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. 

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. 

 

In the second of a two-part interview, Tuthill and 50CAN’s executive vice president discuss the organization’s advocacy for federal funding to build new education infrastructure and its goal of giving individuals power and money to shift the future of public education toward greater diversity and choice.

Tuthill and Bradford also discuss the inflexibility of modern school districts and teacher unions, both of which have the potential to lead the charge in unbundling education services to offer families greater choice, but currently are resistant to do so.

"There is an opportunity here to talk about how we make sure we continue to have public schools that are sustainable, (rather than) continue to have a monopoly that isn't."

EPISODE DETAILS:

·       How pushing for new federal funding of diverse choice options can filter down to shift long-standing state funding battles

·       How school districts’ recalcitrance to offer compelling education options has led more families to explore other options

·       How decentralizing district and teacher union power could benefit teachers

·       The contradictory position of progressives who refuse to support education choice due to misplaced political loyalties

LINKS MENTIONED:

New York Times - Not Everyone Hates Remote Learning. For These Students, It’s a Blessing

Fund Everything – Emergency Education Investments in a National Crisis (Direct PDF link)

Measure Everything – Emergency Data Collection in a National Crisis (Direct PDF link)

You can listen to Part 1 of the interview here.

In the first of a two-part conversation, Tuthill talks with the charismatic executive vice president of 50CAN, a national advocacy organization that supports education choice policies on a state-by-state basis.

Bradford’s straightforward analysis of complex education issues has earned him a sterling reputation in the education choice world, but his advocacy is personal. He recalls on the podcast a conversation between his mother and grandmother when he was growing up in southwest Baltimore about their decision to send him to a middle school out of his neighborhood zone to improve his educational outcome.

He also discusses two of his new policy papers – Fund Everything and Measure Everything – co-authored with 50CAN founder Marc Porter Magee. Inspired in part by the wide support for direct universal government assistance in the wake of COVID-19, the papers explain how to structure that support to solve a plethora of education problems that existed long before the pandemic.

"Parents and kids are trying to solve problems that are emergent ... or created because a (school district) doesn't want to play ball ... What would you do if you were that parent that needed to solve that problem? The fundamental precondition has got to be a right to choose."

EPISODE DETAILS:

·       Bradford’s education roots and his realization that education choice shaped his future

·       How 50CAN adapts its policy support based on each state’s landscape and political dynamics

·       What Bradford aims to accomplish with the Fund Everything and Measure Everything policy papers

·       How to pay and reward teachers in a Fund Everything education landscape

LINKS MENTIONED:

Fund Everything – Emergency Education Investments in a National Crisis (Direct PDF link)

Measure Everything – Emergency Data Collection in a National Crisis (Direct PDF link)

As the first full year of schooling during the coronavirus pandemic launches, a national education advocacy network is sounding the alarm in a research brief that America’s K-12 education system is in crisis.

To ensure a more flexible, equitable and student-centered system of education both now and post-pandemic, the independent non-profit organization 50CAN is calling for a national response to that crisis, starting with a greater level of federal support for new learning modes to extend greater choice for families, including distance learning, homeschooling, and micro-schools and learning pods.

While schooling traditionally has been funded through a mix of local property taxes and state revenue with the federal government paying only about 10% of total costs, 50CAN observes, a greater level of federal support across these three modes of learning is needed. 

Among 50CAN’s overall policy recommendations:

 ·       All district, charter and private schools should receive emergency funding to support safely running in-person schooling this school year if they are able to do so and to provide a flexible, high-quality online schooling option for all students.

 ·       Families should be able to easily move into or out of these in-person and online options as their health circumstances and risk factors change throughout the year.

 ·       Families should have the option to enroll their student in an online district school program outside of their neighborhood boundaries or in an online charter school or private school program anywhere in the country with no restrictions to these online transfers, such as state enrollment caps.

 ·       Families should receive funding to enroll their child in an in-person school in a neighboring district or in a charter school or private school if their district school does not offer an in-person option.

 ·       Families up to 200% of the poverty line should receive a direct payment of $2,000 per child to pay for supplemental educational materials, tutoring, technology and other learning expenses, building upon payments -- $1,200 per adult and $500 per child – in the CARES Act.

 The independent non-profit organization, launched in 2011, has a presence in eight states with affiliates in additional cities including Miami.

States need to overhaul the way they fund and regulate online charter schools and rein in "large-scale underperformance," a new report argues.

The argument isn't coming from the usual anti-charter school suspects. The report was released this morning by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, and the pro-charter advocacy group 50CAN (aka the 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now).

The three groups say they support full-time virtual schooling, and that the model can be beneficial for some students. But the report says recent research has found negative effects so significant and widespread that "[t]he breadth of underperformance by full-time virtual charter schools convinces us that states need to change the policy framework within which these schools can operate."

"If traditional public schools were producing such results, we would rightly be outraged," the report adds. "We should not feel any different just because these are charter schools."

Online learning companies and some allied advocacy groups have disputed some of the most widely cited studies of virtual charters' effectiveness, pointing out that virtual charters often serve disadvantaged students who change schools frequently, making their performance hard to gauge.

The report addresses this argument, noting that in a study by Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes, the "mobility" rates of virtual charter students and their comparison groups in traditional public schools are similar. Other  observers have concluded the negative findings are simply too strong to explain away. (more…)

All over the country, new private school choice programs are being created, more of the last remaining holdout states are beginning to allow charter schools, and a growing number of students are enrolling in educational options chosen by their parents.

But, on our latest podcast, Jim Blew, who served as the national president of StudentsFirst and will be focusing on California after a merger with the 50-state Campaign for Achievement Now (aka 50CAN), says it's hardly time to declare victory.

"Creating high-quality alternatives to the traditional system is a very fragile effort that continues to be under attack every day," he says. "... The reality of running a charter school is that you still feel, every day, that somebody is trying to snuff out your school, and anybody who's been involved in the [private-school] scholarship programs will tell you the same thing."

Look no further than current events in Florida.

Blew says that when 50CAN and StudentsFirst join forces, the broad pillars of their agendas - expanding quality school choices and creating accountability policies for teachers and schools - will remain largely the same. But they'll also vary state-by-state. (more…)