Darryl Rouson (D-St. Petersburg) supports dramatic voucher expansion.

[Orlandodem]

Florida Democrats - Please stay at home this year. Don't vote for Dems who want to expand vouchers!

The Republicons in the Florida legislature want to expand the corporate tax credit to increase the number of students who go to school on vouchers. The worst state Democratic Party in the nation, the Florida Democratic Party, has members like Darryl Rouson in the legislature who evidently support this. Why can't we Floridians elect true Democrats who stand up for public schools and won't let public funds support religious schools?

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/legislature-to-consider-dramatic-expansion-of-vouchers/1072264

[eastfl]

1. Democrats and poor children

I'm not sure why you would pick on Rep. Rouson. Almost half the Democrats supported a bill last year to strengthen vouchers for low-income students. I'm not an elected official, but you can also count me as a Democrat who thinks that giving an extra learning option for poor, struggling schoolchildren is consistent with our social compact to provide equal educational opportunity to each new generation. I hope we Democrats don't get so caught up with the word "voucher" that we fail to analyze who is being served by this particular option. They are low-income children primarily of color and they generally have been struggling in their traditional schools. We should also not lose sight of the history here. Tuition tax credits for the poor used to be a Democratic cause, and the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan was their greatest champion. He once wrote that: “As the issue becomes more and more a conservative cause, it will, I suppose, become less and less a liberal one. If that happens, it will present immense problems for a person such as myself who was deeply involved in this issue long before it was either conservative or liberal. And if it prevails only as a conservative cause, it will have been a great failure of American liberalism.”

--Jon East

[tonysam]

2. This is about destroying public education, a cornerstone of democracy.

Fuck vouchers and all of the neoliberal schemes to destroy public ed. They don't work anyway.