Coming Monday: Giving thanks to #edchoice

All Thanksgiving week, we're turning over our blog to the voices that really matter in ed choice - parents and students.

Across America, millions of families now benefit from charter schools, private school vouchers, home education enrichment programs, education savings accounts and other learning options that didn’t exist a generation ago. Many of those options are “controversial” – yet the voices of students and parents who love them are rarely in the conversation.

We’ll keep trying to change that.

Beginning Monday, we’ll be running a week-long series of guest posts about ed choice – from ed choice parents and students themselves. We asked them to help readers understand how options made a difference in their lives, and, in keeping with Thanksgiving, why they’re grateful to have them.

You’ll hear from:

• The mother of a student with learning disabilities, now on the verge of graduating, whose prior struggles were so intense, he wanted to end his life.
• The mother of a student with autism who was neglected in a prior school, but now, with help from an education savings account, is making strides as a homeschooler.
• A middle school mom who wrestled with a district school for years before turning to a charter school to help her son finally get on the path to success.
• A former tax credit scholarship student, now in college and aiming to be a veterinarian, whose grandmother worked until she was 85 to provide for her family.
• The mother of a tax credit scholarship student, a quirky child with a thing for crazy knee socks, who’s now thriving in a quirky mix of a school.

It’s no coincidence these are Florida stories. In the Sunshine State, 46 percent of all students in PreK-12 – more than 1.7 million – now attend schools their parents chose. Perhaps more than any other state, ed choice has become the new normal in Florida.

We’re grateful to live here. We’re grateful to have this blog to help foster fair-minded debate. We’re grateful to all of you for reading us.

Enjoy the series next week, and enjoy the time with friends and family!