HAVANA, Fla. – It was a typical July afternoon in Florida’s Panhandle. The air was hot and sticky, and the sun hid behind the dark gray thunder clouds building to the north of Robert F. Munroe Day School in Havana.

A warm breeze kicked up, signaling the approaching late-day storm.

The students who darted about earlier during summer camp, and the staff and teachers who spent their day on campus preparing for the upcoming school year, were mostly gone.

Andy Gay, head of school, remained. So did Shanna Halsell, director of advancement and marketing. They spent the better part of the day with a visitor, explaining the efforts necessary to keep Robert F. Munroe Day School (RFM) open, despite financial shortcomings, an exodus of teachers, and declining enrollment that not too long ago threatened to close the private pre-K-12 school.

But that gloomy forecast never happened.

In Gay’s first three years on the job, enrollment has increased, and test scores are on the rise.

Several factors came into play for the turnaround, including the expansion of Florida’s education choice scholarship programs managed by Step Up For Students.

“The Step Up scholarship saved this school,” Gay said. “This school has always been on the verge of shutting down, and we’d have closed without it.”

But RFM’s story is more than just the creation in 2022 of the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options, which increased the income requirements for eligible families, making a private school education more affordable to families.

Parents need more than money to send their children to a private school. They need a reason to send them there.

And that’s where Gay comes in. He is a graduate of RFM. So is his wife, and so are his two sons and his daughter.

“We’re a Munroe family,” Gay said. “I love this place. It has a soft spot in my heart.”

That’s the reason RFM’s board of trustees sent an SOS to Gay before the start of the 2022-23 school year.

“We needed him,” Libby Henderson, the immediate past president of the school’s board of trustees, said.

A native of Gadsden County, Gay has deep roots in the community. And, as a former teacher, coach, and administrator in the county school district, Gay is well-versed in how to run a school.

Also, he was available.

Sort of.

Gay had just retired after 32 years in education. He was ready to spend his days fishing and playing with his grandchildren.

That lasted two weeks.

“He indicated he was interested and could be talked out of retirement,” Henderson said.

Gay, who always wanted to run a school, accepted the offer, telling the trustees that he would work for two years. This year is his fourth as head of school.

“I don’t know,” he said, “I fell in love with the job.”

Eventually.

Gay admitted that what he found when he took over was not what he expected. The test scores for reading and math were below grade level.

“I saw a lot of disturbing data, and I knew that there had to be some drastic reform,” he said.

Where to start? The faculty.

Gay filled the vacancies with a mix of seasoned teachers and college graduates.

“It's always been my philosophy that there's no one more important than the teacher in the classroom,” Gay said. “So, I got busy trying to hire people that I knew would get the job done, that I could trust, that I knew.

“With the young teachers, I felt that we could give them the support they needed and turn them into good teachers.”

Gay has coached football and track. He won back-to-back state track titles and came within three points of winning a third straight. He knows how to build a staff of assistant coaches. You hire coaches for their expertise and let them coach.

It’s the same with the teachers.

“The cool thing about Andy that I love is he’ll help you if you need help,” said Anthony Piragnoli, who is in his sixth year at RFM and teaches high school English and coaches the middle school football team. “Now, if you're a new teacher and you kind of need some help, he'll definitely help you out and give you all the resources and all the tools you need. But if you're more experienced, he kind of lets you, I don't want to say do your own thing, but he gives you the freedom to teach the way you want to teach.”

 Of course, nothing is more important to a school than the students themselves. To raise the academic bar, Gay and his staff created a welcoming, yet demanding culture.

“It’s all about the expectations you put on the kids,” he said.

And the expectation was that they would become better readers.

Gay instituted DEAR Time, which stands for “Drop Everything And Read.”

A first-grade teacher came up with the idea for the Bobcat Buddy Program, which pairs upper school students with lower school students for mentorships and companionship.

That led to Bobcat Buddy Book Day, where upper school students bring a book or check one out from the library to read to their lower school buddy.

“You go out on campus, and you see kids lining the sidewalk or on the playground, and the big buddy is reading to the little buddy, and I think that is wonderful,” said Dawn Burch, director of education.

The programs work. Two years ago, only 48% of RFM students were reading at grade level. That has increased to 73%.

Halsell’s data shows the school experienced 93.8% growth across the board in reading, math, and science since Gay took over. Last year, 13 of 30 seniors graduated with associate's degrees through the school’s newly implemented dual enrollment program.

But it takes more than just the teachers to get students to work harder. The parents have to buy in, too.

“I want partnerships between parents and teachers,” Gay said. “It can’t be adversarial. I found it makes a huge difference in the overall academic growth of the child when there is a partnership.”

Toward that end, parents are always welcome on campus. Teachers are encouraged to call parents when their child does something positive in class.

“We can call about good stuff, too,” he said.

There is an excitement around RFM that hadn’t been there in years, Henderson said. Last year’s alumni golf tournament raised $25,000, which went toward the school’s curriculum. Halsell works tirelessly to reconnect with alumni and build a network of donors. She recently announced that the school secured a $500,000 grant for its STEM program.

The school sits on 44 acres with plenty of room to expand. A new gymnasium would be nice.

Those rain clouds that appeared over the school on that July afternoon did little more than threaten. Much like the metaphorical storm clouds that were forming when Gay took the job.

“He’s done a phenomenal job,” Henderson said.

Two years turned into four for Gay, and four can turn into who knows how long.

