Education Next – Joshua Dunn
“In January, the Florida Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge to the state’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program, thereby preserving financial aid opportunities for thousands of low-income students to attend private schools. The decision marked an about-face for the court. In 2006, the court had struck down the state’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, a voucher program for students trapped in failing public schools (see “Florida Grows a Lemon,” legal beat, Summer 2006). But left unchallenged at the time was the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships for students of limited means to attend private schools. Unlike state-subsidized voucher programs, which are funded by collected tax revenues, this program bypasses state coffers by giving corporations a dollar-for-dollar tax break when they contribute to a scholarship funding organization. Started in 2001, the program has become extremely popular, growing to serve almost 100,000 students, most of them minorities, during the 2016–17 school year. Naturally, the state teachers union wants to kill the program.”(more)