ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday he wants to eliminate a waiting list for around 14,000 low-income students seeking to use a tax-payer funded scholarship program that lets them attend private schools.
DeSantis said at a news conference in Orlando that he would ask the Florida Legislature to create a new scholarship program similar to the existing Florida Tax Credit Scholarships.
The governor described the scholarship program as “a really great success for the state of Florida” and said 70 percent of the students in the current program are black or Hispanic.
An Urban Land Institute study in 2017 said low-income students in Florida who attended private schools using a credit scholarship program were more likely to go to college than their peers in public schools. Those findings stood in contrast with some of the recent studies of similar private school choice programs that produced mixed results.
“There are some people who say we shouldn’t have this in Florida. I say, just look at the results,” DeSantis said.
The chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party said the proposed new scholarship program would starve public schools of funding and “funnel tax dollars into the hand of unaccountable special interests.”
DeSantis’ announcement is the latest expansion of Florida’s taxpayer-funded support for private schools in the two decades that Republicans have controlled the Governor’s Mansion.
“With today’s announcement, it’s clear that Ron DeSantis intends to govern just as the Republican Party of Florida has governed for decades, by selling out Florida’s families and children to corporate special interests,” said Terrie Rizzo, chair of the Florida Democratic Party.
DeSantis said he believe his proposal could stand up to any legal challenge brought by opponents of the tax-payer-funded private school choice programs.
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