“I feel like I will stay here as long as I continue to see progress and I continue to feel good about this place,” Gay said. “Right now, I feel like we're on the verge of some greatness.”

If anyone needs more proof that the future of education is in Florida, take a look at the winners of Thursday night’s Yass Prize Awards. Six Florida-based providers, including two finalists who took home $250,000 each, were among the 23 honored for their innovative and scalable programs.  

One of the finalists, Pepin Academies, is a charter school network with three campuses in the Tampa Bay area. It offers students with learning disabilities in grades three through 12 an inclusive environment where academics and essential therapies happen together in real time.  

“I have always rejected the principle that we have to think outside the box for students with disabilities,” said Jeff Skowronek, executive director of the 25-year-old network. “A truly inclusive society is one that understands how to make the box bigger.”  

Pepin stands out for its small class sizes, ESE-certified teachers, and onsite specialists, including mental health counselors, social workers, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, ESE specialists, and registered nurses, according to Yass Prize offices. This ensures their children receive individualized attention throughout the entire school day. In addition to its schools, Pepin operates a transition program for young adults ages 18-22.  

According to Yass Prize officials, the award empowers Pepin Academies to serve students earlier, expand their transition program, and bring their therapeutic model to more families seeking a school that understands and supports exceptional learners at every stage. 

The other finalist, WonderHere, is a network of child-centered microschools that focus on play-driven, project-based learning and personalized education to let children learn at their own pace. 

“We are so excited and grateful to the Yass family and the Center for Education Reform for selecting WonderHere as a finalist,” said Tiffany Thenor, who opened the first campus in Lakeland after spending seven years in the public education system. She opened WonderHere to challenge the norms of schooling and prove that learning can be more joyful, flexible, and deeply human. A second location opened later in Anderson, South Carolina, and a third is planned for Davenport, Florida, near the original location. 

Thenor said the prize money will help her find a permanent location for the Davenport campus and create more space for families to experience the “project-based, family-centered, wonder-filled learning environment” that WonderHere offers. 

The following Florida providers were named semi-finalists and received $100,000 each: Archimedean Schools of Miami; Space Florida, Merritt Island; Ecclesial Schools, Oviedo; and GuidEd, a Tampa-based bilingual program that provides free, unbiased information about educational choices to help families determine the best fit for their children.   

 “GuidEd looks forward to using our Yass award money to enhance our call center capabilities to provide more sophisticated and personalized 1:1 support for families and to reach new families who may be entering the education freedom marketplace for the first time," said Kelly Garcia, who founded GuidEd with her brother-in-law, Garrett Garcia.  

The Yass Prize, often called the “Pulitzer of Education Innovation,” began in 2021 to recognize innovative educators who delivered top-tier learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Philanthropists and education choice champions Jeff and Janine Yass established the award and continue to fund the program.

The top winner takes home a $1 million prize. This year, it went to Chesterton Schools Network, a national network of classical high schools rooted in Catholic values. Though headquartered in Minnesota, Chesterton has Florida schools in Orlando, Pensacola, Sarasota, and Vero Beach, with a fifth set to open in 2027 in Melbourne. Primer Microschools, which began in Florida and has expanded to other states, won the grand prize in 2024. That year, it announced the establishment of Primer Fellowship, which provides paid training for edupreneurs seeking to open Primer Microschools in their communities.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — A check recently arrived in the mail for Landon Green, his compensation for the two hours he spent autographing baseball cards of himself one day last summer.

He signed 2,000 cards and was paid $1 for each signature.

That’s a nice payday for anyone, especially a 17-year-old high school junior who is among the top pitching prospects in the nation, one who is very much on the radar of top collegiate programs and Major League Baseball teams.

The landscape of amateur sports has shifted dramatically over the last few years, allowing athletes to benefit financially from their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) without jeopardizing their amateur status.

Likewise, the landscape of K-12 education in Florida has changed significantly with the expansion of education choice scholarship programs.

Landon, who is home-educated, receives a Personalized Education Program (PEP) scholarship available through the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program managed by Step Up For Students.

PEP, now in its third year, provides parents flexibility in how they spend their scholarship funds, allowing them to customize their children’s learning to meet their individual needs and interests.

“It allows us to select his academics based on his future, to study what we think will help him in his future,” Landon’s mom, Michele Donton said.

For Landon, that’s finance, business, and leadership – courses that will guide his financial potential. The scholarship also covers the cost of strength, conditioning, and mobility training – sessions that will help him improve athletically. Landon spends two to four hours a day either playing baseball or working on some aspect of his game.

“PEP gives us the flexibility to work around his schedule,” Michele said.

Morning workouts mean afternoon classes and vice versa. Also, Landon can still complete his schoolwork when he travels out of town for a tournament.

“I think (the PEP scholarship) is very beneficial for him, because he's not the typical go to school type of kid,” Landon’s father, Lamon Green, said.

Stacked among the textbooks on a table in the family’s Clearwater home is one published by the financial services firm Morgan Stanley titled “The Modern Athlete's Guide to Life, Money and NIL.”

Yellow sticky notes earmark chapters on “Smart Money Savings,” “The Business of You,” “Investing in Your Future,” and “Philanthropy & Legacy.”

It’s an important resource for someone like Landon, because the check he received for autographing baseball cards will be the first of many. He also has two NIL deals with athletic apparel companies. Opportunities for more deals can increase over the next two years as his career progresses.

“This kind of helps him and guides him through all of this,” Michele said. “It's the NIL bible, to be honest with you. It teaches you everything and anything you need to know.”

