The above video has several tidbits that will interest our readers.

The most interesting may come near the 7 minute mark with this quote:

“We also discovered that a lot of these schools in these low income areas were affiliated with churches that were run by ministers who were absolutely king-makers in Democratic politics in these districts. So we worked with these ministers and does it work? It’s not theoretical. It works! In 2001 when the law was passed, and Speaker Feeney’s here. He was there when we passed it – we could only get one Democrat in the whole legislature to vote for the bill and he was an accident, he was a mistake. He was a retiring trial lawyer who had gone to Catholic schools as a kid, he said, “I’m going to do the right thing because I’m retiring.” We could not get a single member of the Black Caucus to vote for the bill, not one – 7 years later, after this work with the parents and the ministers, the majority of the black caucus voted for this program. That’s a sea change.  Half the Democrats in the House voted for this program. Huge difference.   A third of them in the Senate – including the Senate majority leader, an African American senator. So, in charter-only strategy, you leave those assets on the table in my opinion.”

The video runs just over an hour and gives lots of insight into how the school “choice” movement led by Step up for Students and John Kirtley have aggressively pushed an agenda that undermines public education in the state of Florida.