MIAMI – Robert Crockett III is engaged in hand-to-hand combat with his uncooperative red-and-white striped necktie as a photographer sets him up for the next shot. On a bright, breezy spring day at Christopher Columbus High School in Miami, teachers and fellow students say hi as they walk past without an ounce[Read More…]
News Features
News features
School choice scholarship student enjoying the calm after the storm
The lean, angular kid arrived at his new school three years ago, whip-smart and rage-filled. TJ Butler didn’t want to make eye contact, didn’t want to make friends, didn’t want to follow the rules. Instead, he screamed, slammed doors and threw things, including, one time, a desk. For a boy[Read More…]
From shy to self-confident, with a charter school’s help
JACKSONVILLE – Dana Roberts had high hopes for her 5-year-old son, DJ, as she readied him for his first day of pre-school. Remembering her own pleasant school experience, she expected her bright, inquisitive little boy soon would be challenged by caring educators who would coax away his shyness and address[Read More…]
School choice amidst the sugar cane
CLEWISTON, Fla. – It’s hard to think of anywhere in Florida more off the beaten path than the string of blue-collar towns on the rim of Lake Okeechobee. They’re snugged between the grassy, 30-foot-high dike that corrals America’s second-biggest lake, and a 450,000-acre sea of sugar cane that rolls south[Read More…]
A private school off the beaten path was the key to a major turnaround
Kelly Perkins was in a full-blown panic when she woke up at 5:15 a.m. and her son Ross wasn’t there. For three days he wasn’t at school, which was nothing new, but he wasn’t answering his phone. She drove the streets of Cape Coral looking for him day and night.[Read More…]
School choice scholarship was her ticket out of extreme poverty
At Seven Rivers Christian School in Lecanto, there’s a list of core values for students. Among them: Do hard things. Maloni Lewis knows it. She’s lived it. With two disabled parents and three older brothers in and out of jail, Maloni grew up in extreme poverty. Their community in nearby[Read More…]