The days of teen-age baseball players being scouted during high school games by representatives from college and professional teams ended years ago. Now, top college and pro prospects like Landon attend showcase events around the country that draw scouts and evaluators from all 30 Major League Baseball teams as well as college coaches. Prospects play for travel teams, some of which draw from a nationwide talent pool.

Landon is also a regular at the USA National Baseball Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina. That’s where he autographed those baseball cards, and that’s where he attended financial seminars.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) changed its rules in 2021 by recognizing athletes as a brand and allowing them to profit from their identity. It wasn’t long before that trickled down to high school athletes.

So, not only is Landon a baseball prospect, but he is also a brand.

To that, he shrugged his shoulders.

Landon runs toward the quiet. He’s very businesslike on the pitcher's mound, retiring batters with not much fanfare.

“He’s very humble,” said his mom.

Landon’s answer when asked about his future was this: “Whatever happens, happens.”

Here’s what could happen:

If all goes according to plan, it will include either a scholarship to a Division I-A university with a top-flight baseball program or a contract with a Major League Baseball team after he is selected in the 2027 baseball draft. He has already had a workout with the Chicago Cubs.

Landon is already rated as one of the top pitchers eligible for the 2027 draft, which will be held after he graduates high school. A right-hander, his fastball has been timed at 98 mph, and it is expected to get faster as he adds bulk to his 6-foot-1, 174-pound frame.

The higher he is selected in the draft, the more money he will receive as a signing bonus.

If Landon chooses to play college baseball before turning pro, he stands to increase his NIL deals since he will be pitching for a prominent program. He is being recruited by a number of colleges, including blue bloods like the universities of Florida, Texas, and Miami, and Louisiana State University.

“I was one of his T-ball coaches back in the day. Watching him play on the grass, I would have never thought all this could happen. This is awesome,” said Lamon, who has been a Clearwater police officer for nearly 25 years.

“That’s why I tell him to stay out of trouble, do the right thing. I push him in his education to learn about money. Don’t blow it because you want a necklace. You have a future to think about.”

This is Landon’s third year of home education. Michele said the move was made to better control his learning environment. The fewer distractions made for a better student.

She was thrilled when she learned about the PEP scholarship and how it works. Many families who receive the scholarship are tailoring their children’s education based on their interests and needs, choosing options a la carte style. A growing number of parents are looking to the future when customizing their child’s education.

For Landon, that means his curriculum is evolving.

“We're always listening,” Michele said. “I'm constantly looking for material that can help him, that I think is going to help him in his future, whether it be financial literacy, learning how to invest. I really want him to learn how to invest. That's a big thing we're going to focus on this school year.”

MIRAMAR, Fla. – Florida’s explosion in à la carte learning has created space for all kinds of new, state-supported educational experiences, including, improbably, a class in building with power tools that’s tucked inside an ashram, a kind of spiritual retreat, with a grove of mango trees and a colony of especially plump iguanas. 

The class is run by Builder’s Workshop, an à la carte provider founded by Marvin and Christine Hernandez. The couple retrofitted an old horse stable on the property into a student workshop, humming with saws, drills, and sanders.  

Now, just a few months in, they’re already serving 30 students a week, all in middle and high school. Nearly all of them use education savings accounts (ESAs), the flexible state scholarships that are fueling Florida’s fast-growing universe of à la carte learning. 

“They say build it and they will come, and people are coming,” Christine said. “Families are hungry for it.” 

The same could be said for à la carte learning in Florida. 

Enabled by ESAs, à la carte learning is when families use state support to customize their child’s education completely outside of full-time schools, by picking and choosing from multiple providers. This school year, 140,000 students will do à la carte learning in Florida, up from about 8,000 five years ago, and their families will spend more than $1 billion in ESA funds. As we detail in a new data brief, nothing on this scale is happening anywhere else in America. 

As the number of à la carte learners expands, so does the supply of places they can go. 

Last year, 4,318 providers received ESA funding in Florida, more than double the year prior. Many of them are tutors and therapists. But a growing number are like Builder’s Workshop, specialized, micro-programs that would have been inconceivable as public education just a few years ago. 

Inside Builder’s Workshop, students learn how to operate tools safely and confidently. They build birdhouses, step stools, shoe racks, and in one class I visited, “shields of faith.” Along the way, they pick up habits that rarely come from screens. 

“Teaching kids to use tools and build things … builds confidence, responsibility, and real-world skills,” Marvin said. “It teaches them problem-solving, patience, and how to work safely. It also strengthens their math and creativity, gets them off screens, and helps them feel capable of making and fixing things.” 

“Plus, from a Christian view,” Marvin continued, “it reflects God’s design for us to create and steward the world around us.” 

(Builder’s Workshops offers both secular and Christian classes.) 

Some Builder’s Workshop students are members of a Montessori co-op that also uses the property. Some are not. In the rapidly evolving world of à la carte learning, lines blur, and kids, families, and educators cross them freely. 

“I just love building stuff,” said student Jasmin Hernandez (no relation to Marvin and Christine), a 16-year-old who wants to be a carpenter. Jasmin spoke briefly between noisy cuts with a band saw. 

That DIY attitude is what Builders Workshop wants to cultivate. 

“We want them to know they can fix a table if they need to fix a table,” Christine said. But “we also want them to know they can create their own products if they want to.” 

Marvin and Christine are fixtures in South Florida’s fine arts scene. Marvin is a longtime artist; Christine has a background in project management. Among other services, their company designs and builds custom display cases, pedestals, and other structures for museums, galleries, and private homes. 

