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School choice advocates say the futures of 70,000 students are on the line if public school teachers in Florida can get a judge to side with them. As Matt Galka tells us, the public and private fight had its day in court.

Dozens of people gathered outside a Tallahassee courtroom Monday in the latest chapter of the public school – private school fight. The Florida Education Association teacher’s union claims the tax credit scholarship program is unconstitutional.

“The Florida legislature is to provide a free, quality, uniform, public education system. Doesn’t matter how you slice it: when you’re diverting private dollars into a voucher system and you’re making a parallel system that’s not accountable,” said FEA Vice President Joanne McCall.

The program pays for private school tuition by providing tax breaks for corporations funding the scholarships.  Around 70,000 students are currently benefiting. Parents from around the state with kids in the program travelled to the courtroom and said public schools weren’t the right option for them. Marlene Desdunes, a South Florida parent with children in both public school and using the scholarship program, said one of her daughter wouldn’t have thrived if she didn’t have the choice of where to send her.

“The benefit is having individualized instruction, an opportunity for her to be in a small class learning environment where she is able to get one on one instruction,” she said.

In 2006, the state’s Supreme Court declared the Opportunity Scholarship voucher program unconstitutional because it was using tax money that could have gone toward public schools. The teacher’s union says the same thing is happening now, but the state’s lawyers say there’s plenty of differences.

“Absolutely there are differences, in 2006 the Supreme Court said you can’t use the public treasury to produce an alternative to the public schools. This is not using any funds from the public treasury,” said attorney Raoul Cantero.

While the state was seeking a dismissal of the case, the judge did not choose to rule from the bench due to the case’s complexity. Monday’s case came a day before former Governor Jeb Bush, and potential 2016 presidential candidate Jeb Bush, is scheduled to hold an education summit in Tallahassee. The summit will push Bush policies including school accountability and school choice.