Author

Patrick R. Gibbons

Patrick R. Gibbons

Patrick Gibbons is public affairs manager at Step Up for Students and a research fellow for the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. A former teacher, he lived in Las Vegas, Nev., for five years, where he worked as an education writer and researcher. He can be reached at (813) 498.1991 or emailed at pgibbons@stepupforstudents.org. Follow Patrick on Twitter: at @PatrickRGibbons and @redefinEDonline.

Education ChoiceEducation ReportingFeaturedNewsPrivate SchoolsSchool Choice

DOE: Majority of scholarship program schools pass accountability muster

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

Of the 220 private schools participating in scholarship programs from November 2018 to December 2019, 86 were fully compliant, while another 44 schools became compliant before the DOE issued a report to the school, according to the latest DOE accountability report.

The Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice at the Florida Department of Education visited more than 200 private schools participating in scholarship programs between November 2018 and October 2019 to ensure compliance with state regulations. In addition to the visits, the DOE investigated 123 written complaints, reviewed hundreds of fiscal reports, handled 14,656 calls, 12,158 voicemails, and 67,653 emails from private schools, scholarship parents and school districts.

That’s a lot of work for a department often accused of overseeing private school scholarship programs with no accountability.

The DOE’s report, released Dec. 16, provides details of school compliance regarding regulations on safety, employee background checks, financial soundness, and legal complaints from the general public.

According to the report, 2,117 private schools from the 2018-19 school year requested permission to continue participating in state scholarship programs. Of those schools, 131 were considered new.

Few of those more than 2,000 schools had regulatory issues according to the DOE’s report:

  • Four schools were suspended for failing to maintain a physical location registered with the DOE. All but one school corrected the error.
  • The DOE investigated 10 schools for fraudulent activity. Two schools were cleared, one school entered into a settlement agreement and six schools were removed from participating in scholarship programs.
  • 49 schools were notified of the need to obtain a surety bond to demonstrate fiscal soundness. All but one school obtained a surety bond to correct the error.
  • 175 schools received McKay scholarship funds in error. All but one school returned the funds and was suspended from accepting scholarships.
  • 1,081 schools earned $250,000 or more from scholarships and were required to complete a financial report by a certified public accountant. Of those, 307 schools were required to conduct corrective actions, and 94 schools were issued a Notice of Noncompliance and may later be suspended from the program if a report is not filed.

State law allows the DOE to visit any private school that has had a notice of noncompliance in the last two years or received a complaint about a violation of state law. Beginning in 2019, the DOE also is required to conduct a site visit on any new school wishing to participate in the program. Of the 220 schools visited, 86 were fully compliant, while another 44 schools became compliant before the DOE issued a report to the school. Of the remaining schools, all but one corrected their issues to remain qualified for the state’s scholarship programs.

Schools participating in the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program for lower-income students also must submit national norm-referenced test results to researchers at the Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University. According to researchers, 234 schools failed to report test scores in a timely manner. By the time the DOE released the accountability report, just 23 schools had failed to submit test results.

The DOE also received 128 signed complaints from students, parents and faculty regarding private schools. The DOE determined 35 of the complaints were not legally sufficient to investigate. Legally sufficient complaints must demonstrate the school has failed to follow the law, such as having a fire inspection, completing a fiscal report, or conducting background checks on employees. During its investigation, the DOE concluded that 81 of the 93 remaining complaints had been resolved by the private school demonstrating compliance with state law. Twelve complaints remain open, though none is serious enough to require referral to the Office of the Inspector General.

The remainder of the report details the department’s outreach efforts, along with any recent legislative changes to the scholarship programs it oversees.

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2020 Presidential ElectionDemographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipNewsSchool ChoiceTax Credit ScholarshipsVouchers

Public support for education choice continues to surge as some presidential candidates swim upstream

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

While the reasons for Democratic presidential candidate and leading anti-charter stalwart Elizabeth Warren’s nearly 13-point polling plummet are multifaceted, a recent public confrontation with school choice supporters and the revelation that she sent her son to a $17,000-a-year private school likely contributed to the decline.

Warren’s strong anti-school choice stance probably isn’t working in her favor if education choice polls are any indication. A RealClear Opinion Research survey conducted this fall reported that 68 percent of Americans now support the concept of school choice.

The poll, sponsored by the American Federation for Children, included 2,014 registered voters. Forty-two percent identified as Democratic, 31 percent as Republican, and 28 percent as Independent.

Fully 70 percent of respondents said they support a federal tax credit scholarship program similar to the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship administered by Step Up For Students (which hosts this blog) that serves more than 100,000 lower-income students.

According to the American Federation for Children, the strongest support for a tax credit scholarship – 74 percent – came from respondents 45 to 54 years old. Meanwhile, 71 percent of black voters, the highest level of any racial demographic, were supportive. Latino voters also showed strong support with 69 percent favoring school choice.

