Florida Expands School Choice To ‘Every Single Student’ In The State
Florida has expanded school choice opportunities once again, and will now offer education savings account (ESA) opportunities to every student who is a resident of the state.
Every family in Florida will now be eligible for an ESA which allows “parents to withdraw their children from public district or charter schools and receive a deposit of public funds into government-authorized savings accounts with restricted, but multiple, uses.” These savings accounts were previously only available to students with special needs.
ESA funds can be put towards private education, homeschooling, remote learning, tutoring, textbooks, special-needs therapy, and more. This is a monumental win for educational freedom and has set Florida apart as a shining example for other conservative states.
Just last year, Florida made national headlines after passing the Parental Rights in Education Act, increasing educational transparency and preventing educators from teaching using any sexually explicit material in the classroom until after the third grade. Some conservatives argue that the law —dubbed the “wait until eight” rule — doesn’t go far enough to protect children from early indoctrination, and leaves room for improvement in Florida public education.
School choice offers a much-needed “plan b” for parents looking to escape ideological mismatches at their local public school. This is especially true if their child is aging out of the protections offered by the Parental Rights in Education Act. State-wide school choice will give parents and students the ultimate say in which form of education would be most effective for their unique family — rather than being forced to pay into a system they may not benefit from themselves.
“We believe that the money should follow the student and it should be directed based on what the parent thinks is the most appropriate education program for their child.”
“We’re also requiring the Office of K-12 School Choice to develop an online portal that enables parents to choose the best educational options for their student.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
Florida also offers several scholarship programs to families with varying needs, from covering costs of transportation to and from school, to funds sent directly to low-income families who want to send their children to a school outside of their designated zone. The Hope Scholarship, for example, makes it possible for students who reported experiencing harassment, bullying, threats, intimidation, or similar circumstances, to easily transfer to another public school or enroll in an approved private school with tuition aid.
The state is leading the nation in education reform, according to the Heritage Foundation’s “Education Freedom Report Card.” Last year, the foundation ranked Florida number one in the country for educational freedom, number one for school transparency, and third overall for school choice — a ranking that is likely to improve this year following the passing of state-wide school choice.
“When a survey asked Florida families using tax-credit scholarships to list the top three factors that influenced their choice of school, the only factors selected by a majority were ‘religious environment/instruction” (66%) and ‘morals/character/values instruction’ (52%).'”
Fox News
The state “requires academic transparency so that parents and taxpayers can review classroom assignments before educators use such materials as part of K–12 instruction,” the foundation wrote. This move alone sets Florida apart from other states that have gatekept information from parents and placed the educator-student relationship above that of the student’s family.