So, they know their power tools. They also understand the broader potential. 

To date, the expansion of ESAs hasn’t done much to enhance career and technical education. But student interest is growing for those skills and jobs, even as some quarters worry about a lack of qualified teachers. Florida, though, is full of highly trained professionals — builders, craftspeople, men and women skilled in the trades — who could be part of the solution. 

Maybe ESAs are the bridge that connects them. 

Maybe Builder’s Workshop is a glimpse of what that could look like. 

Jasmin’s mom, Michelle Hernandez, said her daughter is already close to graduating because she took so many dual enrollment classes through her prior school. So, Michelle decided to homeschool Jasmin and let her explore more nontraditional classes. 

Builder’s Workshop, she said, is “an outlet to be creative but with items that have a purpose. Building things also means not having to wait for others to do it, and she can see her own ideas come to life.” 

Jasmin’s 13-year-old brother, Cristian, is also enrolled. Michelle said he looks forward to it because hands-on learning registers more deeply with him. Plus, she said, “He’s a boy. He needs to move.” 

Kelly Jacobo said likewise about her son, Malakai, who’s also 13 and taking the class. 

Jacobo said her grandfather and great-grandfather were accomplished carpenters, so Builder’s Workshop was perfect. “It kind of runs in the family,” she said. “I’ve been praying for forever that there’d be a woodworking class for kids.” 

The backdrop for Builder’s Workshop couldn’t be more colorful. Even though it’s in super urbanized South Florida, it’s hidden down a graded road lined with banana trees. Around the corner is the mango grove, where the iguanas, clearly living their best lives, feast when the fruit is in season. 

Alas, this setting is going to fade from the story. The owner recently sold the land, so Marvin and Christine will be looking for new digs soon. They don’t anticipate a problem with demand, however, and the families they serve are devoted. 

“We don’t know where or when it will happen,” she said of finding a new place, but “we have an immense amount of faith that more families will join once we open our doors.” 

By David Heroux and Ron Matus

In the blink of an eye, à la carte learning in Florida has become one of the fastest-growing education choice options in America.

This school year, 140,000 Florida students will participate in à la carte learning via state-supported education savings accounts, up from 8,465 five years ago. Their parents will spend more than $1 billion in ESA funds.

These families are at the forefront of epic change in public education. Completely outside of full-time schools, they’re assembling their own educational programming, mixing and matching from an ever-expanding menu of providers.

Nothing on this scale is happening anywhere else in America.

To give policymakers, philanthropists, and choice advocates a snapshot, we produced this new data brief. In broad strokes, it shows a more diverse and dynamic system where true customization is within reach for any family who wants it.

ESAs shift what’s possible from school choice to education choice. They give more families access not only to private schools, but tutors, therapists, curriculum, and other goods and services.

Adoption of these more flexible choice scholarships has been booming nationwide; 18 states now have them. But nowhere is their full potential more fully on display than in Florida.

Last year, 4,318 à la carte providers in Florida received ESA funding, more than double the year prior. Many of them are tutors and therapists, but a growing number offer more specialized and innovative services, as we highlighted in our first report on à la carte learning. Former public school teachers are also a driving force in creating them, just as they’ve been with microschools.

How far and fast à la carte learning will grow remains to be seen. For now, check out our brief to get a glimpse of what’s ahead.

MIRAMAR, Fla.  — William Ivins moved his family to South Florida ahead of his retirement from the United States Marine Corps and enrolled his children at Mother of Our Redeemer Catholic School, hoping they would reap the same rewards as he did from a faith-based education.

But, as William and his wife, Claudia, would soon learn, that was easier said than done.

A lawyer for much of his 20-year career in the Marines, William needed to pass the Florida Bar Exam before he could enter the private sector. It was a long process that left him unemployed for 19 months.

“It was a struggle,” he said. “My retirement income was not enough to pay for the cost of living and tuition for my children.”

The Ivins' faced a few choices: continue with the financial struggle, homeschool their children, send them to their district school, or move out of state. None were appealing to the Ivins, and fortunately, they didn’t have to act on any.

Florida's education choice scholarships managed by Step Up For Students allow his four children to attend Mother of Our Redeemer, a private K-8 Catholic school near the family’s Miramar home.

“It was a perfect storm of having to retire from the Marines and not really having a job lined up,” William said. “The transition was more difficult than I thought it would be. The income just was not available for us to continue our kids’ education in the way we wanted. Had the scholarship not been there, we would have been forced to move out of state or homeschool them or move them to (their district) school.”

In July 2020, the Ivins moved to South Florida from Jacksonville, N.C., where William had been stationed at Camp Lejeune. William contacted Denise Torres, the registrar and ESE coordinator at Mother of Redeemer, before making the move. She told William the school would hold spaces for his children. She later told him about the education choice scholarships managed by Step Up For Students.

“That was a big relief for him,” Torres said.

At his mother’s urging, William began attending Catholic school in high school.

“That was a life-changer for me,” he said.

He converted to Catholicism and vowed if he ever had children, he would send them to Catholic school for the religious and academic benefits.

Rebekah graduated in May from Mother of Our Redeemer. She had been an honor roll student since she stepped on campus three years ago.

“Rebekah likes to be challenged in school, and she was challenged here,” Claudia said.

Rebekah, who received the High Achieving Student Award in April 2022 at Step Up’s annual Rising Stars Awards event, is in the excelsior honors program as a sophomore at Archbishop McCarthy High School.

