New report shows scaling Florida scholarship program 11 times more effective at improving student performance than increasing public school funding

New research by the American Federation for Children found that scaling Florida’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program over 15 years improved public school student achievement.

The report published March 4 by AFC senior fellow Patrick Graff, a former Florida Catholic school teacher, compared two leading peer-reviewed studies of each approach that used Florida data: a 2023 study of Florida’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program over 15 years and a 2024 analysis of the effects of additional school spending on student achievement.

Key findings

• Scaling the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program produced achievement gains for public school students that were more than 11 times larger than equivalent spending increases for K-12 public schools.
• To get the same effect, education budgets would have needed to increase by $1,423 per student per year. Over 15 years, that adds up to $31.8 billion vs. the $2.84 billion cost - an increase of $127 per student per year - for scaling the tax credit scholarship program.
• Graff says the report likely understates the true effect of competition. It leaves out broader effects on public schools, the state’s savings when students switch to private schools, and the inefficiencies that are likely to emerge when trying to spend additional funding at scale over 15 years. In Florida, however, the effects became stronger as the program grew.

Not a zero-sum game: Florida’s experience shows that school choice can benefit students, no matter where they learn, families, and taxpayers at the same time. Florida now enrolls over half a million students in private school choice programs, and its public school students still outperform students in most states while spending less.

 Read the full report here.