Step Up approves 99 percent of scholarships

Step Up for Students is not well known outside the school choice world, but for parents and private school administrators the nonprofit is so synonymous with the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship that they often refer to it as the “Step Up scholarship.”

In fact, Step Up approves 99 percent of scholarships for more than 100,000 children as one of two state contractors that determines whether kids are eligible based on family income. It also solicits corporations to apply for the tax credits from the state — this year expected to be worth $630 million — that pay for the program. In all, Florida has a nearly $1 billion scholarship system that allows certain children to leave public schools for private ones.

Step Up, which will earn about $18.4 million off the scholarships this year, is more than just a state contractor hired to do a job. It also is a chief advocate for school choice whose leaders help write the laws that govern Florida’s scholarships, the biggest such system in the nation.

Critics of the scholarships, sometimes called vouchers, say those laws — which by design don’t require private schools to have certified teachers, curriculum that follows Florida’s academic standards or facilities with modern technology or textbooks — allow such schools to flourish at the expense of public education.

“Their ultimate goal is universal vouchers, and that means the privatization of public education,” said Sue Woltanski, a mother, public school advocate and founder of the grass-roots group Minimize Testing Maximize Learning. “The agenda for public education policy should be quality