TAMPA, Fla. — The words on the trophy read “Future Philanthropist,” and Mrs. Finley, who taught fifth grade that year, cried when she presented it to Andrew Weber during graduation.
Andrew smiled at the memory.
“It was one of the highlights of my elementary school career,” he said. “Mrs. Finley said I was one of her favorite students. That meant a lot to me.”
So did receiving the trophy, which still holds a place of honor on his nightstand.
“It made me realize my potential and how I can help others,” Andrew said.
Almost seven years later, Andrew, a 17-year-old senior, is nearing another graduation, this time from Jesuit High School, the Catholic school in Tampa he attends with the help of a Florida education choice scholarship.
The altruistic nature Mrs. Finley saw in Andrew when he was in elementary school blossomed during the ensuing years.
Jesuit’s mantra is “Men for Others,” and Andrew embodies that.
“He does 100%,” said Andy Wood, Jesuit’s athletic trainer and track and field coach, and the school’s former director of community service. “Andrew is one of our top students. And when you talk about a total package, including his community service work, being a student athlete, he's what we envision our seniors being at graduation.”
Andrew volunteered for eight service organizations while in high school.
He made two trips to an orphanage in Guatemala with his Jesuit classmates, feeds people at Metropolitan Ministries, and delivers Meals on Wheels with his mother, May.
He’s volunteered for the Faith Café, the Young Men’s Service League, Teens United Florida, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and the Ryan Nece Foundation, a non-profit founded by a former Tampa Bay Buccaneer that empowers teens to become leaders through volunteering.
Andrew traveled to Asheville, North Carolina, last June with the Ryan Nece Foundation to help families with home repairs still needed after the flooding caused by Hurricane Helene.
He is a pole vaulter on the track and field team, and in his spare time, he plays the piano at a local nursing home.
As a junior, Andrew received the Anne Frank Humanitarian Award from the Florida Holocaust Museum in Tampa for his outstanding humanitarian efforts.
Andrew’s parents, May and Tim, raised him and his older sister, Elise, to be community-minded. Elise, now a sophomore at the University of Georgia, also volunteered for the Ryan Nece Foundation while in high school.
“As his parents, we always wanted Andrew to be very involved in a lot of things and explore different passions, and luckily for him, many of those passions really stuck,” May said.
Andrew set the foundation in elementary school when he sold lemonade, handmade crafts, and rocks (crystals and gems) from a stand in the front yard of the family’s Tampa home. He said he would raise maybe $100 over several weeks and donate the money to charities such as Dogs Inc (formerly Southeastern Guide Dogs).
“I was 8,” he said. “I felt the money could benefit other people more than it could benefit me.”
“His heart was always generous,” May said.
For a teenager as service-oriented as Andrew, he certainly found a home at Jesuit, where students are required to complete a minimum of 150 hours of community service during their four years. Andrew, though, has accrued more than 500.
Yet, the decision to attend Jesuit was not easy.
“It was a very hard decision,” Andrew said.
His options were these: his district school, where Elise was a rising junior and where a lot of his friends were headed, or Jesuit, an all-male parochial school with demanding academic standards.
For help, Andrew turned to his role model: his big sister.
“She said, ‘Andrew, if you pass up this opportunity, you might regret it for the rest of your life.’ So I said, ‘I'm going to listen to you,’” Andrew said.
Thinking back on it now, Andrew added, “She was right.”
He has no regrets.
Andrew’s two trips to Orfanato Valle de Los Angeles (the Valley of the Angels orphanage) outside of Guatemala City with his classmates opened his eyes to how fortunate he is to live in America.
The orphanage did not have air conditioning, and hot water was spotty at best.
Wi-Fi? Yeah, right.
“I just put down my phone and started living in the environment, living how these kids live, and I realized that life can be fun,” Andrew said.
The Jesuit students spent nine days with at-risk children, teaching them English and about their faith.
Andrew called the experience “life-changing.”
“In Tampa, we really live in a bubble,” he said. “There are things I don’t take for granted anymore.”
Like AC, hot water, and a strong Wi-Fi signal.
And how a simple act of kindness can make a world of difference in someone’s day.
During the summers, he and his mom deliver Meals on Wheels to older adults and others unable to leave their homes without difficulty. It’s a bonding moment between the two, quality time spent together for a mom and her son.
“It's probably my favorite thing that we have done together,” May said.
“It’s the favorite thing that I do,” Andrew said.
They don’t rush through their route. Instead, they spend a few minutes at each stop, checking on the people receiving the meal, making small talk, and letting them know they matter.
When they first started delivering the meals, May told Andrew: “We’re probably the only people they're going to talk to that day, so even though this is sort of a blip on your radar, this is their day; this is their weekend; this is their week. So, make it count.”
Andrew took that lesson to heart.
A man for others.
