Editor’s note: Every month, Step Up For Students - which co-hosts this blog - profiles a family that benefits from Florida’s tax credit scholarship program. Here's the latest:

Vivian Calhoun is raising a princess. She didn’t plan on it, but it’s working out just fine.

She gets to give and receive lots of hugs and kisses from her 6-year-old great-granddaughter, Anastasia, who came into the world to parents who couldn’t take care of her. But with Vivian’s help, the young girl is living much more of a fairy tale than was ever expected.

“She thinks she’s a princess,” Vivian said with a chuckle. “If you ask, she’ll tell you she’s royalty.”

Anastasia’s mother wasn’t able to care for her and her father has never really been a part of her life, Vivian said. And Anastasia’s grandmother, Vivian’s daughter, had problems of her own, so the great-grandmother did the only thing she could: Become Anastasia’s guardian and only true parental figure.

“It was an easy decision,” Vivian said.

Still, Vivian, 68 and a widow after 35 years of marriage, lives on her disability checks. She had to retire from working as a manager for staffing company because back surgery left her with permanent nerve damage. She gets less than $200 monthly from the state to help with Anastasia and does all she can to make the money stretch, she said. But seeing the effects of drugs and violence up close with loved ones, she wanted to ensure that Anastasia had a safe learning environment, and received individualized attention in smaller classrooms in a place that could instill similar values as Vivian was trying to teach at home. She also wanted Anastasia to feel like people at school were an extension of her family.

Vivian yearned to send Anastasia to a local private school that matched these needs, but she didn’t have the financial means until a neighbor told her about Step Up For Students, Florida’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program that helps send low-income Florida students to private K-12 schools or out-of-district public schools.

During the 2011-12 school year, Anastasia started kindergarten at Christ’s Church Academy, formerly called Mandarin Christian School, in Jacksonville and is now 6 and in the first grade.

“Everybody is just so wonderful. It’s been smooth sailing,” Vivian said of the school and Anastasia’s adjustment to school life. “She’s so happy and doing so well.”

Anastasia loves CCA so much, her great grandmother said, that she doesn’t like school vacations and early dismissal days.

“She doesn’t want to leave the school, and that tells me a lot about the school,” Vivian said. (more…)

I was a news reporter for 20 years. I appreciate what good journalists do. But I’m often perplexed by the selective scrutiny that permeates so much education coverage in Florida, particularly when it comes to school choice issues.

The latest example: An “investigation” by an Orlando TV station into the "cozy connections" between Florida state lawmakers and rapidly expanding charter schools. WFTV-Ch. 9 raised conflict-of-interest questions this week about lawmakers who work for charter schools and who have backed legislation that generally promotes charter expansion. It  singled out incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel; Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami; and John Legg, R-New Port Richey, a state rep headed to the state senate.

First off, this is old news. The ties between all three lawmakers and charter schools have been well publicized. In fact, they were among a bigger handful of lawmakers cited last December in a front-page Tampa Bay Times piece on the same issue. Curiously, the TV station kicked off its story with the same anecdotal lead as the Times did, one involving Legg and the Pasco County School Board.

More important, the station neglected to mention that a number of other lawmakers have strong if not direct ties to school districts. Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, heads the state superintendents association. Former state rep and now Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami, is a public school teacher and local union rep. Two newly elected  Democratic state reps, Mark Danish in Tampa and Karen Castor Dentel in the Orlando area, also teach in district schools. Should teacher-lawmakers be voting on state budgets that could affect how much they’re paid? Should they vote on legislation that could impact how they’re evaluated? (more…)

In our Florida roundups this week, we neglected to mention a significant and promising development – the election of a pro-school-choice candidate to the board that oversees one of the biggest school districts in Florida and the 22^nd-largest in the country.

Jason Fischer, 29, easily won a seat on the Duval County School Board with a platform that included strong support for charter schools and private-school vouchers. His victory is all the more significant because he faced a strong, well-funded challenger in a 125,000-student district that has been more resistant than most to expanded school choice.

“I used the word vouchers. I used the word charter schools. I didn’t shy away from it,” Fischer told redefinED today. “I was bold about who I was and what I wanted to do.”

That message resonated in his conservative district, and Fischer has an opportunity to build on it and reach folks of all political persuasions. As a school choice advocate on a big-city school board, he can help bring a new approach to public education – one that doesn’t get hung up on outdated dividing lines that often obscure what matters most.

“I don’t care if it’s a traditional neighborhood school down the street. I don’t care if it’s a magnet school, or a charter school, or a private school,” Fischer said. “If it works best for the kid, let’s do it.”