By the numbers: Florida’s history-making growth of education options
This school year, Florida is empowering half a million students to direct funding to education options of their family’s choice. In the 2023-24 school year, after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1, Florida saw the largest single-year expansion of education choice scholarships in U.S. history. That growth continued in 2024-25. ...OUR LATEST
Last week I had an opportunity to speak in Boise, Idaho, on school choice and the Arizona experience. In an interview on NPR, I addressed claims by choice opponents that... READ MORE
As the movement for education options gains momentum across the country, there remains a clear national leader: Florida. This school year, the Sunshine State’s education savings account programs are larger... READ MORE
The Brennan Center has released projections of congressional reapportionment following the 2030 Census. The Brennan Center projects Florida and Texas to be the big winners, with each state gaining four... READ MORE
SANFORD, Fla. – Elsa the Snow Queen sang “Let it Go” as Kimberly Jones entered the room. Kimberly’s daughter, Khloe, 2 at the time, sat with her eyes laser-locked on the... READ MORE
Gabriel Lynch III is new to his role as an education choice advocate. Though in essence, he’s been doing it nearly all his life. He’s a product of both private... READ MORE
When I was in graduate school, one of my fellow students described the movie Sudden Death to me. Something about terrorists, the vice president, a professional hockey game and Jean-Claude... READ MORE
Public education in the United States is transitioning from its second to third paradigm. Paradigm shifts in public education occur when larger societal changes force public education to change to... READ MORE
When Constantine and Aliona Shulikov left the former Soviet Union as children to escape religious persecution three decades ago, public education there was one-size-fits-all. Students attended assigned cookie-cutter government schools... READ MORE
SANFORD, Florida – Charisma Lowery loves fractions, which is not something you hear every day from a third grader, but she does. Mixed fractions, improper fractions – bring ’em on.... READ MORE
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LEARNING SPOTLIGHTS
The right educational setting has Khloe learning with resilience
SANFORD, Fla. – Elsa the Snow Queen sang “Let it Go” as Kimberly Jones entered the room. Kimberly’s daughter, Khloe, 2 at the time, sat with her eyes laser-locked on the TV, watching “Frozen” for the umpteenth time. Let it go, let it go Can’t hold it back anymore “Perfect pitch,”... READ MORE
SANFORD, Florida – Charisma Lowery loves fractions, which is not something you hear every day from a third grader, but she does. Mixed fractions, improper fractions – bring ’em on.... READ MORE
TAMPA, Fla. — With 16 dormer windows that peek out from all sides of the roof and a wrap-around porch, the building looks more like a place to relax than... READ MORE
IDEAS & INNOVATIONS
Rising parent demand stretches Florida’s Personalized Education Program to its limit for 2024-25
Florida’s scholarship program for K-12 students who don’t attend school full-time has turned on the “no vacancy” sign. The Personalized Education Program operates as an education savings account that allocates an average of $8,000 per student for approved education-related expenses. It has reached its statutory capacity of 60,000 students for... READ MORE
Blazing Stars, blazing trails
DADE CITY, Fla. – LaTania Scott and Kameeka Shirley were former public school teachers who wanted something different when they opened their own school in January 2023. Something … authentically Montessori … accessible to families from all walks of life … embedded with the autonomy that’s often missing from traditional... READ MORE
Education is no longer about students sitting in rows of desks from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. And school choice, the term supporters used for years to describe the movement... READ MORE
Education Next published a piece recently by Holly Korbey called The Tutoring Revolution, which reads in part: Recent research suggests that the number of students seeking help with academics is... READ MORE
TAMPA, Florida — The 22 high schoolers at Integrity Tabernacle Christian Academy donned their school T-shirts and left at dawn for the two-hour bus trip from near Orlando to ride... READ MORE
Some of the most valuable learning experiences happen outside the classroom. Public education is evolving to support more learning by doing. READ MORE
In the early days of education savings accounts, several of our intrepid Scooby-gang members wrote and spoke about user reviews as the future of “accountability.” In a multi-vendor system, we... READ MORE
Despite calls for reform and waves of attempted transformation, key features of American schools have been remarkably stable for more than a century. Students spend six or so hours... READ MORE
A surefire way to get heads nodding at an education policy conference is to call for dismantling the Carnegie unit. The question, and a legitimate fear, is whether efforts to... READ MORE
An episode of Paul MM Cooper’s outstanding documentary podcast series “The Fall of Civilizations” recounts the history of Carthage, which includes details of wars fought between the Carthaginians and Syracuse... READ MORE
U.S. public education has had three primary eras. The first era reflected the needs of a sparsely populated rural agrarian society. Most children were homeschooled and literacy focused primarily on... READ MORE
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