In terms of political party, about 76 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of Democrats supported school choice options overall.

While 53 percent of respondents said they currently send their children to district-run public schools, given a choice, 70 percent would choose another educational option; 39 percent specifically identified their first choice as a private school.

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher union and most vocal opponent of school choice vouchers and charter schools, has yet to endorse a presidential candidate for 2020. Though the union is expected to contribute millions of dollars to the presidential campaign, it remains to be seen if its endorsed candidate will be able to maintain an anti-education choice stance given public sentiment in favor of it, compounded by the fact that several swing states including Arizona and Florida have large education choice populations.

Other swing states, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, have large charter school populations, and Pennsylvania also offers tax credit scholarships to thousands of lower- and middle-income students.

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Education and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedSchool Choice

Florida DOE includes ed choice expansion in strategic plan

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

Following disappointing results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, released in October, the Florida Department of Education remained optimistic about the state’s future during a recent presentation of its strategic plan for 2020-25.

No. 2 on its list of four goals presented at the November Board of Education meeting: improving access to quality schools and schools of choice.

Department officials expressed interest in seeing more students exercise choice options including open enrollment, dual enrollment, charter schools, career and professional academies, IB programs, lab schools and private schools through the state’s various scholarship programs, with an overall goal of making Florida No 1 in the nation on this and other metrics by 2025.

That was good news for Katie Swingle, mother of four children, including two with special needs. One son utilizes the McKay Scholarship and the other the Gardiner Scholarship. Both programs are administered by the nonprofit Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.

Swingle had seen the board notice about the strategic plan and drove from her home in Winter Haven to express “how important and amazing Florida is in the world of education options.”

“I’m so proud to live here,” she told board members.

A chart related to this goal included an array of choice options and participation rates from 2014-15 to 2018-19, including Tax Credit Scholarships, McKay Scholarships and Gardiner Scholarships.

Other goals identified by the board were improving student achievement and reducing the achievement gap; creating a skilled workforce; and measuring quality and efficiency of services through national rankings.

To focus on achievement, the DOE identified more than two dozen metrics from prekindergarten through high school graduation that include improving kindergarten readiness, reducing the number of low-quality Voluntary Pre-K providers and improving test scores on reading, math and science.

To create a skilled workforce, department officials want to see more students complete secondary education by 2025 and realize a larger percentage passing Advanced Placement, IB and career or vocational exams.

Finally, as a way to improve on national rankings­ , the board specified a focus on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Education Week’s Quality Count’s report, the Center for Education Reform’s “Parent Power Index,” EdCHoice’s rankings on spending on choice options and the share of choice options.

“I love that this plan is data driven,” said BOE vice chair Marva Johnson, adding that the focus on measurements can “give us early warning.”

But board member Tom Grady expressed concern about the complexity of the plan’s numerous measurements. “If you have too many metrics you have none,” he said.

For Grady, the most important metric is the state’s high school graduation rate.

“It flows all the way down to Pre-K. It flows all the way upstream to that high school graduation,” he said. “If we get things wrong in third-grade reading, it’s ultimately going to be reflected in that high school graduation rate.”

Board chairman Andy Tuck applauded the DOE’s plan but said he’d like to see rural districts focus on more choice offerings, including dual enrollment, as well as more funding for choice options.

The board approved the strategic plan unanimously.

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AnalysisDemographic ResearchEducation ResearchFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipSchool Choice

94 percent of FTC students earned high school diplomas in 2018-19

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

Graduation rates for students in the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program declined slightly in 2018-19 according to a new report from Step Up For Students.

Of the 2,648 high school seniors using the scholarship, 94.1 percent earned a high school diploma in 2018-19. That’s down from 95.1 percent in the previous year and from 94.6 percent in 2016-17, the first year with reported graduation rates for the scholarship program.

Selected student level characteristics among 12th-graders, number of graduates, graduation rate (2018-19) SOURCE: Step Up For Students

Step Up For Students in 2018-19 provided scholarships to 99,735 students who attended one of 1,802 participating private schools. The scholarship program is restricted to students living in households earning less than 260 percent of the poverty level, or about $66,000 for a family of four. The average student participating in the program in 2018-19 lived in a household earning just $25,755. Of those students, 68 percent were black or Hispanic; 54 percent lived in a single-parent household.

Step Up (which hosts this blog) manages five scholarship programs, including the nation’s largest privately funded scholarship program, the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship.

According to the report, religious schools saw higher graduation rates than non-religious schools, with Episcopalian, Islamic/Muslim and Seventh Day Adventist schools achieving 100 percent graduation rates.

Nine in 10 students (93.8 percent) who qualify for the federal free and reduced-price meal program graduated, while 97.3 percent of students at the highest threshold of eligibility graduated.

Females were more likely to graduate than males, but only by a 1.4-point margin.