“I feel like if I were in that situation where I needed help, I obviously want someone to do the same thing for me,” he said. “Spreading Jesuit’s values across what I do is a big part of why I do it. What I've learned here, it really propels me to do what I do in such a great way.”
Andrew wants to major in business in college. Where? He hasn’t decided. His choices are the University of Georgia, the University of Tennessee, Boston College, and Florida State University.
Where will that major lead him? He’s not sure.
“I can tell you it will be with people,” May said. “Whether it's finance or accounting, marketing or entrepreneurship, his love is working with people. I think it's just what comes naturally to him. He motivates people and makes people feel better about themselves. So, that’s my prediction.”
Each school day at 2:35 p.m., Joshua Jones enters a classroom at Crescent City Junior-Senior High School and settles into an agriculture class for eighth graders.
It’s the only class Joshua attends at the school, located about six miles from his home. And it caps the academic portion of his day, which starts at 8:30 a.m. sharp when he and his younger siblings, Jacob (sixth grade) and Kylie (fourth), begin their home education with their mother, Ashley.
The Jones children receive Personalized Education Program (PEP) scholarships available through the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program and managed by Step Up For Students. PEP offers parents flexibility in how they spend their scholarship funds, allowing them to tailor their children’s learning to meet their individual needs and interests.
PEP allows families access to services and classes at public, charter, or virtual schools, adding another layer to hybrid learning for those who home educate.
Since the passage of PEP as part of House Bill 1 in 2023, 36 of the state's school districts are offering services to students with education savings accounts, with 12 more in the pipeline, according to Keith Jacobs, director of provider development at Step Up For Students. Those include some of Florida's large districts, such as Miami-Dade, Orange, and Hillsborough, as well as more rural districts such as Baker and Putnam, where the Joneses live.
That’s a welcome addition to the more than 500,000 students who are using state K-12 scholarship programs in Florida, where 51% of all students are using some form of choice.
Ashley and her husband, Daniel, use a portion of Joshua’s PEP funds to pay the Putnam County School District for Joshua to take the agriculture class and the fees for him to run cross country and play junior varsity soccer and baseball for the Raiders.
“This is a good opener for this year to figure out how this will work and if he will like it,” Ashley said.
Ashley used to teach elementary school music, art, and physical education. She is currently the girls' varsity volleyball coach at Crescent City Junior-Senior High and runs the local club volleyball program. Three years ago, she and Daniel, the pastor at South Putnam Church in Crescent City and a nurse at a hospital in Palatka, decided to home educate their children.
“The class sizes just were not feasible to me,” Ahsley said. “There were too many kids in the classroom. I love their teachers. I know them personally, but somebody’s going to get left behind. Somebody’s not going to get everything they need.
“Daniel and I decided that since I'm teaching kids anyway, I should be teaching mine. They're going to get so much more out of it, because it's just me and them.”
Joshua said he enjoys learning at home.
“We get done with school a lot quicker and have a lot more time to do things while still being able to learn,” he said.
Ashley teaches her children from 8:30 a.m. until the early afternoon. After that come chores and activities they can do outside in the fresh air and sun.
“My thing is this: I have intelligent children who I can teach, and they can be advanced and do it as fast as they want to, and that’s great. It just makes sense to me. This is the best model for us,” Ashley said. “I know it's not for everyone.”
The children are active in the community, are involved in sports and have a ton of friends, especially Joshua.
“He enjoys his social life,” Ashley said.
Crescent City is a small community. The city itself is less than three square miles with a population of fewer than 1,700. Ashley said it doesn’t lend itself to home education co-ops and chances for the Jones children to interact with other home-educated students during the day.
“That was the biggest piece that was missing for Joshua, going to school and seeing friends,” Ashley said.
So, when the opportunity was created for Joshua to return to a brick-and-mortar school, even on a limited basis, his parents pursued it. The agriculture class meets during the last period of the day, and Joshua was headed there anyway for sports.
Ashley called it a “great compromise.”
“He's going there to do something that he likes,” she said. “He loves the animals. He loves to learn about them. He’s going there for one of his electives, so that's one less thing that we do at home.
“He's already going to the school at the end of the day anyway, so now he just gets to see his friends and interact with people, and he's in a teacher setting, which I think is a good thing, too. It is hard when it's always mom. So, I think having a teacher also teaches life skills, so I don't think that's a bad thing at all.”
Joshua said he wants to continue with an agriculture class next school year. He would also like to join Future Farmers of America.
“It’s fun,” he said. “I get to go back to the school so I can still hang out with my friends and still get to take a class there.
“I do love learning about animals.”
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Life, it’s often said, is what happens when you’re making other plans.
Tasia Mathis planned on joining the U.S. Navy Reserve. Then her grandmother, with whom Tasia and her younger brother Jeremiah lived with, died suddenly from complications of kidney failure.
“The papers were signed, but I wasn’t able to go through with it,” Tasia said. “I had to make sure he was OK.”
