Even as school choice has gone mainstream in Florida, the majority of its public-school students still attend zoned schools.
But many of their families are still choosing.
“As a parent, I looked at all the options, including my home-zoned school,” Adam Miller, the school choice chief at the Florida Department of Education, told a state House panel this week. “If I had selected that option, I wouldn’t be counted as a parent who exercised choice, but I actually did exercise choice, because I looked at all the options and decided that was the best choice for my child.”
More than four in ten PreK-12 students in the Sunshine State attend an option other than their zoned school, and in some communities, a majority of students use some form of choice option. Choice is so commonplace, in other words, that we can no longer assume children who attend their zoned schools do so by default.
What’s more, many parents who exercise one form of choice for some of their children might have other children for whom a traditional school is a better fit. During the same K-12 Innovation Subcommittee meeting, Alyson Hochstedler said three of her children graduated from Tallahassee’s Leon High School, and that her family bought a house to get them into its well-regarded neighborhood zone.
But a prolonged struggle with bullying prompted her to enroll two younger children in a private Christian school with the help of a tax credit scholarship*.
“We value public education,” she told the panel. “We also value school choice.”
Once again, this isn’t either/or.
*Step Up For Students, which publishes this blog and pays my salary, helps administer the tax credit scholarship program.