“She's an amazing, amazing student,” Torres said. “It’s incredible the way she takes care of her brothers. She's very nurturing. Every single teacher has something positive to say about her.”

Rebekah’s brothers, Joseph (seventh grade) and Lucas (fourth grade), do well academically and are active in Mother of Redeemer’s sports scene, running cross-country and track. Nicholas, the youngest of the Ivins children, is in second grade. He was allowed to run with the cross-country team while in kindergarten, which helped build his confidence.

William had been in the Marines for 20 years, eight months. He served as a Judge Advocate and was deployed to Kuwait in 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom, to Japan in 2004, and then to Afghanistan in 2012 for Operation Enduring Freedom.

He retired in May 2021 but didn’t find employment until December 2022. The Florida Bar Exam is considered one of the more challenging bar exams in the United States. He took the exam in July 2021 and didn’t learn he passed until September. It took William more than a year before he landed a position with a small law firm in Pembrook Pines.

Claudia, who has a background in finance, works in that department at Mother of Our Redeemer Catholic Church, located next to the school.

“They have really become part of our community,” Principal Ana Casariego said. “The parents are very involved and are big supporters of our school and church.”

In Mother of Our Redeemer Catholic School and Church, Willian and Claudia found the educational and faith setting they wanted for their children.

“It is a small community environment where you know all the teachers and staff by first name,” William said. “My kids have received a wonderful education in an environment where they don’t have to worry about bullying, and they can really strive to grow and do their best academically.

“The scholarship kept us in the state and kept our kids in the school system that we wanted them to be in. It’s been a great blessing to us.”

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Four years ago, Phil and Cathy Watson were distressed and desperate. Their daughter Mikayla, then 12, was born with a rare genetic condition that led to physical and cognitive delays. With her school situation getting worse by the day, they needed options, now. 

The Watsons were open to private schools. But they couldn’t find a single one near their home in metro D.C. that met Mikayla’s needs. They even looked in neighboring states. Nothing. 

One day, though, Phil varied his keyword search slightly, and something new popped up: 

A school for students with special needs that had low student-to-staff ratios, transition programs to help students live independently, even an equine therapy program.  

The Watsons feared it was too good to be true. Even if it wasn’t, it was 700 miles away. 

A destination for education    

Florida has always been a magnet for transplants. It’s tough to beat sunshine, low taxes, and hundreds of miles of beach. But as Florida has cemented its reputation as the national leader in school choice, the ability to have exactly the school you want for your kids is making Florida a destination, too. 

In South Florida, Jewish families are flocking from states like New York to a Jewish schools sector that has nearly doubled in 15 years. But they’re not alone. Families of students with special needs are making a beeline for specialized schools, too. The one the Watsons stumbled on has 24 students whose families moved from other states – about 10% of total enrollment. 

The common denominator is the most diverse and dynamic private school sector in America, energized by 500,000 students using education choice scholarships. 

According to the most recent federal data, the number of private schools in Maryland shrank by 7% between 2011-12 and 2021-22. In Florida, it grew by 40%. 

“What Florida is offering is just mind blowing compared to Maryland,” Phil said. “If a story like this ran on the national news, people would be beating the door down.” 

‘The kid who never spoke’  

Phil and Cathy Watson have six children, all adopted. They range in age from 1 to 39. All have special challenges. 

“God picked out the six kids we have,” said Cathy, who, like Phil, is the child of a pastor. “We feel very strongly that we were called to do what we do. Our heart says we have love to give and knowledge to share. These kids need that, so it’s a match.” 

Mikayla is their fourth child. She was born with hereditary spastic paraplegia, a condition that causes progressive damage to the nervous system. 

She didn’t begin walking until she was 18 months old. Even then, her gait continued to be heavy-footed, and she was prone to falling. Her speech was also, in Phil’s description, “mushy,” and until she was 12, she didn’t talk much. 

In many ways, Mikayla is a typical teen. She loves steak and sushi and Fuego Takis. Her favorite books are “The Baby-Sitters Club” series, and her favorite movies include “Beauty and the Beast” and “Beverly Hills Chihuahua.” Many of her former classmates, though, probably had no idea. 

In school, Mikayla was “the kid who never spoke.” 

Checking a box 

As Mikayla got older, she and her parents grew increasingly frustrated with what was happening in the classroom. “She was being pushed aside,” Phil said. 

Teachers would tell her to read in a corner. Between the physical pain from her condition and the emotional turmoil of being isolated, she was crushed. Sometimes, Phil said, she’d come home and “unleash this fury on my wife and I.” 

The pandemic made things worse. In sixth grade, Mikayla was online with 65 other students. Then, three days before the start of seventh grade, the district said it no longer had the resources to support her with extra staff. Instead, she could be mainstreamed without the supports; enroll in a private school; or do a “hospital homebound” program. 

The Watsons chose the latter. Three days a week, a district employee sat with Mikayla, going over worksheets that Phil said were “way over her head.” 

“All it was,” he said, “was checking a box.” 

Just in the nick of time, the school search turned up a hit. 

Florida, the land of sunshine and learning options

What surfaced was the North Florida School of Special Education. 

“From just the pictures, I’m thinking, ‘This looks legit,’ “ Phil said. “Both of us are like, ‘Wow.’ “ 

When the Watsons called NFSSE, as it’s called for short, an administrator answered every question in detail. This was not the experience they had with some of the other private schools they called. 

At the time, Phil owned a home building company, and Cathy worked for a counseling ministry. They lived comfortably. But they were also paying tuition for another daughter in college. 

