Children’s Scholarship Fund Board Member Noelle Nikpour has an opinion column in today’s South Florida Sun Sentinel. Here’s an excerpt:
If you watch “Waiting for Superman,” you will hear about high-performing public charter schools. What gets less exposure is the system of low-cost private and parochial schools doing a good job of educating in the inner cities for half to a third of the cost of the traditional public system — yet their graduation rates and test scores are generally much higher than nearby public schools serving similar populations.
Many of these schools have empty seats and could provide a good education for a needy child now if their families could afford the tuition. Given the budget deficits faced by our state and local governments, common sense dictates considering tax-credit scholarships or some other publicly funded vehicle to take advantage of these low-cost seats for providing our children with a good education.