Florida vouchers are working

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/7552834.htm
Voucher pupils' progress cited
Most of the students still participating in Florida's voucher program from
1999 have progressed more than one grade level each year, Catholic school
officials say.
PENSACOLA - (AP) -- Most of Florida's first voucher pupils have progressed
more than one grade level on a standardized test for each of the four years
they have been in the program, Roman Catholic school officials say.
Only two of 34 voucher pupils at Catholic schools have failed to meet that
goal on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.
Sister Mary Caplice, superintendent of schools for the Diocese of
Pensacola-Tallahassee, credits a focus on basics and a tradition of
discipline, structure, and communication and collaboration with parents.
''I think the amount of time in a school day that's devoted to reading and
math, particularly in the lower grades, contributes to a child's success
later on,'' Caplice said.
Voucher pupils attending private schools at taxpayer expense are not
required to take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT, which
is used to grade public schools.
FAILING SCHOOLS
Florida's first 58 vouchers were issued in 1999 to pupils from two failing
public schools, both in Pensacola: Spencer Bibbs Advanced Learning Academy,
a technology-based magnet school, and A.A. Dixon Elementary, a neighborhood
school that since has been closed.
Of those pupils still in the program, two are at a Montessori school and 34
are enrolled at four Catholic schools.
Florida has since launched two other voucher programs for economically
disadvantaged children, funded by corporate tax credits, and disabled
pupils.
Escambia County School District officials estimate they are losing more than
$3 million in state funding because of the voucher programs.
A Tallahassee judge has ruled that spending public money on religious
schools violates the Florida Constitution, but that decision is on appeal.
GETTING BETTER
Cassandra Galloway obtained a voucher for her son, Jonathan, in 1999 because
he couldn't read although he had Bs and Cs on his report card.
He is now 14 and in the eighth grade at Sacred Heart School.
''He was on a kindergarten level,'' Galloway said. ``He's still not on grade
level in reading and spelling, but he gets better every day.''
Another parent, Jamie Cleveland, said she doesn't blame public school
teachers for difficulties that her daughter, Shamaria Williams, now 14, had
before going to Sacred Heart on a voucher.
They were overwhelmed with entire classrooms of academically and
developmentally lagging pupils and under pressure to pass the FCAT while
being labeled failing, Cleveland said.
''I just didn't want my daughter to be part of that,'' she said.

--
Atheism teaches that there is no God, hence no God-given rights. That
ideology coupled with a system that believed in the superiority of the state
at the expense of the individual was murderously synergistic.