Martin Luther King III supports school options and spoke at a Florida rally Tuesday, the day after the national holiday dedicated to his father.
“This is about justice; this is about righteousness,” King said in Tallahassee, Fla. “This is about freedom — the freedom to choose for your family and your child.” The rally called on the Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, to drop a lawsuit challenging a school choice program, as reported by the Miami Herald. The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of a state tax credit for businesses that donate to nonprofit groups that give scholarships to low-income students.
In an earlier interview, King said his father would support the Florida program. “I would assume my father would support anything that lifted up and created opportunities for ‘the least of these,'” King told Politico Florida. “I don’t think he would get caught up in the politics of it.” King has supported school choice nationwide since the 1990s.
King is a Democrat and pointed out that tax-credit scholarship programs like Florida’s have been proposed by members of both parties, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y.
Black religious leaders also spoke at the rally in support of the scholarships, even though the president of the state NAACP chapter opposes them for not being universal.
Event organizers say more than 10,000 people attended, making it the largest school choice rally in Florida history. Many attendees were bussed to Tallahassee for free, paid for by the American Federation for Children, a pro-school choice group. Some even made the 13-hour round trip from the Miami area.
A teachers’ union rally last week in Tallahassee drew about 2,000 teachers.
Nearly 80,000 children, mostly minorities, use scholarships created by the tax credit, according to the Florida Department of Education. Businesses get a dollar-for-dollar tax credit when donating to eligible scholarship organizations. Students then use the scholarships, up to $5,677 a school year, to pay tuition at participating private schools.
“It is partisan, but it shouldn’t be,” King said. “It shouldn’t be based on that. It should be based on whether the kids are performing or not.”
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