Thankfully, the administrator told them Florida had school choice scholarships. For students with special needs, they provided $10,000 or more a year. 

The Watsons couldn’t believe it. They were familiar with the concept of school choice but didn’t know the details. Maryland does not have a comparable program. 

The administrator also told them NFSSE had a wait list. But the Watsons had heard enough. 

A fortuitous phone call 

A few weeks later, they were touring the school. 

The facilities were stellar. Even better, the administrator leading their tour knew the name of every student they passed in the hallways. “We were blown away,” Phil said. “They truly care. “ 

At some point, the staff ushered Mikayla into a classroom. As her parents watched from behind one-way glass, another student greeted Mikayla with a flower made of LEGO bricks. 

For years, Mikayla had been withdrawn around other students. Not here. The shift was immediate. She and the other students were using tablets to play an interactive academic game, and “you could see her turn and laugh with the kids next to her,” Phil said. 

Minutes later, he and Cathy were in the administrator’s office, “bawling our eyes out.” 

“We said, ‘We’re all in. We have to be here. We’ll be here next week if that’s what we have to do.’” 

Days later, the Watsons were at Disney World when NFSSE called. Unexpectedly, the family of a longtime student was moving. The school had an opening. 

New friends, improved skills and boosted confidence 

Even without the choice scholarship, the Watsons would have moved. At the same time, the scholarship was invaluable. The cost was not sustainable in the long run, Phil said, especially because he had to re-start his business. 

The Watsons rented a long-term Airbnb and then an apartment before buying a house in Jacksonville. They uprooted themselves completely from Maryland, including selling their dream home. 

“That was hard,” Cathy said. “You’re leaving everything you love.” 

Mikayla’s turnaround, though, has made it all worthwhile. 

Mikayla was reading at a first-grade level when she arrived at NFSSE; now she’s at a seventh-grade level. She loves the new graphic design class. She won an award for completing 1,000 math problems. “When she got here, she couldn’t add two plus two,” Phil said. 

Her verbal skills have blossomed. She eventually told her parents something she didn’t have the ability to tell them before: In her prior school, she didn’t talk because other students laughed at her. 

At NFSSE, the “kid who never spoke” speaks quite a bit. 

One day, she served as “teacher for the day” in her personal economics class, delivering a lesson on how to make change. 

Mikayla is kind and quick to smile. She is surrounded by friends and admirers. “Mikayla is my best friend,” said a chatty girl with pigtails who waited by her side in the hallway. 

One boy held the door for Mikayla as she headed to her next class. A second hung her backpack on the back of her wheelchair. A third walked her to P.E. 

Mikayla’s confidence is growing outside of school, too. 

In the past, she wouldn’t say hi or order in a restaurant. But at Walmart the other day, Phil needed a card for a friend’s retirement, so Mikayla went to find a clerk. She came back and told him, “Aisle 9.” 

Mikayla has a bank account and a debit card. She tracks the money she earns from chores. She routinely uses the notes app on her phone to mitigate challenges with short-term memory. 

NFSSE, Cathy said, is constantly reinforcing skills and strategies to foster independence. It “pushes for potential,” just like the families do. 

Mikayla “sees that potential now; she’s excited now,” she said. 

Before NFSSE, the Watsons didn’t think Mikayla could live independently. Now they do.  

The school and the scholarship, Phil said, have “given Mikayla an opportunity for her life that we didn’t know existed.” 

He credited the state of Florida, too, for creating an education system where more schools like NFSSE can thrive. 

If only every state did that. 

TAVERNIER, Fla. – Every year, millions of students across America learn the foundational concept of place value in math. But it’s a safe bet few of them learn it at the beach.

At the first microschool in the Florida Keys, that’s exactly what a handful of kindergartners and first graders were doing with their teacher last week. Standing in the shade of buttonwoods on the edge of the Atlantic, they used mahogany seed pods, mangrove propagules, and sea grape leaves to help their brains grasp the idea.

In Florida, this is public education.

The students all use state-supported school choice scholarships to attend Coastal Glades Microschool, a new elementary school founded by former public school teachers Samantha Simpson and Jennifer Lavoie. Both 13-year educators, Simpson and Lavoie wanted a school that reflected their preferred approach to teaching and learning, as well as the goals and values of the families they sought to serve.

The result: Coastal Glades is Montessori-based, immersed in the outdoors, and deeply tied to the local community.

It’s also totally theirs to run as they see fit.

“We’re free. We own it. We don’t have anyone telling us what to do,” Lavoie said. “That’s priceless.”

Florida is leading the country in education freedom, with more than 500,000 students now using choice scholarships. Coastal Glades is another distinctive example of what that freedom looks like.

Microschools are popping up by the hundreds. Former public school teachers are the vanguard in creating them. All the new learning options are stunning, not just in volume but in diversity. In Florida, at least 150 Montessori schools participate in the choice scholarship programs, and at last count, at least 40 “nature schools” serve Florida families, too.

This movement is self-propelled. It’s driven by parents, teachers, and communities who are realizing more every day that public education is in the middle of a sea change. Now, they get to decide what “a good education” looks like.

For the past six years, Simpson and Lavoie worked together at the same school. As choice options exploded around them, freedom kept tapping them on the shoulder.

“We said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just pick up these four walls and move? And it just be us?’” Lavoie said.

To get their bearings, Simpson called a friend, another former public school teacher who founded a microschool. This one happened to be 90 miles north in Broward County, the unofficial microschool capital of America. The friend gave her good advice. She also said starting her own school was “the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Learning at Coastal Glades is proudly “place based.” The colorful communities that populate the islands between the Everglades and the sea are an endless source of exploration and inspiration. Simpson and Lavoie want their students to know and love where they live, so they can grow up to be good citizens and thoughtful stewards.

“Being in the community, being in nature, that’s where you’re going to learn,” Simpson said.

The students learned about bees from a local guy who harvests mangrove honey. They visited a berry farm on the mainland. Even more exotic trips are on tap: To Everglades National Park. To the Keys’ sea turtle hospital. Even to a reef where the students will be able to snorkel near nurse sharks. “We want them to learn that some scary things are not really scary,” Simpson said.

Nearly every day, the students visit natural areas for play-based learning. After the math lesson beneath the buttonwoods, for example, they went hunting for hermit crabs and jellyfish.

“This is just as important as testing, as reading, as anything,” Simpson said. “We want to bring back childhood and the love of learning.”

That’s exactly why Alejandra Reyes enrolled her 5-year-old daughter, Daniella. Daniella’s curiosity is blossoming, Reyes said, because she’s in a small school with more individualized attention and more hands-on learning.

“I didn’t want her to be in class sitting down all day. She’s such a free-spirited little girl,” said Reyes, a stay-at-home mom whose husband is a marine mechanic. “She’s learning so much on her little adventures. It’s, ‘What’s this? What’s that? Let’s look it up.’ “

“We got so lucky that my daughter’s first experience with school is this microschool.”

Simpson and Lavoie like the state of Florida’s academic standards. They use them to guide instruction. But they’re not tethered to pacing guides, and they can switch gears or directions whenever it makes sense. They do that often with their one older student, a fifth grader who was bored in his prior school because he wasn’t being challenged.

At the beach the other day, the older student got to learn about mass, volume, density, and buoyancy while his younger classmates were doing the lesson on place value.

Simpson set out two buckets, one filled with freshwater, one filled with saltwater. The student built a mini boat out of aluminum foil to float on the surface of each, then carefully piled pennies into it to see which boat in which bucket could sustain the most weight. (The one in saltwater won.)

“He loves engineering and problem solving,” Simpson said. And the school has the flexibility to accommodate him with more advanced lessons.

As it becomes even more mainstream, school choice in Florida is experiencing some growing pains. Coastal Glades represents some of those challenges, too.

For classroom space, the school rents a 250-square-foot room in a church. The church meets fire codes for dozens of parishioners, but not for a handful of students. Coastal Glades isn’t the only unconventional learning option to learn about fire codes the hard way – see here, here, and here – but its predicament takes the cake.

In lieu of installing an expensive sprinkler system, which Simpson and Lavoie could not afford, the pair hired a local firefighter, at $37 an hour, to hang out while students were in the building. Since the additional requirements only kick in when there are more than five students, Coastal Glades was able to drop the firefighter as long as it capped enrollment.

Next year, the school will be in another building that shouldn’t have those issues, which means it will be able to serve more families.

Word’s already out on the “coconut telegraph” – that’s Keys-speak for grapevine – that the new school will be growing.

Reyes has no doubt that other parents will respond the same way she did.

“Times have changed. Schools are different,” she said. “What kid doesn’t want to be learning outdoors?”

Harvard professor Roland Fryer took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal recently to urge lawmakers and advocates to reinvigorate the drive to Milton Friedman’s vision of a dynamic demand-drive K-12 system:

Today’s school-choice ecosystem, which one might refer to as “market lite,” has helped thousands of families. But millions are waiting, and current choice programs operate within the same inadequate framework. Increasing choice on the margin through partial vouchers, magnet school or other measures has yielded disappointing results because of an imperfectly competitive market. Real competition doesn’t mean entering a lottery to attend a charter school or providing vouchers worth only a fraction of public-school funding.

Only a small number of states have adopted enough “market lite” proposals, in combination, to begin to realize the potential of an education system driven by families and supply by educators. Fryer puts his finger on the problem directly:

School choice as currently implemented is more patchwork than panacea. It’s like getting to pick between a government-run cafeteria and an alternative where the line is long and, more often than not, the dish you were hoping for has run out by the time you get to the front. Friedman envisioned a nation of all-you-can-eat buffets.

Every waitlist, in other words, is a policy failure. Fryer expresses enthusiasm for education savings account programs, and ESAs are indeed potentially less limited by supply constraints. The details however matter greatly: formula funded ESA programs have the transformative potential Fryer extols, whereas a program limited by annual appropriation seems likely to produce the dreaded waitlists.

The reality is that upper-income Americans have been investing in multi-vendor education at a growing rate for decades. Private spending on enrichment activities, including tutors, Kumon, summer camps, private lessons, Mathnasium, club sports and far more.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted by driving your kids around after school, or compared notes with other parents on this, you have been a part of this trend. Scholars have documented upper-income Americans spending approximately $9,000 per child per year on enrichment activities. How much credit do leafy suburban schools deserve for their monopoly on non-embarrassing scores on international achievement exams? No one can say for sure, but it may not be as much as commonly assumed.

The significance of the enrichment trend became apparent only after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Advantaged American families still paid exorbitant mortgage ransoms to access the best public schools, but they were not entirely relying upon those schools. Increasing numbers of families have correctly discerned that the opportunity cost of attending a district is simply too high.

