About 70 percent of the children on scholarships are African American or Latino.īut that choice doesn’t come with a guarantee of quality. The income limit for families using the scholarship has increased in recent years, though state reports say the children using the tax credit scholarship are generally among the poorest in the state and kids who are struggling the most in public schools. It also is a chief advocate for school choice whose leaders help write the laws that govern Florida’s scholarships, the biggest such system in the nation.Ĭritics of the scholarships, sometimes called vouchers, say those laws - which by design don’t require private schools to have certified teachers, curriculum that follows Florida’s academic standards or facilities with modern technology or textbooks - allow such schools to flourish at the expense of public education. Step Up, which will earn about $18.4 million off the scholarships this year, is more than just a state contractor hired to do a job. In all, Florida has a nearly $1 billion scholarship system that allows certain children to leave public schools for private ones. It also solicits corporations to apply for the tax credits from the state - this year expected to be worth $630 million - that pay for the program. In fact, Step Up approves 99 percent of scholarships for more than 100,000 children as one of two state contractors that determines whether kids are eligible based on family income. Step Up for Students is not well known outside the school choice world, but for parents and private school administrators the nonprofit is so synonymous with the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship that they often refer to it as the “Step Up scholarship.”
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