The bill allowed tax credits for alcoholic beverage excise, direct pay sales and use, and oil and gas severance taxes. Then in 2010, with bipartisan support, the Legislature approved a major expansion of the program. Shortly after the program was renamed the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, the first state-commissioned evaluation report showed students on the program in 2007-08 experienced learning gains at the same pace as all students nationally. Despite the increases, the state’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability reported that the program had saved taxpayers $38.9 million in 2007-08. By 2009, the cap stood at $118 million, with awards at $3,950. The state required students to take a nationally norm-referenced test to ensure accountability.įamilies kept coming. The next year, the award increased from $3,500 to $3,750. High demand created wait lists, prompting lawmakers to raise the cap to $88 million in 2005. “In addition, the personal stories from parents whose students were benefitting from the privately funded program were very powerful.” “My best argument was that the liberal establishment also supported school choice – for their children, but not for families with modest means,” said Negron, who is now a business executive. Joe Negron, who sponsored the bill while serving as a state representative and later supported scholarship expansion as a state senator, recalled the strategy he employed to get the bill passed. When the program, capped at $50 million, began awarding scholarships worth $3,500 in 2002, there were just 15,000 scholarship students. Jeb Bush, House Speaker Tom Feeney and Senate President John McKay, all of whom strongly supported the creation of the Florida Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship program. The program drew 12,000 applications in just four months, confirming what Kirtley already suspected: Parents of modest means wanted the best education for their children just as much as people who could afford to pay private school tuition or buy homes in desirable neighborhoods. Truth be told, he didn’t need glitzy marketing. “It was just me walking around to churches and housing projects talking about the program.” “We hardly did any advertising at all,” Kirtley said. Kirtley connected with that group, which was seeking to match funds raised by partners in different states for economically disadvantaged families to send their children to private schools of their choice. Soon after, he learned of a new national non-profit, the Children’s Scholarship Fund, started by John Walton of the famous retail family and Ted Forstmann, chairman and CEO of a Wall Street firm. Kirtley started a private, nonprofit forerunner to Step Up For Students in 1998 and since then has experienced all the milestones and challenges leading up to the millionth scholarship.Īt the beginning, “It was just me, and I had enough money to fund 350 scholarships,” recalled Kirtley, who can recite statistics about the scholarship program the way a baseball fan quotes facts and figures about a favorite player. Kirtley, founder of Step Up for Students, the state’s largest K-12 scholarship funding organization and host of this blog. “I’ve said from the very beginning my goal was that someday every low-income and working-class family could choose the learning environment that is best for their children just like families with money already do,” said John F. There’s even a scholarship for public school students who need help with reading skills. Today, students can choose from a variety of offerings ranging from the original tax credit scholarship to a flexible spending account for students with special needs to scholarships for victims of bullying. Over the years, as the concept of education choice has evolved, the scholarship offerings managed by Step Up For Students have changed to fit families’ needs. Nearly two decades after Step Up For Students began awarding tax credit scholarships for lower-income students to fulfill their school choice dreams, the organization is marking another milestone: the funding of its 1-millionth scholarship. Martin Luther King III led a rally in January 2016 that drew more than 10,000 people to Tallahassee in support of education choice in response to a lawsuit brought by the Florida Education Association demanding that the courts shut down scholarship programs in the state.Įditor’s note: During the holiday season, redefinED is reprising the “best of the best” from our 2020 archives.
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