Demand driven education is here — it’s just not evenly distributed. Policymakers in some states have democratized the opportunity to participate through ESAs, which have the transformative potential Fryer extols. Elite families will continue to engage in multi-vendor education with or without ESAs, but states with well-designed programs will share such opportunities across society. The future is indeed here; will we distribute it?

For the past several years, the story of American homeschooling has been a narrative sorely lacking reliable numbers.

Last week, The Washington Post filled the void with the first carefully assembled nationwide look at state and local administrative data.

It found that in the states where comparable data exist, homeschooling is up 51% during a six-year period that includes the pandemic and years since.

That's a seismic shift in American public education, but it's still poorly understood. Here's the full picture in a nutshell:

Homeschooling jumped, dramatically, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Some of that increase was sticky. Parents left schools and decided they liked it.

Some of it wasn't. Parents who tried their hand at homeschooling during the pandemic quickly returned to schools once they reopened.

There is regional variation. The trend appears stickier in parts of Florida than in, say, the DC suburb of Fairfax County, Virginia.

Homeschooling is down from its pandemic-era peak. But it's way up from the pre-pandemic status quo. And it's continuing a trend the predates the pandemic: the increase in families taking more control of their children's learning. This can take the form of homeschooling. It can also take the form of new education options that blur the lines between school and homeschool.

Up or down?

The Post caught the attention of skeptics, like writer and researcher Chad Aldeman, who himself opted to homeschool at the height of the pandemic, only to return once schools reopened. The homeschooling trends in his own county suggest hundreds of other parents made similar choices at the height of school closures.

Aldeman errs in implying that his county, a D.C. suburb where the median household income is nearly twice the national average, typifies the national trend. It doesn't.

The overall homeschooling increase in Fairfax is smaller, and the pandemic-era spike and subsequent decline more pronounced, than in the Post's multistate average.

There are several plausible reasons Fairfax stands out.

Compared to school systems in most of the country, Fairfax's pandemic-era school closures were notoriously long-lived and ineptly managed. This may have pushed more members of its highly educated population to take teaching into their own hands. Its high incomes also created a high opportunity cost for parents to continue homeschooling once schools reopened. The typical Fairfax parent who chose to remain out of work to support the homeschooling of their children would have foregone more money, and more potential wealth-building, than the typical American family.

Ultimately, Aldeman and the Post are both right. Homeschooling is way up from pre-pandemic levels. And it appears to be declining in many places right now. But it's still significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels, on average, and in some places, like Florida, the numbers are still going up.

Big or small?

Skeptics also pooh-pooh the magnitude of the rise of homeschooling. A 51% increase in homeschooling represents a shift from about 3% of American K-12 students to about 4.5%. Is that a big deal?

For one thing, 1.5% of American schoolchildren equals about 750,000 students. People can disagree whether a fundamental change in the learning arrangements for that many young people is a big deal.

But that number understates what's actually going on.

In Florida, two scholarship programs (the Unique Abilities scholarship and the Personalized Education Program, or PEP) allow families to pay for fully unbundled education. Combined, they're serving more than 100,000 students. Some students in the latter program may register as homeschoolers. Others don't. And students using PEP scholarships are explicitly legally distinct from homeschoolers.

In other words, many of them won't show up as homeschoolers in administrative data. However, all of them have the opportunity to engage in homeschool-like behavior. They might enroll in schools. They might not. Their parents have taken responsibility for assembling the educational program for their children. Other families have enrolled in hybrid schools, microschools or online schools. They won't show up as homeschoolers in administrative data, but they're blurring the lines between schooling and homeschooling.

Pandemic blip or permanent shift?

A useful analogy to help put the rise and decline of homeschooling in perspective is grocery delivery.

Instacart stated in 2012 with what may have seemed like a niche business. Then it suddenly exploded during the pandemic as people eschewed in-person shopping. It's since come back to earth, but the business is still far larger than before the pandemic and recently made a healthy stock market debut.

As a company, its future is uncertain, and turbulence lies ahead. But the zooming in on the trajectory of one grocery delivery company obscures a larger, more undeniable trend: online delivery is eating the retail business. Fresh meat and produce might be more resistant to this shift than, say, books or shoes. But Americans are getting more goods delivered to their doorsteps and buying less in physical stores. The trend is moving in one direction.

The same pattern applies to homeschooling or individual microschool and online learning providers. Individual options will have their ups and downs. But larger shifts are harder to ignore.

Public trust in institutions is declining. Anxious millennial parents want more transparency and communication from their schools. Remote work and flexible hours give them more opportunities to co-produce education with their children. They know each of their children is different, and they want learning experiences that accommodate these individual differences.

Homeschooling is one response to these larger shifts. Many of the distinct motivations for homeschooling captured in recent parent surveys by EdChoice boil down to trust. The No. 1 concern of homeschooling families, safety, can also be seen as a lack of trust that schools will provide children with a safe environment.

But there are obvious forces limiting the growth potential of homeschooling, strictly defined. An earlier Washington Post survey showed homeschool families typically rely on one parent, almost always the mother, remaining out of the workforce to take charge of educating their children.

At the same time, the profile of the typical homeschooler is changing. Homeschooling is becoming more diverse, as well as less conservative and traditionally religious. Many of these newer homeschoolers aren't ideologically opposed to public education. It stands to reason that if public education finds ways to earn these parents' trust and support their individual needs, it might yet find ways to keep them, much in the same way Wal-Mart and Amazon are devising ways to fend off the challenge from Instacart.

Homeschooling numbers, in other words, are best understood as leading indicators of larger shifts that public education ignores at its peril.