{"id":17781,"date":"2013-04-03T15:04:36","date_gmt":"2013-04-03T19:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=17781"},"modified":"2013-04-03T15:04:37","modified_gmt":"2013-04-03T19:04:37","slug":"hundreds-rally-for-school-choice-at-the-capitol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/04\/03\/hundreds-rally-for-school-choice-at-the-capitol\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds Rally For School Choice At The Capitol"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_17782\"  class=\"wp-caption module image left\" style=\"max-width: 221px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/04\/03\/hundreds-rally-for-school-choice-at-the-capitol\/schoolchoiceday\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17782\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17782\" title=\"schoolchoiceday\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/04\/schoolchoiceday.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"221\" height=\"166\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">LaCrai Mitchell\/StateImpact Florida<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">More than a thousand students from around Florida rallied for school choice outside the Capitol.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>They came by the hundreds wearing bright yellow shirts\u00a0emblazoned\u00a0with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicschooloptions.org\/post\/florida-school-choice-day-at-the-capitol\">School Choice Day<\/a> across the front.<\/p>\n<p>Kids from around Florida waved signs outside the Capitol with messages scrawled in different colors:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Thank you for my scholarship.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Parental choice matters.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need educational options.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The event drew lawmakers and other state leaders.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/01\/16\/commissioner-tony-bennett-florida-sets-the-compass-in-education\/\">Education Commissioner Tony Bennett<\/a> took the podium first.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I come to you today as a person who has spent almost 30 years believing that parents and students should have the ultimate right to choose the educational opportunity that meets their needs,&#8221; Bennett said. &#8220;It amazes me that we live in a land of freedom&#8230;and yet people oppose the freedom of parents and children to choose their schools.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gov. Rick Scott told the kids they&#8217;re changing the direction of the state.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everyone of you has a dream,&#8221; Scott said. &#8220;The right to choose the school that you want to go to, to learn what you want to learn the way you want to learn, is your right.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The group came to support an assortment of proposed bills relating to charter schools, digital learning, parent empowerment, and career education.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_17783\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 284px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/04\/03\/hundreds-rally-for-school-choice-at-the-capitol\/choice2-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17783\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17783\" title=\"choice2 (2)\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/04\/choice2-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"284\" height=\"242\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Gina Jordan\/StateImpact Florida<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cory Cooper attended the school choice event with students from Jacksonville.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;It is terrible to have a zip code determine where you can go to school,&#8221; said Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach.<\/p>\n<p>More than half a dozen sponsors were listed on the back of those bright yellow shirts worn by students and adults.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/feaweb.org\/\">Florida Education Association<\/a> was not among them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe political leadership seems to love the annual event,&#8221; said the FEA&#8217;s Mark Pudlow. &#8220;I wonder how different the reaction would be if public school administrators yanked students out of class to rally for something like more funding for public schools.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the fourth year for the school choice event at the Capitol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They came by the hundreds wearing bright yellow shirts\u00a0emblazoned\u00a0with\u00a0School Choice Day across the front. Kids from around Florida waved signs outside the Capitol with messages scrawled in different colors: &#8220;Thank you for my scholarship.&#8221; &#8220;Parental choice matters.&#8221; &#8220;We need educational options.&#8221; The event drew lawmakers and other state leaders.\u00a0Education Commissioner Tony Bennett took the podium [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[1028,1008,452],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17781"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}