that the FEA and FSBA would file against the tax credit scholarship program on Aug. 28 – the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech on the Washington Mall. The 13-year-old scholarship program is serving nearly 69,000 low-income students this fall, about 70 percent of them black or Hispanic.
“I have the highest praise for our public school teachers and administrators. Their task is almost inconceivably difficult, and their results are truly heroic,” Curry wrote. “But here in Miami-Dade, we have a student population of incredible diversity — more than 100 languages are spoken in our public schools — and an economic diversity of staggering proportions. Expecting all children to thrive in a school assigned to them by their ZIP code is just not realistic, even with the best teachers.”
Curry mentioned the private school run by his ministry serves 120 children who use tax credit scholarships to cover the cost of tuition, books and supplies. “In turn,” he continued, “these scholarships allow our families to use their limited incomes to put food on the table and turn on the lights.”
The scholarship program is administered by nonprofit scholarship funding organizations like Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog.
Curry’s stand comes as drop-the-suit efforts continue to mount (see here, here, here, and here). This morning, a “save our scholarships” coalition of faith and community leaders is scheduled to announce a campaign urging FEA and FSBA to reconsider their position. Check the blog later for more info.