Tasia, 20 at the time, became her brother’s guardian.
While Tracy Crawford’s passing in June 2023 ended Tasia’s goal of joining the Navy, it didn’t end her goal of a bright future for herself and Jeramiah.
For that, she credits Florida's private school scholarships managed by Step Up For Students.
The scholarships enabled Tasia, now 22, and Jeremiah to attend Academy Prep Center of St. Petersburg for middle school and allowed Jeremiah, 15, to continue his private school education at Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, where he is a sophomore this year.
“(The scholarship) gave us the opportunity to go to a school that we probably wouldn't be able to go to,” Tasia said. “It gave us the opportunity to expand our knowledge so good things can come into our lives.”
Tasia is studying to become a phlebotomist and works as a teacher at the Academy for Love and Learning in St. Petersburg.
Jeremiah would like to attend the United States Air Force Academy and work in cybersecurity.
The two, who share an apartment in St. Petersburg, have goals and are working toward them with a determination forged by Tracy Crawford, their grandmother, and reinforced by their years at Academy Prep.
“They don’t let you give up,” Tasia said when asked what she liked about attending Academy Prep. “Even if you had issues, they never let you give up.”
Could you blame them if they did?
Tasia was 8 and Jermiah was three weeks old when their mom died. Staci Crawford was only 34 when she suffered a heart attack. That left the children in the care of their grandmother, whose failing health forced Tasia to find work as a counselor at the Police Athletic League when she was 14.
“I had to help out with the bills,” she said. “By the time I was 16, I was cooking, washing everybody's clothes, helping my grandmother out the best I could.”
So, when asked what it’s like to have his sister as his guardian, Jeremiah said, “It’s kind of all I’ve known.”
Tracy wanted Tasia to attend a school that would challenge her academically and offer a safe environment. That’s why she used the private school scholarship to send her to Academy Prep.
At first, Tasia said, it wasn’t a good match. She was not a fan of the school’s long days (7 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or the fact that she had to wear a uniform.
“It took her a while to buy in, and then once she did, she was a high-achiever, and she set the tone for the other kids,” said Lacey Nash Miller, Academy Prep’s executive director of advancement.
For that, Tracy gets a big assist.
“She made sure my grades were straight, my attitude was straight,” Tasia said. “By seventh grade, it all came together.”
For high school, Tasia attended her assigned school because it offered a BETA (Business, Entrepreneurial, Technology Academy) program that interested her.
Jeremiah attended his assigned elementary school, but Tracy wasn’t a fan of his assigned middle school.
“It wasn’t up to her standards,” Tasia said. “She wanted to challenge him.”
So, like his sister, Jeremiah headed crosstown to Academy Prep, where he said he benefited from the school’s academic environment and the self-discipline the teachers try to instill in the students.
Jeremiah said he became more extroverted during his years at Academy Prep.
“I was naturally a quiet person. I didn’t talk much,” he said. “Now, I talk to people. I try to start conversations.”
He also credited his teachers, specifically Zack Brockett, a science teacher, for guiding him toward being a young adult.
“He pushed us to grow up, so that we can go into high school as mature students,” Jeremiah said.
His teachers at Academy Prep describe Jeremiah as a quiet student who completed his assignments on time, helped out around campus, and amazed them with his drawing ability.
“Jeremiah is very self-driven,” Britanny Dillard, Academy Prep’s assistant head of school, said. “He’s one of those people that you kind of underestimate because he's so quiet that you don't even truly realize the talents that he actually has. He’s not the first to raise his hand, but he knows the answer.”
Jeremiah was a member of the school’s track team. He threw the shot put and discus. At graduation, Jeremiah received the Priscilla E. Frederick Foundation, worth $1,500 toward the balance of his freshman year tuition at Admiral Farragut. Frederick is a former Olympic high jumper who competed for Antigua and Barbuda in the 2016 Summer Games. Her foundation awards scholarships and grants to students raised in single-parent households. Jeremiah was the first Academy Prep student to earn that scholarship.
He is a soft-spoken, unassuming young man with a growing vinyl record collection and an interest in graphic novels and comic books. He will participate in track and field this year and will take an aviation class, which he feels will benefit him when he gets to the Air Force Academy.
Jeremiah spends his high school volunteer hours at Academy Prep. He helps grade papers, organize classrooms, and move supplies around campus.
Jeremiah and Tasia are spoken highly of at Academy Prep. Both Dillard and Nash Miller said they were “heartbroken” when they learned of Tracy’s death, and both admitted they were worried for the future of the siblings.
“They only had each other, and I think it speaks highly of Tasia that she was willing to accept that role,” Dillard said.
Said Nash Miller: “The news that her grandmother passed just gutted me. She had all these plans, and she just cancelled them to be her brother’s primary caregiver. What a superhero to put her brother’s needs ahead of her own.”
