About The Author

Jon East

Jon East is special projects director for Step Up For Students. Previously, he was a member of the editorial board and the Sunday commentary editor at the St. Petersburg Times, Florida’s largest daily newspaper, where he wrote about education issues for most of his 28 years at the paper. He was also a reporter and editor at the Evening Independent and Ocala Star-Banner. He earned a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
04/24/20
Jon East
In its fifth annual audit of Step Up For Students, the state’s largest nonprofit scholarship funding organization, the Florida Auditor...
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01/23/20
Jon East
Editor’s note: The goal of fact-checkED is to bring clinical precision to complex issues that are easily misunderstood, aiming to...
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01/16/20
Jon East
With the presidential primary election in delegate-rich Florida just two months away, Democratic candidates are beginning to knock on the...
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12/19/19
Jon East
Editor’s note: While education choice misstatements flourished this year, one was especially egregious: the claim that Florida’s new family empowerment...
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11/26/19
Jon East
A story in Sunday’s Lakeland Ledger about a union-sponsored public education summit in Polk County included a chart of “Quick...
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10/18/19
Jon East
Editor’s note: We add a new feature today, called fact-checkED, that is inspired by the many factchecking efforts across the...
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10/02/19
Jon East
As religious and education interest groups furiously file amicus briefs in the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case on whether states...
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07/02/19
Jon East
Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell, a frequent critic of school vouchers, is urging companies to stop donating to Florida Tax...
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03/06/19
Jon East
As Florida senators get their first look today at a new private school scholarship for economically disadvantaged students, some familiar...
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12/19/18
Jon East
Enrollment in the nation’s largest scholarship program for economically disadvantaged K-12 students dropped this fall for the first time in...
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