School choice wins: A clear winner in Tuesday's elections in Florida is school choice, according to the founder of the state's tax credit scholarship program. "When given a clear choice between a candidate who supports empowering parents to choose K-12 options for their children and a candidate who wishes to restrict those choices, voters prefer the candidate who supports educational choice," says John Kirtley, whose Florida Federation For Children donated about $1.6 million to school choice supporters in 39 key races around the state. Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, helps administer the tax credit scholarship and several others. Gradebook.

Education challenge: The Florida Supreme Court hears oral arguments today in a 2009 case that claims the inadequacy of funding for education is a violation of the state constitution. Citizens for Strong Schools, the plaintiffs, lost at trial and in an appeal as judges ruled that the constitutional amendment requiring a "high quality education" uses political terms that can't be objectively measured. Another plaintiff, Eunice Barnum of Jacksonville, says her then-elementary aged children "were failing in math, failing in reading, even though they were there every day. The constitution clearly says that it’s the paramount duty of the state to provide a high quality education. And, you know, when I went to school, ‘F’ was never considered high quality. It just wasn’t.” WJCT. Orlando Sentinel. (more…)