www.miamiherald.com/2014/09/10/4340927/charlie-crist-sides-with-teachers.html

Sad (but not surprising) to see Crist sell out FL kids, just as Jerry Brown is doing in CA (this is why we need more Dem governors like Andrew Cuomo, Dan Malloy and (soon) Gina Raimondo!):

Charlie Crist has made education policy a centerpiece of his campaign, but it’s also a wedge issue dividing two Democratic constituencies: teacher unions and black ministers who support school vouchers.

Crist made his choice clear Wednesday when he refused to heed the request of a major Panhandle civil-rights leader, the Rev. H.K. Matthews, who asked the Democrat to “publicly denounce” a new teacher union-led lawsuit that seeks to dismantle the major school-choice program.

“You cannot stay silent on this lawsuit,” Matthews wrote. “These families deserve to know if you support or oppose the lawsuit to evict 70,000 poor — and mostly minority — children from their schools.”

Asked about Matthews’ request to call on the unions to drop the suit, Crist said “I’m not going to do that. They have the right to sue for that if they want to.”

Matthews said Crist’s response left him “disappointed” because he recalled standing with Crist at the state Capitol in 2010 when the then-Republican governor expanded and pledged to support the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which gives corporations dollar-for-dollar tax credits to underwrite private education.

Now Crist is standing by a lawsuit that could undo that very program, which this year uses about $358 million this year — a figure that will grow to $447 million next year.

From the Panhandle to South Florida to Tampa Bay and Jacksonville, influential African-American ministers help run or are affiliated with private schools that accept students who receive the vouchers targeted by the lawsuit, led by the Florida Education Association.

Here’s another article about this lawsuit: