The future of education is happening now. In Florida. And public school districts are pushing into new frontiers by making it possible for all students, including those on education choice scholarships, to access the best they have to offer on a part-time basis. 

That was the message Keith Jacobs, director of provider development at Step Up For Students, delivered on Excel in Education’s “Policy Changes Lives” podcast A former public school teacher and administrator, Jacobs has spent the past year helping school districts expand learning options for students who receive funding through education savings accounts. These accounts allow parents to use funds for tuition, curriculum, therapies, and other pre-approved educational expenses. That includes services by approved district and charter schools.  

 

“So, what makes Florida so unique is that we have done something that five, 10, even, you know, further down the line, 20 years ago, you would have never thought would have happened,” Jacobs said during a discussion with podcast host Ben DeGrow. 

Jacobs explained how the process works:  

“I’m a home education student and I want to be an engineer, and the high school up the street has a remarkable engineering professor. I can contract with the school district and pay out of my education savings account for that engineering course at that school.  

“It’s something that was in theory for so long, but now it’s in practice here in Florida.” 

It is also becoming more widespread in an environment supercharged by the passage of House Bill 1 in 2023, which made all K-12 students in Florida eligibile for education choice scholarships regardless of family income. According to Jacobs,  more than 50% of the state’s 67 school districts, including Miami-Dade, Orange, Hillsborough and Duval, are either already approved or have applied to be contracted providers. 

That’s a welcome addition in Florida, where more than 500,000 students are using state K-12 scholarship programs and 51% of all students are using some form of choice.  

Jacobs said district leaders’ questions have centered on the logistics of participating, such as how the funding process works, how to document attendance and handle grades.  

Once the basics are established, Jacobs wants to help districts find ways to remove barriers to part-time students’ participation. Those could include offering courses outside of the traditional school day or setting up classes that serve only those students. 

Jacobs said he expects demand for public school services to grow as Florida families look for more ways to customize their children’s education. That will lead to more opportunities for public schools to benefit and change the narrative that education is an adversarial, zero-sum game to one where everyone wins. 

“So, basically, the money is following the child and not funding a specific system. So, when you shift that narrative from ‘you're losing public school kids’ to ‘families are empowered to use their money for public school services,’ it really shifts that narrative on what's happening here, specifically in Florida.” 

Jacobs expects other states to emulate Florida as their own programs and the newly passed federal tax credit program give families more money to spend on customized learning. He foresees greater freedom for teachers to become entrepreneurs and districts to become even more innovative. 

“There is a nationwide appetite for education choice and families right now…We have over 18 states who have adopted some form of education savings accounts in their state. So, the message to states outside of Florida is to listen to what the demands of families are.” 

When I think about the state of public education in Florida, I recall a song from “The Wiz,” the 1978 film reimagining of “The Wizard of Oz,” where Diana Ross sang, “Can’t you feel a brand new day?”   

It’s a brand new day in our state’s educational history. Parents are in the driver’s seat deciding where and how their children are educated, and because the money follows the student, every school and educational institution must compete for the opportunity to serve them.  

Public schools are rising to meet that challenge.  

For the past year, helping them has been my full-time job. 

Today, 27 of Florida’s 67 school districts have contracted with Step Up For Students to provide classes and services to scholarship students, and another 10 have applied to do so.  

 

That’s up from a single school district and one lone charter school this time a year ago. 

This represents a seismic shift in public education.  

For decades, a student’s ZIP code determined which district school he or she attended, limiting options for most families. For decades, Florida slowly chipped away at those boundaries, giving families options beyond their assigned schools.  

Then, in 2023, House Bill 1 supercharged the transformation. That legislation made every K-12 student in Florida eligible for a scholarship. It gave parents more flexibility in how they can use their child’s scholarship. It also created the Personalized Education Program (PEP), designed specifically for students not enrolled in school full time.  

This year, more than 80,000 PEP students are joining approximately 39,000 Unique Abilities students who are registered homeschoolers. That means nearly 120,000 scholarship students whose families are fully mixing and matching their education.  

Families are sending the clear message that they want choices, flexibility, and an education that reflects the unique needs and interests of their children. 

Districts have heard that message.  

Parents may not want a full-time program at their neighborhood school, but they still want access to the districts’ diverse menu of resources, including AP classes, robotics labs, career education courses, and state assessments. Families can pay for those services directly with their scholarship funds, giving districts a new revenue stream while ensuring students get exactly what they need. 

In my conversations with district leaders across the state, they see demand for more flexible options in their communities, and they’re figuring out how to meet it.   

For instance, take a family whose child is enthusiastic about robotics. In the past, their choices would have been all-or-nothing. If they chose to use a scholarship, they would gain the ability to customize their child’s education but lose access to the popular robotics course at their local public school. Now, that family can enroll their child in a district robotics course, pay for it with their scholarship, and give their child firsthand technology experience to round out the tutoring, curriculum, online courses and other educational services the family uses their scholarship to access.  

Families can log in to their account in Step Up’s EMA system, find providers under marketplace and select their local school district offerings under “contracted public school services.” School districts will get a notification when a scholarship student signs up for one of their classes. From large, urban districts like Miami-Dade to small, rural ones like Lafayette, superintendents are excited to see scholarship students walk through their doors to engage in the “cool stuff” public schools can offer. Whether it’s dual enrollment, performing arts, or career and technical education, districts are learning that when they open their arms to families with choice, those families respond with enthusiasm. 

