For years, Tampa venture capitalist John Kirtley has been a largely behind-the-scenes figure in Florida's de facto school voucher program.
The website of Step Up for Students, Kirtley's scholarship-funding organization, discusses his role in helping set up Florida's system, which allows companies to offset the taxes they pay to the state by contributing to groups like Step Up for Students. That money is then used to help low-income students go to private schools.
But Kirtley is not someone who seeks out the limelight or a high-profile advocacy role. So when he addressed the Economic Club of Florida's luncheon in Tallahassee this week, it drew the attention of several media organizations.
There was not much new in Kirtley's spiel, though he did use the opportunity to blast a legal challenge to the program coming from organizations including the Florida Education Association, the state's largest teachers union. In his speech, Kirtley essentially accused the groups of hypocrisy and laid out a dire future for education in the state if the lawsuit succeeds.
"Is public education in this new century only district schools with kids assigned by ZIP Code?" he asked.
Among the problems Kirtley suggested could follow a successful legal challenge: danger to kids who attend faith-based preschool programs that use state dollars; questions about state higher-education scholarships paying for tuition at private schools; and challenges to virtual schools, magnet schools, and scholarship programs aimed at helping children with disabilities.
Kirtley also cited reports suggesting that the schools superintendent in Osceola County was concerned about needing 5,000 new student spaces over the next five years. Step Up for Students has 3,000 kids in the county.
"If the superintendent is worried about absorbing 5,000 over the next five years, how would he absorb 3,000 in one day?" Kirtley asked.
In many ways, the speech marked the latest example of an escalating campaign by backers of the scholarship program to get challengers to "Drop the Suit." Martin Luther King III, son of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., visited Tallahassee in January for a rally in support of the system. Television commercials have been rolled out in an attempt to shame the challengers into backing down.
For their part, though, the groups fighting the program say they have nothing to be ashamed of. They say the system siphons away money that could be used for public schools, though voucher supporters note that the scholarships actually provide less per student than it costs to educate a child in public schools.
In a statement responding to the King rally in January, Florida Education Association President Joanne McCall suggested supporters of the program were worried.
"For more than a year, voucher groups have been demanding FEA drop a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the tax-credit vouchers. What are they so afraid of going to the courts to ensure this voucher scheme is legal?" McCall said. "Let's let the courts decide this once and for all."
The lawsuit targeting the Tax Credit Scholarship Program was dismissed last year by a Leon County judge, who said the union didn't have standing to challenge the program, but voucher opponents have appealed the case to the 1st District Court of Appeal. Arguments before that court are scheduled for May 10.
'MEL THE MOOCHER'?
The medical-marijuana fight between Tampa Bay developer Mel Sembler and Orlando attorney John Morgan has devolved into name-calling. Literally.
Incensed that Sembler told the Tampa Bay Times that he plans to raise $10 million to fight Morgan's Amendment 2, which would broadly legalize medical marijuana in Florida, the lawyer and his organization have taken to calling Sembler "Mel the Moocher." The idea behind the name appears to be that Sembler "only" contributed $100,000 of the $7.5 million he raised to oppose a similar ballot initiative in 2014, according to Morgan.
The attorney boasted that he has spent $7 million to promote the proposal.
"Mel's all hat, no cattle," Morgan wrote to supporters this week. "If there is one thing in the world I can't stand, it's bullies. I've made my living beating up bullies. Mel the Moocher is a bully."
Morgan wrote that in an email asking others to donate to the campaign in support of Amendment 2, which will be on the November ballot. There's a difference between mooching and looking for help, it seems.
TWEET OF THE WEEK: "Question: did anyone but members of FL press Corp watch #OpenDebate? Answer: NO"---Political consultant Ben Pollara (@bfgpollara), after an unusual U.S. Senate debate between Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson and Republican Congressman David Jolly, neither of whom has secured their party's nomination.