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.”
TAMPA, Fla. — Amelia Ramos recalls her oldest child’s first school experience after moving to the Grant Park neighborhood in 2018.
“It was not a good fit,” she said. “She lasted about four months.”
In addition to academics, Ramos cited safety as a big concern.
“You couldn’t even ride a bicycle down the street,” she said.
Ramos found hope after learning about Grant Park Christian Academy, a private school affiliated with the Faith Action Ministry Alliance. The nonprofit organization’s stated mission is “to strengthen neighborhoods through meaningful engagement, collaboration, and strategic partnerships.”
Grant Park Christian Academy prides itself on its record of providing strong academics and spiritually based character development. Ramos learned from the school’s principal about a state education choice K-12 scholarship program administered by Step Up For Students that would help cover the tuition.
With that, Ramos was sold.
Her daughter thrived at Grant Park and now attends a district high school. Her son and twin daughters now attend the private school, which serves 70 students in grades K-8.
“We love the school and the staff,” she said, adding that she appreciates the assurance of knowing that her children are safe when she leaves them at Grant Park Christian Academy.
“If only they had a high school,” she said.
Although there are no plans to add a high school, an expansion will soon more than double the school's capacity, located inside a gated property owned by a non-denominational church.
The project is just one example of a broader statewide trend resulting from the Florida Legislature’s passage of HB 1 in 2023. The landmark legislation made all K-12 students eligible for education choice scholarships regardless of their household income and gave families more flexibility in how they spend their students’ funds.
Putting parents in the driver’s seat supercharged the demand for more learning options.
In the 2023-24 school year, after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1, Florida saw the largest single-year expansion of education choice scholarships in U.S. history. That growth continued in 2024-25. Recent figures from the Florida Department of Education show that more than 500,000 Florida students were using some type of education savings account.
The expansions at Grant Park Christian Academy and other schools across the state, such as Jupiter Christian School in Palm Beach County, couldn’t come at a better time. The latest figures from Step Up For Students show that the number of approved private schools has surpassed 2,500. That figure doesn’t include a la carte options, including those now being offered by public schools. State figures show 41,000 parents received scholarships in 2024-25 but never used them. According to a survey by Step Up For Students, a third of the 2,739 parents who responded said there were no available seats at the schools they wanted.
The Rev. Alfred Johnson, who founded the ministry alliance and Grant Park Christian Academy in 2014, said the school is just one of the ways the ministry works to support and improve the neighborhood. A look outside the window once a month will show teams of alliance volunteers in neon yellow vests cleaning up roadside trash. Johnson estimates that over the past three years, the group has cleared 70 tons of garbage, including old mattresses, furniture, and household appliances.
Johnson and his volunteers regularly knock on doors and survey residents and business owners about community needs. They also host events; the annual Fall Fest offers families a safe and fun alternative to Halloween trick-or-treating.
“I know what they do to really make a change in this community,” said Hillsborough County Commissioner Donna Cameron Cepeda, a Republican who represents District 5 and the county at large. She said she had known Johnson for years before she ran for office. “You can see the lives, how they have been changed because of the environment they are able to be in now.”
She was among a group of 50 community members at a recent ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new 2,660-square-foot modular building that will open after crews add the finishing touches.
Those attending the event represented a broad swath of community leaders, from local law enforcement officers to staffers at the Temple Terrace Uptown Chamber of Commerce, who brought the ceremonial oversized scissors. A representative of the Hillsborough County Clerk’s Office also attended. So did a group of leaders and students from Cristo Rey Tampa Salesian High School, which has some Grant Park Christian Academy alums.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Gwen Myers, a Democrat whose district includes Grant Park, joined her Republican colleague in praising the alliance and the school. The two commissioners also presented Johnson with a commendation honoring his contributions to the community.
“Our children are our future leaders, and when we can give them the basic foundation of education, they are going somewhere,” Myers said. “Just remember where they got their start, right here in Grant Park. What you’re doing is being a true public servant. Thank you for your vision.”
A husband, father of six, and grandfather of 12, Johnson refers to the students at Grant Park as “our babies” and describes the school as a haven of safety and peace.
“We hardly ever have any fights here,” he said. The school day starts at 7:30 a.m. After-school care is available until 5 p.m. Grant Park also offers summer camp, tutoring, mentoring and career preparation programs for the community, where the median household income stands at $32,216, and 72% of households make less than $50,000 per year. About 20% of the population did not graduate from high school. Although the area still has crime, Johnson said it has decreased over the past five years. Educational opportunities such as Grant Park Christian Academy and adult education and training play a role in improving the area’s quality of life, he said.
Johnson said he has seen many students turn their lives around. He told guests about a boy who was put outside the room for disrupting class on his first day.
“I don’t like this school,” he snarled.
“Give us a chance,” Johnson replied. He encouraged the boy to focus on his studies and respect his teachers. “You’re going to be a great leader and a great man.”
By the second year, the boy’s attitude completely changed. Test results that year showed he had the highest reading score in the school.
“That’s just one of the stories,” he said. “We have a plethora of them.”
States with recent education choice lawsuits involving EdChoice Legal Advocates and the Institute for Justice.
As education choice options expand for families across the nation, opponents are stepping up their fight to preserve the status quo.
Observers say these conflicts are examples of growing pains that come when a society undergoes transformational change.
“It’s just part of the cost of doing business,” said Michael Q. McShane, director of national research at EdChoice, a national nonprofit think tank. “Educators are not alone in challenging policies they don’t like. New laws get passed; people who can’t do things democratically try to do things through the courts.”
Michael B. Horn used a famous quote (often misattributed to Mohandas Gandhi) to describe the spate of lawsuits: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
“I think we’ve entered the fight stage,” said Horn, the co-founder, distinguished fellow, and chairman of the Clayton Christensen Institute and an author of several books on disruptive innovation. “Education choice has gotten big enough that the entrenched interests dedicated to preserving the status quo are starting to see it as a threat.”
Legal fights over education choice began in the 1800s when Catholic families opposed the Protestantism taught in public schools. In 1925, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that parents had the right to put their children in private schools. In 2002, the high court issued another landmark decision, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, which upheld an Ohio scholarship that allowed parents to spend the money on religious schools. The high court found that when the parent controls the expenditure, the state has no role in determining whether the parent will choose to use funding at a religious or secular school.
With the Zelman ruling settling that question, choice opponents began trying to insert race-based arguments using the language of state constitutions. Michael Bindas, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice who argued the landmark case Carson v. Makin before the U.S. Supreme Court, outlined that shift in a paper published in the Syracuse Law Review. According to Bindas, common arguments center on education clauses requiring states to maintain uniform or common public school systems. Education choice opponents, he said, take that a step further and claim that private scholarship programs could upset racial balances that state constitutions require state governments to maintain. They also argue that the requirements that states maintain public school systems bar them from establishing concurrent private education choice programs. Lower court judges in Ohio and Utah recently cited this argument in striking down choice programs. Ohio plaintiffs also raised the issue of racial balance argument, which the judge rejected.
McShane and Horn say the spate of lawsuits won’t stop education choice programs from becoming the norm in public education. However, they will delay the transition.
“Yes, these cases are a headache and can delay implementation, but school choice has a good track record,” McShane said. “It will take numbers and time, and it’s going to tip over into a different mindset.”
Where things stand
Montana: Families are waiting on a judge to rule on a lawsuit brought by opponents of a 2024 education savings account program for students with special needs. Plaintiffs argue that the law allowing reimbursements for $6,800 per child violates several provisions of the state constitution and redirects tax dollars to private institutions at the expense of students with special needs who remain in public schools. The judge denied the plaintiff’s motion for a temporary halt to the program, allowing families to continue using their ESAs while the case is pending.
Ohio: The state has appealed a lower court’s ruling that declared the state’s $700 million Educational Choice Scholarship Program (EdChoice) unconstitutional. In siding with the coalition of school districts and other choice opponents, the judge said that the program was not a subsidy program, as the state argued, but a separate system of schools in violation of the state constitution. However, the judge rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the program violated the state constitution’s education clause by creating racial imbalances in the district schools. The 10th District Court of Appeal is expected to hear the case in 2026.
Utah: Families are continuing to receive funds from the Utah Fits All scholarship program while a district court ruling in favor of a teachers union-backed lawsuit is under appeal to the state Supreme Court. A district judge ruled that the state constitution prevents lawmakers from using tax revenue to fund education programs other than public education, higher education, and services for people with disabilities. The judge rejected the state’s argument that it had met its funding obligations to public education and that nothing in the law prohibited it from funding a separate program to support families choosing private or home education.
Wyoming: Families seeking to use Steamboat Legacy Scholarship ESAs had to find other options for the 2025-26 school year after a trial judge blocked the state from distributing funds in July at the request of the Wyoming Education Association and other plaintiffs until the judge rules on their lawsuit against the program. The judge recently denied a motion by state officials and attorneys for two families to dismiss the lawsuit based on their argument that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing.
Missouri: Education choice advocates scored a win last month when a judge denied the teachers union’s request to freeze payments to the MOScholars K-12 scholarship program as their lawsuit continues. MOScholars began in 2021 as a tax credit program supported by private donors. Earlier this year, the state allocated $51 million to the program, prompting the Missouri Education Association to file the complaint, which contends that the allocation unconstitutionally diverts taxpayer funds to private schools.
Arkansas: The state’s Education Freedom Account program is being fought on two fronts. In June 2024, opponents sued in state court, arguing that the program illegally diverted tax dollars from the public school system to benefit private schools. The judge denied the state’s motion to dismiss the complaint, so state attorneys are appealing to the state Supreme Court.
