{"id":1999,"date":"2014-02-03T14:00:11","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=1999"},"modified":"2014-06-22T17:08:32","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T21:08:32","slug":"florida-voucher-program-expanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1999","title":{"rendered":"Florida Voucher Program Expanding?"},"content":{"rendered":"

First, I invite you to read this Salon piece, Creationism, at taxpayer expense: Secrets of the GOP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s frightening new school voucher schemes<\/a>. You can probably guess from the headline alone that the article takes a negative view of vouchers. For example:<\/p>\n

“In Florida, from 2006 to 2010, the state carried out a school voucher plan that resembled ‘a perverse science experiment, using disabled school kids as lab rats and funded by nine figures in taxpayer cash,’ according to a report at The Miami New Times website.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are links in that story to other recent articles about voucher-accepting private schools across the country teaching creationism in science class. There are more than 160 such cases in Florida alone (see the map here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

So, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m very nervous when I see this recent news: Fl legislative leaders want to lower college tuition and expand choice and career education<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel,] said they also want to see a “massive expansion” of Florida’s Tax-Credit Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships so families living in poverty can send their children to private schools.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve brought up the subject of Florida taxpayers funding creationism via vouchers before and tried to nudge reporters at a couple of newspapers to look into it. The results were disappointing<\/a>. Even with the recent revelations of just how many of these schools are teaching religion as science, the response is still a tepid ho-hum.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see this as a black and white issue, though. Take a look at this positive article: Florida Family \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBlessed\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to Be Part of Scholarship Program<\/a>. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had the personal experiences of my child with documented learning disabilities not getting required accommodations in public school. I understand the desire to find the best education possible for your children when it feels like public schools can’t get the job done. But a great reading\/writing program or better individualized attention at a private school can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come at the cost of gross educational misconduct in other areas, such as science education.<\/p>\n

So, what do I want to see happen? Much, much stronger oversight of what these private schools that accept vouchers are doing. It’s embarrassing how bad science education appears to be in so many of these schools. And it’s even more embarrassing that no one here in Florida seems to care. Before our state legislature approves a “massive expansion” they need to tighten up regulation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First, I invite you to read this Salon piece, Creationism, at taxpayer expense: Secrets of the GOP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s frightening new school voucher schemes. You can probably guess from the headline alone that the article takes a negative view of vouchers. For … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-wf","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2118,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2118","url_meta":{"origin":1999,"position":0},"title":"Nope, I didn’t say that.","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A column was published today in the Tallahassee Democrat (Michael McShane: Don't blame vouchers for poor science instruction) that agrees with my earlier column in that newspaper concerning how it's wrong to teach creationism, but then he distorts the purpose of my column and attributes motives to me that I\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3010,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3010","url_meta":{"origin":1999,"position":1},"title":"News Roundup 12\/10\/17","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell wrote a piece about the new instructional materials bill we have in Florida as well as the pre-filed bill that's waiting for the next legislative session: Book-banning \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a crusade for Florida's simplest minds. And now, a new bill would allow activists to suggest new\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3010#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2063,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2063","url_meta":{"origin":1999,"position":2},"title":"More media paying attention … Just not Florida media","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"More and more national media are paying attention to the travesty of substandard science education going on in many voucher accepting private schools. Politico has a good, in-depth piece: Taxpayers fund creationism in the classroom. Florida is mentioned several times in the story, such as this mind blowing quote: But\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2063#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1822,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1822","url_meta":{"origin":1999,"position":3},"title":"Orlando Sentinel takes notice","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Orlando Sentinel's School Zone blog took notice of the voucher-accepting-private-schools-that-teach-creationism mess that I posted about before. Teaching of creationism at voucher schools raises alarm (again), as taxpayer money supports Bible-based lessons The end of the post notes: Of course, this is not a new issue, as colleague Dave Weber\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1822#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2337,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2337","url_meta":{"origin":1999,"position":4},"title":"Sidestepping an important question about school vouchers","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"August 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Palm Beach Post published a Q & A session with representatives of Step Up for Students about Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tax Credit Scholarship Program: Accountability next debate for private vouchers I want to emphasize that Florida Citizens for Science as an organization doesn't get directly involved in the voucher debate. Some\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2337#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2038,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2038","url_meta":{"origin":1999,"position":5},"title":"Accountability in voucher schools","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Companion bills in the state legislature are attempting to expand a school voucher program. The House bill recently got a green light from one of its committee stops, but news accounts point out that the House version may not quite match the version in the Senate. The House bill gives\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 10 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 10 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2038#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1999"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2002,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions\/2002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}