ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Florida\u2019s school choice programs are at the center of a heated debate.<\/p>\n
Supporters held a press conference on Wednesday in St. Petersburg to push back against a lawsuit filed by the Florida Education Association calling for transparency and accountability, challenging parts of the state\u2019s education scholarship and charter school programs.<\/p>\n
The press conference was organized by Step Up for Students, a scholarship funding organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis debate comes down to one simple question,”\u00a0said Christopher Pastura, superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of St. Petersburg. “Who is best equipped to make educational decisions for these children, or yours, a bureaucrat sitting in an office hundreds of miles away or the parent who know and love and raise and sacrifice for these children every single day?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The FEA\u2019s lawsuit claims that private and charter schools receiving taxpayer dollars through vouchers and scholarships aren\u2019t held to the same standards as public schools, and because of that, public schools are struggling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re asking for the legislature to actually enforce the constitution, which means if taxpayer money is being used, there should be accountability to taxpayers. If parents are being given options, then they should have all of the information in those options,\u201d said Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association.<\/p>\n
But Leslie Coker, who has two sons with special needs, says public school wouldn\u2019t meet their needs, and they couldn\u2019t afford their current school without the state scholarship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not anti-public school. Public schools work for many children, but they don\u2019t work for every child, including my sons,” Coker said. “Those students need alternative options, the kind that the state scholarships provide. For me, the lawsuit is not political, it\u2019s personal.”<\/p>\n
Lee Bryant, president of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association, says parents do have choices in public schools and can feel confident sending their children knowing they\u2019ve met all state standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have choices in schools. You can choose the school that best meets your child\u2019s needs. We have nearly 100 different attractors and programs in Pinellas County Schools. There\u2019s something out there for everybody, and we accept everybody,\u201d said Bryant.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit is in its early stages. No court date has been set yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Florida\u2019s school choice programs are at the center of a heated debate. Supporters held a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4996,9995,274,113,5711,28,30,29,115,139,596,135,278],"class_list":["post-286684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-app-education","tag-app-latest-education-stories","tag-app-top-stories","tag-education","tag-fallon-silcox","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-pinellas-county","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}