The same plaintiffs filed another lawsuit a year later in U.S. District Court. It argues that the program violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because “it aids in the establishment of religion” by providing state funding to private schools operated by religious organizations. The state refutes that by arguing that the money can go to schools representing a wide variety of faiths, as well as secular schools.
They also argue that the program violates the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment because it discriminates against low-income families, families in rural areas where there are fewer private schools and students with disabilities, because private schools are exempt from the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The program is also discriminatory, according to the complaint, because private schools are not held to the same standards as public schools. The state attorney general has filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that the plaintiffs lack standing.
Kentucky: The Kentucky Supreme Court heard arguments on Sept. 11 about whether the state’s charter school funding law violates the state’s constitution. Charter schools have been legal in the Bluegrass State since 2017, but there was no state funding mechanism. Lawmakers passed House Bill 9, which allocated money to charter schools, which are publicly funded but independently managed. A trial court judge ruled in 2023 that the law violated the state constitutional ban on the use of tax dollars to support non-public education and the constitutional requirement for “an efficient system of common schools.”
Choice opponents have been known to throw contradictory arguments out against private choice programs. One moment they will claim that the majority of kids using universal choice programs were already going to private schools. A few moments later they will claim such programs are draining district schools of students and money. The irony of these mutually exclusive claims will often escape the person making them, and you can see hints of both in this New York Times podcast titled Why So Many Parents are Opting Out of Public Schools.
Sigh
Choice opponents make all kinds of claims, but not many can withstand even a modicum of scrutiny. Let’s take for instance a widely repeated fable- that Arizona’s universal ESA program has “busted” the state budget.
If you actually examine state reports like this one for district and charter funding and also this one for ESA funding, you wind up with:
Arizona districts have exclusive access to local funding among other things and are by far the most generously funded K-12 system in the state. Districts, charters and ESAs all use the state’s weighted student funding formula, and ESAs get the lowest average funding despite having a higher percentage of students with disabilities participating than either the district or charter sector.
If you track the percentage of students served by the district, charter and ESA sectors respectively, and the funding used by each as a percentage of the total, you get:
So, there you have it; supposedly the sector educating 6% of Arizona students for 4% of the total K-12 funding is “bankrupting” the state of Arizona. Meanwhile the system, which generated an average of $321,700 for a classroom of 20 ($16,085*20), is “underfunded.”
A group of 20 ESA students receiving the average scholarship amount receive $123,780 less funding, but they are (somehow) “busting the budget.” The fact that a growing number of Arizona students opt for a below $10k ESA rather than an above $16k district education tells us something about how poorly districts utilize their resources. So does the NAEP.
There is a school sector weighing heavily upon Arizona taxpayers, but it is not the ESA program.
**SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 8**
Western cultures, for some strange reason, involve rituals where we pretend that various “fairy creatures” exist, particularly with children: the Tooth Fairy, a jolly old elf with flying reindeer who brought me an awesome Big Wheel in 1973, egg and goody hiding rabbits, etc. When I became a parent, I played along with these rituals, but then at some point questioned why I was doing it. On the one hand, I didn’t want my children to be those killjoy types who went around bursting the bubbles of other kids. On the other hand, I did not want to train my children not to trust me. I decided to allow the “fun” to go on until they each reached a certain age, then to explain to them that these things are traditions and that it would be best to allow their friends to figure it out on their own.
So, dear reader, I assume that you have reached a certain age and that you are prepared to know the truth about the last fairy creature. Belief in this one tends to persist much longer than the others and is alas, more detrimental. Sorry to be a killjoy, but here goes:
Philosopher kings are not real.
This was my main thought upon reading Mike McShane’s recent entry in a debate about school choice regulation. Go read it. I’ll wait here.
Go on…
Okay, good. My favorite part involved the Gilded Age meat baron, but McShane made several crucial points. Local school boards, state governments and the federal government all regulate public schools in a very active fashion. I could produce multiple graphs from NAEP, PISA, etc., showing what a pig’s breakfast American academic achievement has become, but you have already seen them, so I will spare you. Why are American schools so wretched despite so much regulation? Oh well, that is simple: regulation is not made by philosopher-kings but rather by politics. Politics has an amazingly consistent record of fouling things up.
The philosopher-king fairies, invented by Plato, are a specially trained and educated aesthetic elite who, disinterested in fame or wealth, love only wisdom and justice. Having thus earned the right to rule over us lesser mortals, we proles should feel deferential and deeply grateful for their sacrifice. Again, sorry to burst your bubble, but these people do not exist in the real world. Out here in the real world, mere humans with all kinds of motivations (political and otherwise), limits to their knowledge, greed, stupidity and other normal human failings create regulations. Those of us fortunate enough to live in a democracy get the chance to throw the bums out when we’ve had enough. Just in case you haven’t noticed, a major subtext of politics these days involves bums that voters can’t throw out.
