Publications - Research & Commentary: Opportunity Scholarships a Necessary, Timely Program for Tennessee Families heartland.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from heartland.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Brian Mudd
Jan 29, 2021
Q&A of the Day – What’s the top priority for Florida this year? Part 2
Bottom Line: Governor DeSantis dubbed 2020 “The year of the teacher”. That was the theme of the 2020 legislative session. Of course, the pandemic which hit shortly after the governor outlined that agenda, largely cast a shadow over everything else in education last year. Still, record pay raises passed in last year’s session provided Florida’s teachers with a pay scale that’s competitive with the top states in the country. I’d like to see the 2021 session be the year of “Choice”.
New poll shows strong support for school choice in North Carolina by Nyamekye Daniel, The Center Square | January 29, 2021 10:00 AM Print this article
A majority of North Carolinians support school choice, according to a new Civitas poll, which was released Thursday in conjunction with National School Choice Week.
Civitas surveyed 950 bipartisan voters from various parts of the state. The survey results showed 82% of North Carolinians believe parents should have the ability to select the school their child attends. Only 29% of the respondents with children currently enrolled in K-12 schools said they would choose a traditional public school if location and cost were not factors, the poll showed.
With President Biden in the White House and Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, conservatives are bracing for a flurry of policy changes on issues they care about.
Already, the Biden administration has unleashed nearly two dozen executive orders related to immigration, climate change, and gender identity.
When Congress comes back into session, there will undoubtedly be more activity. While North Carolina is insulated from the federal government on a number of issues, there could still be some major changes coming.
In many cases, the Biden administration will support policies also pushed by Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat who has so far been held off by a Republican-led General Assembly.
The dismantling of public education in Florida has been on a relentless march since former Gov. Jeb Bush hatched an ill-fated plan for an ever-expanding voucher program.
The Florida Supreme Court seemingly put an end to this in 2006, when it ruled that the state’s nascent Opportunity Scholarship Program, which funded private tuitions for just 730 former public-school students, was unconstitutional. It diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools that are the sole means set out in the Constitution for the state to provide for the education of Florida s children, the state’s high court opinion read.