Parents are no longer passive consumers of whatever system they happen to live in. They are empowered, informed, and determined to customize their child’s learning journey.  

This is the promise of a brand new day in Florida education. For too long, choice has been framed as a zero-sum game where if a student left the public system, or never even attended in the first place, the district lost. That us-versus-them mentality is quickly going the way of the Wicked Witch of the West. What we are witnessing now is something far more hopeful: a recognition that districts and families can be partners, not adversaries, in building customized learning pathways. 

The future of education in Florida is not about one system defeating another. It is about ensuring families have access to as many options as needed, regardless of who delivers them.  

As Diana Ross once sang, “Hello world! It’s like a different way of living now.” It has my heart singing so joyfully. 

 

Cooper Campen is the spelling bee champion of Alachua County who plays the trumpet, reads John Grisham novels, and would like to be a mechanical engineer. Or a doctor. Or a lawyer.

He is 12 years old, a young man of many interests. Science. History. Music. Words.

And this: Education choice.

Cooper, 12, is homeschooled in Gainesville and uses the Personalized Education Program (PEP) that comes with his Florida Tax Credit Scholarship. The scholarship is made possible by corporate donations to Step Up For Students.

Cooper is so invested in his education that he followed House Bill 1, which included the historic PEP, as it made its way through the 2023 Florida Legislature.

“We watched every single subcommittee,” Cooper said. “Everything.”

How many preteens do you know who did that?

“Cooper understands it more than most kids. He understands school choice,” Shirley said.

He gets that from his parents, Shirley and Brad. Shirley is a former teacher. Brad is an auctioneer. They both watched the progress of HB1 on TV.

“I thought it was a very monumental bill,” Shirley said.

HB1 allows for an Education Savings Account (ESA) for homeschooled students. This gives families flexibility in how they spend their scholarship funds, enabling them to tailor an education to best meet their children’s needs.

Shirley and Brad homeschool Cooper and his brother, Alexander, 9.

“PEP has allowed us and other families to provide a unique home education for each child,” Shirley said.

 

The Campens use PEP to pay for the curriculum for their sons – sixth grade for Cooper and fourth grade for Alexander. They purchase textbooks and science and math kits. PEP covers fees for flag football and basketball leagues to satisfy the physical education component of their homeschooling. It pays for field trips to museums. Cooper and Alexander attend music classes at Cornerstone Academy in Gainesville, using the school’s à la carte program.

They also use PEP to pay for music lessons for Cooper (the trumpet) and Alexander (guitar).

“The trumpet is also a really, really, really cool instrument,” Cooper said. “Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie played it. All of these really, really, really cool guys played the trumpet.”

Cooper has been a fan of Armstrong for as long as he can remember. He has yet to read a book about Armstrong, which is surprising since he’s read a book about everything else.

Science fiction, historical fiction, history textbooks, survival books, biographies … the list goes on.

“My parents read to me a lot when I was really little, and I ended up learning how to read when I was three years old,” Cooper said. “I absolutely love reading, and I read pretty much anything I can get my hands on. If you can read it, you can learn anything.”

Cooper and Alexander always have a book in hand. They’re the type of kids who are told to close the book, turn off the light, and go to bed.

 

Cooper said reading all those words on all those pages is what led him to the regional spelling bee March 25 in Jacksonville. The winner advances to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May in Washington, D.C.

Cooper became the Alachua County champ in February when he correctly spelled “rasorial,” which is the adjective used to describe what birds do when they scratch the ground in search of food.

The contest was intense for Cooper and his family. His dad walked out of the room a couple of times while his mom sat on the edge of her seat. Brad Campen snapped a picture of Cooper sitting among rows of empty seats. Most of the other contestants had been eliminated. As he waited his turn, Cooper leaned forward and put his head in his hands.

Deep in concentration?

Praying,” he said.

There were 35 contestants in the spelling bee. Cooper was the only one who is homeschooled. He prefers that, he said, over attending school. He did attend a private school in Gainesville for a few years but didn’t like it because he would finish the work ahead of the other students. He would spend the rest of the class reading a book.

“With homeschooling, the curriculum is definitely more challenging,” Cooper said. “If I’m having trouble in one subject, we can work on that. And if I'm really good at another subject, and don't need to really do any more in it, then we can move on.”

Plus, Shirley said, the curriculum can be customized to meet the child’s interests and needs.

“We love that Florida has become so education choice-friendly and so innovative in education because every student is different,” Shirley said. “Every student needs a different kind of education. And it's really, really awesome that we have so many options here.”

Shirley said homeschooling is not for every child or every family. But for those who do well in that setting, the PEP program is a boon. That’s why the family watched the 2023 legislative session. And that’s why Cooper served as a student page in Tallahassee during the first week of this year’s legislative session.

“Cooper has always been a kid who’s really interested in the law and politics and how all of that works,” Shirley said.

He received a taste of that because the student pages had to present a mock bill and participate in mock sessions. Cooper met several lawmakers, including House Speaker Pro Tempore Chuck Clemons, R-Newberry, and state Rep. Kaylee Tuck, R-Lake Placid, who sponsored HB1 in 2023.

The family followed the legislative session this year, as well, hoping PEP would be expanded.

“We believe learning is a lifestyle, not just a means to obtain a diploma or degree,” Shirley said. “PEP is allowing our boys more learning opportunities than ever, and we are very thankful for that.”