Students supporting "Operation Have a Heart" gather outside the Florida Education Association's headquarters. Photo courtesy of Hispanic CREO.
A Hispanic school choice advocacy group is asking Florida's teachers union to "have a heart."
Supporters of the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options delivered thousands of Valentines Day greetings to the Florida Education Association's headquarters in Tallahassee, including candy hearts emblazoned with the rallying cry for the state's tax credit scholarship program: #DropTheSuit.
The statewide teachers union filed a lawsuit challenging the program in 2014. It has since been dismissed by a Tallahasssee judge, and is now being argued on appeal. Right now, nearly 80,000 low-income children use the scholarships to attend private schools.
“I don’t understand why teachers would want to take this away from my children," Deborah Gomes, a mother of four children on scholarship, said in a statement. "It makes no sense to me."
In an interview, Gomes, who traveled from Orlando, said she first enrolled her daughter at IEC Christian Academy to get away from bullying. "At this school she was much happier. She was able to perform better. She had a lot more support from the teachers," she said. "I do believe that each person learns differently, but one thing that every person needs is support.” (more…)
Florida Hispanic leaders denounce a lawsuit against the country's largest private school choice program at a Three Kings Day-themed press conference.
Hispanic pastors from across Florida marked the start of Three Kings Day celebrations today by denouncing a lawsuit they said threatens opportunities for tens of thousands of economically disadvantaged students.
Flanked by camels and children dressed as wise men, the clergy announced a new coalition of more than 100 religious leaders, backed by the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options, opposing the lawsuit against Florida's tax credit scholarships.
The program serves nearly 78,000 low-income students, roughly 38 percent of whom are Hispanic. Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, helps administer the scholarships.
Nino Gonzalez, the school superintendent of the Florida Multicultural District of the Assemblies of God, said the suit, filed last year by the Florida Education Association and other groups, threatens the state's only school choice program aimed solely at students from lower-income families.
"I support school choice because it has given communities the opportunity to create schools that work for their community," he said during this morning's press conference. "There are no good reasons for this lawsuit," he added, "but what a tragedy if it succeeds."
The Orlando press conference coincides with the traditional Latin American celebration of the twelfth day of Christmas, which falls on Wednesday with festivities beginning today.
It comes as groups that champion civil rights and educational opportunity for children of color debate the merits of school choice, as reported by Politico Florida. (more…)
Over the past five years, the number of Hispanic students in Florida's public schools has swelled by more than 150,000. Those students appear to be disproportionately moving to charter schools, where the Hispanic enrollment has grown by nearly 50,000, more than doubling since 2010.
Children play outside at Immokalee Community School, one of a growing number of charter schools where the majority of students are Hispanic.
Hispanics now represent the single-largest ethnic group in Florida's charter schools, accounting for 39 percent of their students during the 2014-15 school year.
In Miami-Dade County, the state's largest school district, 79 percent of charter-school students are Hispanic, compared to roughly 68 percent of all public-school students. The trend holds in Osceola County, the state's other majority-Hispanic school district, and also in Broward, the second-largest district in the state.
Hispanics in Florida are far from a monolithic group. Julio Fuentes, the president of the of the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options, said the label masks diverse cultures — from predominantly Cuban-American Miami-Dade to heavily Puerto Rican areas in Central Florida.
"Probably the one issue that brings us the closest together is education," Fuentes said. In multiple surveys, by his group and others, "the common denominator among the Latino community is access to a quality education." That, he added, may help explain why parents are more likely to seek out different schools — including charters — for their children. (Fuentes also sits on the board of Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog and employs the author of this post).
For Andrea Velez, the decision to enroll her daughter in a charter school began with the desire to find a school that would challenge her academically. Private school was not an option.
She ultimately settled on Choices in Learning in Seminole County. She said she was impressed by its use of the Success for All reading curriculum and "cooperative" approach to learning.
"Ultimately what it really came down to was, where was I going to send my daughter that she could thrive?" Velez said. "I wanted her to have the best opportunity that I could provide her with."
Now her daughter has moved on to middle school, and Velez has chosen district-run magnet program focused on engineering, where she can pursue her interest in science. (more…)
Hispanics have become the single largest racial/ethnic group in Florida's charter schools.
Hispanic students are fueling much of the growth in Florida's public-school enrollment, but a trend within that trend has not received as much attention. They are disproportionately enrolling in charter schools, where they are now the largest racial or ethnic group.
The percentage of Hispanic students attending the state's charter schools first surpassed that of white students in 2012-13. The next school year, it grew to more than 38 percent, compared to roughly 35 percent for white students and 22 percent for black students.
Some increases were to be expected. Hispanics account for much of Florida's recent population growth, and a steadily rising share of public school students overall.
Their share of charter school enrollment appears to have grown more quickly.
Editor's note: This guest column comes from Julio Fuentes, the president of the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options (HCREO), a national coalition dedicated to education reform that counts civil rights and Hispanic business leaders along with public school teachers and ministers among its supporters.
The history of our education system is marked by pivotal opportunities when leaders and policy influencers joined forces to bring about improvements and policy changes for the betterment of students. From public school desegregation to teacher quality measurements and standardized testing, the landscape of education has evolved and matured to best serve students and their families.
Last week, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged parents, educators and school leaders at the local, state and national levels of government to seize the next of these pivotal opportunities – specifically, he said, we must make Hispanic educational excellence a national priority.
Secretary Duncan noted that the Obama Administration’s goal of having the world’s highest share of college graduates by 2020 will not happen “without challenging every level of government to make the educational success of Latinos a top priority. America’s future depends on it.”
Secretary Duncan’s call to action came in response to a new report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the U.S. Department of Education’s statistical center, which outlines in grave detail the Hispanic achievement gap that has long been of such concern to my organization and others. Hispanic students are the largest minority group in our nation’s schools, but they continue to fall behind. (more…)
