UPDATE: the sponsor of this legislation withdrew it because of parent opposition and reluctance to hold voucher schools accountable
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Jeb Bush has his eye on the Presidency. He will boast of
his education record, but it is a record of smashing public
education and diverting public funding to charters, for-profit
charter chains, vouchers, corporate vendors, anything but our basic
public schools. His antipathy to public education will haunt him.
Here
is the latest scheme pushed by Jeb and friends: more
money for vouchers but please don’t call them vouchers. And lots of
cash for all the helpers. Millions of dollars for facilitators of
vouchers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Given Jeb Bushes track record on education reform, it seems like a good thing to run against.
But who will run against it? The Democrat’s agenda is identical to that of Bush, and Bush had it first.
He probably gets credit for coming up with the Democratic agenda on public schools.
What is the Democratic opponent going to say?
“He’s FOR vouchers and I’m.. ambivalent on vouchers(at least publicly)!”
“He’s for privatizing education really quickly, while I have a ten year plan to close your local public schools!”
“He’s for endless standardized testing, but I’m for endless standardized testing that is ‘smarter’ and ‘balanced’!”
“He’ll seize local control of you public schools, while I’m an agnostic who will relinquish all responsibility for public schools!”
This is a great, defining issue. Awesome choices we have. Bad or worse.
The Senator who sponsored the bill to add sales tax to the tax credit scholarship funding mechanism has withdrawn his bill. Hopefully, this will kill this horrible idea for this year. The only tax revenue FL has is corporate and sales taxes. There is no income tax. This bill would effectively channel a huge portion of FL’s public government’s income into ‘non-profit’ organizations financing private schools. And as the article cited above says, financing a lot of other things to do with school choice. I have to also say, they are paying their ‘executives’ quite well. And why exactly does a private school scholarship organization need a department that works on developing schools? And why is the public funding professional development and other programs for private school staff? This organization may have started with ‘good’ motives to help students in need get into a safer school environment than their local public school (which I don’t really believe but hey we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt), but it has turned into a money laundering organization. Question: how do you funnel taxes directly into the hands of school choice advocates? Answer: You ‘step up for students’!
Article is so poorly written that it will discredit itself.
Jeb, please go away and do not run for president. No one in this country wants a third family member to win the White House. Your brother drove this country into a ditch and Obama has kept us there. If you are elected with your kooky schemes you will not only keep us in the ditch but drive us straight to the core of the earth. Please go away. We don’t need dynastic rulers in Washington that are an extension of the “status quo”. Please take your mother’s advice and stay out of presidential politics. Washington is so stale with the same corrupt players running the show.
The Libertarians in Florida like vouchers, but raised the alarm with some Greens that this is yet another corporate give-away that would lead to a tax nightmare, and sent e-mails en masse to kill this proposal.
They actually are circulating a constitutional amendment to ban corporate welfare.
When the voucher champions are against it, you know that says something.