Politics, not philosopher-kings, runs regulation, and politics runs on self-interest far more than on benevolent technocratic wisdom. Choice programs must cope with powerful organized interests that yearn to use regulation as a tool to domesticate choice opportunities and find it in their self-interest to do so. The default position of choice supporters should therefore be to view the calls for regulation with a deep skepticism; it is not paranoia when people really are out to get you.
None of this is to say that it is possible to pass choice legislation without regulation; it is not. I am not aware of any program anywhere that operates without some degree of regulation. American parents, however, want a radically different K-12 system than the one government forces them to pay for (see above). The way forward is to allow families to partner with educators to sort through new schools and education methods. Heavily regulated choice systems might get to something close to the K-12 system parents want and deserve before the heat-death of the universe, but then again, they might not.
America’s founders fought a grueling war against the most powerful country in the world based upon what was then a radical idea, that people could live better without royalty to boss them around. The divine right of kings was another myth humanity needed to grow up and discard, and that should include philosopher-kings.
Last week, I had the opportunity to make a presentation about how lawmakers can support teachers who want to start their own schools. The four key features:
2. Formula funding/demand-driven funding: Whoever applies for a choice program should receive funding if eligible.
3. Avoidance of anti-competitive accreditation requirements: Don’t ask your startup schools to operate without funding from the choice program while incumbent/accredited schools receive choice funding.
4. Exempt private schools from municipal zoning: Old hat for charter schools, needed for private schools as well.
Florida is the only state your humble author is aware of that has taken all four of these steps. This makes Ron Matus’ new study "Going With Plan B” all the more important. Despite a statewide increase of 705 private schools, 41,000 Florida families applied for, received, and ultimately did not use an ESA. Matus surveyed thousands of these parents to learn why.
The lack of school space was the No. 1 reason Florida families found themselves as non-participants. Reasons two and three were related to costs, which can also be thought of as a supply issue.
The “Going with Plan B” study is very interesting and should be studied carefully by Florida policymakers. For now, however, let us focus on the other states with choice programs that lack the four critical elements listed above. If FLORIDA has a supply issue, your state, sitting at one out of four, or two out of four, should take note: It is likely to be even worse in a state near you.
It's hard to find an athlete as exuberant as Caleb, who celebrates at the finish line of each of his races with a choreographed dance and high-fives for everyone. (Photo provided by the Prewitt family)
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – David Prewitt was worried.
His wife, Karen, wasn’t.
“He can do it,” she said.
Their son Caleb, 13 at the time, was participating in his first open-water swim, something he needed to conquer if he was going to complete his first triathlon.
One thing you need to know about Caleb: He has Down syndrome.
Another thing you need to know about Caleb: It has never held him back.
“When we came home (from the hospital) with Caleb, we said he’s not going to be your typical young man with Down syndrome. We’re going to push him, and so we've always tried to raise him as a typical child,” Karen said.
That meant chores around the house, being active in sports, attending school, and making friends inside and outside of the Down syndrome community.
“We kind of upped the ante when we got into sports,” Karen said.
She coaxed Caleb into running a 5K on Thanksgiving of 2020 by using the Couch to 5K app that gradually built up his endurance. Now, Caleb was training for a triathlon – a 300-meter open-water swim, a 12-mile bike ride, and a 5K race.
He had learned to ride a bike. He had swum in a pool plenty of times. But what concerned David was that Caleb, with assistance from a volunteer partner, was now swimming in a lake to see if he had the strength and stamina to finish that leg of the race.
Turns out, he did.
“He comes out of that water, and he's just laughing,” David said. “And I thought to myself, ‘You’ve got to change your attitude,’ because this kid can do things.”
***
Caleb is now 18. He has completed 119 races in the past five years. Included are 44 triathlons of various distances, five half-marathons, and two Spartan Races.
The Guinness Book of World Records recognizes Caleb, 16 at the time, as the youngest person with II2 (Intellectual Impairment, including those with Down syndrome) to run a half marathon (13.1 miles). Caleb’s goal is to add his name to that book again in October by becoming the youngest person with II2 to run a marathon (26.2 miles) when he and his mom run the Chicago Marathon.
Stephen Wright was Caleb’s partner during the early part of Caleb’s running career. He’s amazed at all Caleb has accomplished.
“I don't think people realize, most 14- 15-, 16-year-old kids aren't doing that,” he said. “So not only does he have things he's trying to overcome and prove he can do things, but most kids his age aren't doing the things he's doing. It’s incredible, because I wasn't doing that stuff at his age.”
***
Deb Rains is the assistant head of school at the North Florida School of Special Education (NFSSE) in Jacksonville, where Caleb attends on a Unique Abilities Scholarship managed by Step Up For Students.
Rains called Caleb the school’s “Mr. Mayor.”
