About The Author

Jon East

Jon East is special projects director for Step Up For Students. Previously, he was a member of the editorial board and the Sunday commentary editor at the St. Petersburg Times, Florida’s largest daily newspaper, where he wrote about education issues for most of his 28 years at the paper. He was also a reporter and editor at the Evening Independent and Ocala Star-Banner. He earned a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
07/10/18
Jon East
As readers will learn in more detail on Friday, redefinED editor Travis Pillow, an education journalist extraordinaire, is leaving Florida...
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03/15/17
Jon East
The most commonly cited price tag for Florida public schools represents only two-thirds of what they actually spend, a new...
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03/10/17
Jon East
As President Trump looked with favor on Florida’s 15-year-old tax credit scholarship last week, some of the reviews seemed to...
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05/23/16
Jon East
One of the most emotionally potent arguments against educational choice – that it cripples public schools financially – is slowly...
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01/25/16
Jon East
School choice options in Florida grew last year at more than twice the rate of total enrollment, surpassing 1.5 million...
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12/17/15
Jon East
The resistance to a proposed requirement that state-approved nonprofits provide scholarships to students attending any eligible private school has taken on...
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12/14/15
Jon East
A national organization that fights for the academic needs of black students entered the lawsuit over Florida’s tax credit scholarship...
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08/31/15
Jon East
In a new appellate brief asking the courts to throw out a 14-year-old scholarship serving 78,000 of the state’s most...
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08/20/15
Jon East
That the word “factories” is alliterative with “failure” probably explains why the Tampa Bay Times tied them together for a...
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04/01/15
Jon East
A bipartisan plan to bring tax-credit scholarships to one of the nation’s largest and bluest states has fallen short, at...
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