Lead Letter: Tax credit scholarships help poor children

I don't understand why a reader attacked the Florida tax credit scholarship program.

It is helping thousands of economically disadvantaged children, just like so many other programs do - whether it's food stamps, housing assistance or other education programs.

And it is funded with private donations, not directly from tax dollars.

The scholarship money is dedicated to supporting students, not public or private schools. It is helping humans with flesh and blood. Families have the right to choose where their children should be educated. They love their children. They have spoken through their choice.

That choice is not hurting public schools. Each scholarship is worth far less than the amount taxpayers would spend to educate the same child in a public school. That's why every single study that has looked into that issue has said the scholarships save taxpayer money.

The students who use the scholarships are also usually the ones who were having the most trouble succeeding in public schools. Our school has enrolled many of those students over the years, and I know we helped them get on track to completing high school and going on to college and/or to good careers in the military and elsewhere.

That doesn't mean our school is better than a public school. It just means that sometimes a different school setting is what students need to live up to their potential.

Perhaps if those who oppose school choice understood that they are attacking families and children, and equity and justice for the poor, they would support choice, even the choice of a parochial school that has always served the poor.

Giving poor families the ability to enroll their children in more schools isn't a right vs. left issue, or a public vs. private issue, or a secular vs. religious issue. It is an issue of helping children succeed.

In January, Martin Luther King III joined over 10,000 people at a Tallahassee rally to tell the union to drop their lawsuit against this program. In his own words: "This is about justice".

Nadia Hionides, principal,

The Foundation Academy,

Jacksonville