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Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Why Expanding Vouchers is an Unconscionable Act | Scathing Purple Musings

Why Expanding Vouchers is an Unconscionable Act | Scathing Purple Musings:

Why Expanding Vouchers is an Unconscionable Act

Florida House speaker-in waiting told St. Petersburg Times education reporter, Jeffrey Solochek last week that he had plans to expand the corporate tax credit. Jacksonville parent Julie G. Delegal has been an obsever of the state’s reform efforts for some time. She often takes her activism to print and has penned an open letter to Weatherford, who remarkable said he’s never heard from parents who are concerned about what vouchers have cost our public schools. Delegal has given permission to reprint her letter in this space.

Your assertion that Florida’s private school voucher program “saves” Floridians money is iffy, at best, on a couple of fronts. I will limit my comments for the purposes of this letter to the “Step Up for Students” Florida Tax Credit (FTC) voucher. (For the record, however, I also advocate for better accountability for Florida’s direct voucher program for special needs students, the McKay voucher. I disclose that my husband has served as chairman of the board for a McKay voucher school. We