A.G. Gancarski
As children across Northeast Florida start school, Gary Chartrand delivered in Thursday’s Florida Times-Union an article that defends tax credit scholarships while casting aspersions against legal action that threatens them.
Chartrand, a former chairman of the Florida Board of Education who still sits on the board as a member, was instrumental to bringing chartered KIPP Schools to Jacksonville. They have had some success, but have been criticized also by teachers, unions, and advocates for the integrity of the public school system.
Chartrand describes the lawsuit as an attempt to “evict 78,000 poor, mostly minority schoolchildren from their schools,” one that, were it to succeed, would cost $1.3 billion to reincorporate into the public schools. He estimates that number would double if new facilities had to be built for the students.
Citing his own donations to “public school initiatives” over the years as exceeding $5 million, Chartrand asserts that parental choice is central to “the transformation of education” in the Sunshine State.
The tax credit program, asserts Chartrand, benefits primarily black and Hispanic students whose household incomes average out a bit better than the poverty line. He asserts that it delivers results for both charter and public schools, in terms of quantifiable standardized test gains.
The lawsuit challenging the program, meanwhile, is depicted in the Times-Union article as “cruel and self-defeating.”
Expect that Chartrand’s critics will have a different take on the matter.
