Teacher's Unions at it again!

Parents have been struggling for years to get choices for their children's education. In some states, they have been successful, while other states, they have not. Missouri, unfortunately, has not had many big successes. We do have some great charter schools in our two biggest cities, St. Louis and Kansas City, but they cannot serve everyone. Teacher Unions have been at the forefront of every legislative battle against choice. Two legislative sessions ago, they fought and won to keep lower income families from getting scholarships to use at their school of choice, and this year, they won to keep thousands of special needs children in schools that will only fail them. They will stop at nothing to keep the status quo, whether the children are suffering or not. Their arguments don't change much, but their all powerful lobbying group has great influence at the capital. We are gaining momentum in the parade for choice and I know it will come soon...I must remain optimistic.
Florida's teacher unions are now causing havoc for those lower income families, who were stuck in failing schools, but finally were given a shot. Newsweek's "Choice Under Fire, Yet Again: Teachers Unions Fighting School Choice for the Children of Poor Families in Florida Use 19th Century Bigotry and 21st Century Obscurantism"
Florida's Supreme Court last week was the latest venue for the movable feast of meretricious arguments by which public-school teachers unions wage war in any city or state where families of poor children try to escape from failing public schools. The attack on Florida's school-choice program relied on 19th-century bigotry and 21st-century obscurantism.
Florida's Opportunity Scholarships, the nation's first statewide school-choice program, was enacted in 1999 to ameliorate a gross civil-rights injustice--the fact that poor families whose children are trapped in terrible schools are helpless to prevent their children's life chances from being blighted. The program empowers students to transfer from failing schools, as defined by set criteria, to the public or private school of their choice.
Teachers unions immediately filed suit to block this escape route--this underground railroad, if you will--from the public-school plantation.

The rest of the article goes over the weak arguments the unions have...and why they are so weak...Why they must fight against the children, will never make sense to me. At least I can sleep at night knowing there are people and organizations willing to put their neck out and do something for these kids.

However, according to Earth Times,

Florida Governor Charlie Crist this week signed into law a sweeping $30 million expansion of the state's popular Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program, opening the doors of educational opportunity to an estimated 6,000 additional low-income children.The Alliance for School Choice - the nation's largest nonprofit organization promoting school vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs - hailed Governor Crist's action and praised his commitment to providing a quality education for all Florida children. Florida's Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program is the largest program of its kind, and the Sunshine State has provided more children with enhanced educational opportunities than any other state in the nation.

Hooray!