School Choice Supporters to Rally in Tallahassee in Support of Tax-Credit Scholarship Program

Supporters of Florida's controversial student voucher program will head to Tallahassee Jan. 19 as part of a rally in support of the program which allows thousands of low-income students to attend charter schools in the Sunshine State.

refineEd first reported Martin Luther King, III  will headline the rally, which is set to take place near the Florida Capitol the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the national holiday to commemorate his father. 

King will be joined Bishop Victor Curry, of New Birth Baptist Church in Miami, who is also a former president of the Miami-Dade NAACP. Rev. H.K. Matthews, a longtime Florida civil rights activist and Rev. R.B. Holmes of Tallahassee will also join King for the rally. 

The rally will center around Florida's Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which currently serves over 78,000 students statewide. The program has been mired in controversy in part due to a lawsuit filed by the state's teachers union, the Florida Education Association, which says the program is unconstitutional. A Tallahassee judge threw out the lawsuit in 2015, but the case is currently being heard on an appeal.

As Sunshine State News previously reported, the Florida Education Association will be holding its own rally against the voucher program and other educational issues on Thursday.