“He’s so outgoing,” she said. “He’s friends with everybody.”
Caleb will enter the North Florida School of Special Education's transition program this year.
Rains said Caleb’s always-in-a-good-mood personality and can-do spirit come from the support he receives from Karen and David. More than a decade later, she vividly recalls her first meeting with them when they visited NFSSE to see about enrolling Caleb.
“I will never forget this. They came in and they had his mission statement,” Rains said.
It read:
“We built everything around that,” Karen said.
It is important to the Prewitts that Caleb has friends outside of school because, as is often the case when students graduate, friends from school scatter to live their own lives.
Caleb has friends from school. Luke, a classmate, is his best buddy. But Caleb has friends outside of school, too. He belongs to four running clubs. He has friends from Planet Fitness, where he works out, and friends from Happy Brew, a Jacksonville coffee house that sells Caleb’s homemade cookies. (More on that shortly.)
They want Caleb to have a job and be self-sufficient. He graduated in May from NFSSE and will enter the school’s transition program, where he will learn employment skills.
“We're very thankful for that,” David said. “He's got a lot of things that he can look forward to, because he's pretty well known in the community.”
Caleb is eager to hit the job market. He’d like to work at Happy Brew, Planet Fitness, or Publix. David, now retired, worked as a store manager for Publix. Caleb’s sister, Courtney Tyler, works in a Publix bakery.
He’s getting a jump this summer on a possible job at Happy Brew by attending NFSSE’s barista camp.
“As an organization, you have a mission statement and a vision statement, but to take that and place that intentionality on their son's life just showed me that they were not limiting him because of his disability,” Rains said.
“I was very impressed by that. There was a statement to not just me, the school, but to the community, that they expected nothing less from their son than they would their daughter, who's neurotypical.
“That just created the path for him. Since they didn't put any boundaries or limitations on Caleb, there was none for him to be impacted by.”
***
The mood surrounding a child born with Down syndrome isn’t positive, David said. Parents are informed of all the things their child won’t be able to do – ride a bike, run, swim, get a job.
“We were on a mission to prove them all wrong,” Karen said.
Along the way, Caleb has become a role model for the Down syndrome community. He has advocated at the state capital in Tallahassee for the expansion of what is now the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities, which he receives. Karen has written newspaper op-ed columns and spoken to legislative committees in Tallahassee in support of the scholarship.
“If we didn’t have the scholarship, we would have had a tougher journey,” she said.
Caleb has more than 26,000 followers on Facebook and more than 44,000 followers on Instagram. Karen said parents comment on the posts, saying they have more confidence in their child’s abilities after seeing what Caleb has achieved.
Caleb has appeared on NBC’s “Today” show during a segment featuring children with unique abilities who cook or bake. Caleb bakes. Currently, he’s baking the cookies sold at Happy Brew.
It started during the COVID-19 pandemic when Caleb began helping his dad in the kitchen. That led to their cooking show, “Fridays at Four,” that were posted to Facebook. They were hugely popular.
Caleb and Stephen Wright stand on the podium after finishing the triathlon at the Special Olympics.
Now, Caleb bakes 20 dozen chocolate chip and sugar cookies a month and delivers them to Happy Brew. The sugar cookies are a hit.
“We can’t keep them on the shelf,” owner Amy Franks said.
Caleb’s “Mr. Mayor” personality is in full force when he visits the coffee shop, Franks said.
“He'll walk in, he'll immediately step behind the counter and start making a smoothie, or he'll hop on the point of sale, like he owns the place, and we just let him do his thing, like go for it,” Franks said. “His work ethic is incredible. He never stops.”
Caleb often wears a T-shirt bearing the slogan, “No Limits.” He wrote that on top of his mortarboard at graduation.
Running, cooking, working out at the gym, Caleb has yet to encounter a limit.
And he does it all with a smile.
“The joy inside of him is so meaningful for us,” Franks said.
***
In 2021, Stephen Wright volunteered to be a partner for a special needs athlete and was paired with Caleb for a triathlon in Sebring.
He remembers how excited Caleb was before the race, and how concerned he was about how Caleb would react to the competition, the crowd, the long swim, which is the first leg.
“There was one point (during the swim) where I turned around and he wasn't there, and I started panicking,” Wright said. “He was actually underwater, trying to tickle my feet. And I was like, ‘All right, man, I can see how the rest of this day is going to go.’ We got out of the water, and everyone cheered for him.”
The two were dead last when they transitioned from the bike ride to the run. At one point, Wright couldn’t see any other runners. He wondered if the race was over.
What he didn’t know was that at the finish line, the race director was rounding up the younger runners who were waiting for the awards presentation and told them to go to the finish line and cheer on this young man who was running his first triathlon.
David and Karen were among those waiting for Caleb.
“That finish line,” Karen said, “was one of the best experiences of my life.”
