Districts are leading Florida’s generational education transformation 

A generation ago, Florida’s school districts could safely assume that most students would board a yellow bus (or perhaps walk less than two miles) to a public school they operated. 

A few wealthy students might head to a private school. A handful of students from each neighborhood might board a different yellow bus to a local magnet or charter school. But these were marginal deviations from the norm. 

Now, those deviations are the norm. 

Close to half a million Sunshine State students use a scholarship program to access a learning option of their choice. More than 400,000 students attend charter schools that aren’t operated by districts. All told, roughly half the state’s 3.4 million K-12 students attend a learning option other than their zoned public school. 

There are unsung heroes in this story of expanding options: Florida’s 67 school districts. 

With all the growth of charters and scholarship programs, district-operated options, — including open enrollment, magnet schools, career academies, and more — still account for the single-largest swath of school choice in the state. 

Thanks to all these options growing at the same time, no school can take a student’s enrollment for granted. Every school has to earn the trust of every student or family who walks through their doors. 

A survey by the national advocacy group 50CAN found 76% of Florida parents feel they have a choice in where they’re child goes to school. 

Source: 50CAN Education Opportunity Survey

That means that while half of Florida’s students attend a “school of choice,” half the remainder attend a local public school by choice, having considered other available options. 

I’ve now experienced this change firsthand. I’m in the process of finding the right Pre-K for my daughter. After searching for miles and visiting private, charter, and district public schools, my wife and I landed on a clear favorite: Goldsboro Elementary, a magnet school operated by Seminole County Public Schools. 

My daughter was enchanted by the astronomy lab. And of all the schools we spoke to, Goldsboro’s teachers had the clearest plan for ensuring our daughter, who currently reads on a first-grade level, will continue to be challenged academically. 

Districts are stepping up their game. Competition from other options is certainly a factor. 

But in recent months, I’ve had the chance to talk to district leaders across the state who are exploring a new frontier of educational options: They are looking for ways to offer individual courses and services to students using K-12 education choice scholarships. 

These aren’t the stodgy bureaucrats that advocates and reformers sometimes cast as their foils in battles over the future of education. These are problem-solvers who hear the demand for new and different learning opportunities from their communities. They are working to respond. 

In a future where every Florida student has access to abundant education opportunities, districts will play an essential role. 

 


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BY Travis Pillow

Travis Pillow is senior director of thought leadership and growth at Step Up For Students. He lives in Sanford, Florida, with his wife and two children. A former Tallahassee statehouse reporter, he most recently worked at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research organization at Arizona State University, where he studied community-led learning innovation and school systems' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. He can be reached at tpillow (at) sufs.org.