Step Up For Students is hosting an online chat Tuesday discussing Florida's tax credit scholarship program.
We wanted to offer a plug to the folks over at Step Up For Students, who are hosting an online Q & A about the state’s tax credit scholarship program Tuesday.
Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up For Students, will answer questions about the program at redefinED.org beginning at 10:30 a.m. Step Up For Students is the non-profit which administers the tax credit scholarship program.
The program will serve more than 60,000 low-income students when classes start this fall. Each time lawmakers have expanded the tax credit cap, students have quickly snatched up the new scholarships.
Bennett called the charges “malicious” and “unfounded,” but said he did not want to become a distraction in Florida. The Associated Press first published emails, which showed Bennett and staff discussing how to make Christel House Academy an A-rated school.
“Every minute we spend defending the credibility of your commissioner because of what’s said 800 miles away,” Bennett said, “is a minute we waste that we should have been thinking about educating children in Florida.”
Bennett said the decision was “mine alone” and that Gov. Rick Scott offered his support.
“I end my tenure with my head held high,” Bennett said.
Second graders at Christel House Academy, a charter school in Indianapolis, play fraction games.
Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett is expected to resign today after the Associated Press published emails this week showing he and staff worked to change the state’s grading system in 2012, which boosted a charter school’s grade.
While we’re waiting for a press conference later this morning, here’s a link to a story our colleagues at StateImpact Indiana did on Christel House Academy, a charter school which went to a ‘A’ from a ‘C’ after the grading change.
An excerpt:
In Indianapolis Public Schools, roughly 80 percent of students receive free or reduced price lunches, but only 45 percent of students pass state tests. At Indianapolis charter school Christel House Academy, 90 percent of students receive free or reduced price lunches and about 70 percent pass state tests. Principal Carey Dahncke also says it costs $4000 less per pupil to educate students at his school than in Indianapolis Public Schools.
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