Black and Hispanic students graduated at a rate of 92.2 percent and 94.2 percent, respectively, both slightly below the 95.7 percent for white students.

The graduation rate for scholarship students cannot be compared to Florida’s public school graduation rate. The Florida Department of Education uses a four-year cohort method that tracks students starting in their freshman year. Florida’s public school graduation rate from 2017-18 (latest available) stands at 86.1 percent, a massive improvement since 2003-04.

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Achievement GapAnalysisEducation ReportingTesting and Accountability

NAEP 2019: Where does Florida stand?

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

Year-to-year student achievement will always fluctuate, but how does Florida stand in the larger picture? While results from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress should concern everyone involved with K-12 education, Florida’s long-term trend is holding despite the recent score stagnation. And as we reported last week, Florida maintained high rankings when adjusting for demographics.

Among eighth-grade math students, Florida has improved 24 points compared to the national average of 19. Black students are up 28 points compared to 23 points nationally, and Hispanic students are up 30 points compared to 22 points nationally.

Eighth-grade reading, typically a sore spot for Florida given the tremendous success in the early years, is up 8 points compared to 21 years ago. But the situation is much worse for the national average, where there has been no improvement on eighth-grade reading scores since 1998.

Black eighth-graders in Florida, despite being down from last year, still have improved by 8 points since 1998. The average black student nationally has seen no improvement since 1998.

Hispanic students fare better on English reading, up 12 points in Florida and 9 points nationally since 1998.

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Achievement GapEducation ReportingNewsTesting and Accountability

NAEP 2019: Florida maintains high marks despite national slide

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

In a statement released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Education, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos called 2019 NAEP results “devastating,” opining that the country is in a “student achievement crisis” that has continued to worsen over the past decade.

While the results aren’t great, they’re not quite that bad. One bright spot is that Florida maintains high rankings when adjusting for demographics.

Florida ranks first in fourth-grade reading, first in fourth-grade math, third in eighth-grade reading and eighth in eighth-grade math, according to the Urban Institute’s adjustment of rankings for race, income and English language learner status – and maintains those rankings despite drops in scores for students in the Sunshine State. Nevertheless, those declines are worth exploring.

Florida’s fourth-grade reading dropped 3 points, with Hispanic students seeing a 4-point decline and low-income students seeing a 3-point decline. Eighth-grade reading dropped 4 points, with black and Hispanic students dropping 6 and 3 points, respectively. Florida’s overall eighth-grade reading scores tie the national average, consistent with last year’s scores.

Florida maintained its scores in fourth-grade math and eighth-grade math, however black students declined 3 points while eighth-grade Hispanic students improved by 3 points. Florida’s eighth-grade black students scored at the national average relative to their peers, while Hispanic students maintained a healthy 8-point lead. Florida’s eighth-grade Hispanic math students are the state’s lone bright spot within the 2019 NAEP results.

As the charts show, Florida’s results in 2019 are still far beyond where Florida students started back in 1998, despite the decline.

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Achievement GapEducation ReportingTesting and Accountability

NAEP 2019: Hispanics perform better in Republican-held states

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

Between January and March, students who participated in NAEP were assessed in mathematics, reading, and science. Most students took the assessment on tablets, while a small subset took paper-and-pencil versions to help NAEP evaluate any differences in student performance between the two methods of test administration.

Last week Education Next published predictions from leading education scholars about how the 2019 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test results would shake out. The boldest prediction came from Morgan Polikoff, an associate professor at the University of Southern California.

Polikoff anticipated that President Donald Trump’s “racism” and “attacks on Latinix people in particular” would cause an increase in the achievement gap between whites and Hispanics, with the largest gaps growing in border states and states controlled by the Republican Party.

You can read his full prediction here.

Polikoff is correct that America is more politically polarized today than in many decades, so it’s clearly worth exploring the prediction. But the results suggest Polikoff appears to either grant Trump far more power over student achievement than is realistic, or assumes students are more fragile than they really are. Perhaps both.

Either way, his hypothesis is not only incorrect, but we find larger achievement gaps in Democratic-controlled states than Republican ones.  In fact, Democratic-controlled states have less achievement equity than Republican states.

First, the border states:

Border states’ achievement gaps and changes in achievement gaps are similar to the rest of the U.S. Border states controlled by Democrats perform slightly worse than Republican ones, though this difference is mainly driven by California.

States with a Republican “trifecta” — that is, one-party control of both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office — see smaller racial achievement gaps in fourth-grade reading, eighth-grade reading, fourth-grade math and eighth-grade math than Democratic trifectas. Democratic-controlled states, on average, performed worse compared to states with divided governments. States with Republican legislatures and Democratic governors, on average, performed better than states with Democratic legislatures and Republican governors.

There were 13 states with Democratic trifectas and 21 states with Republican trifectas. Twelve states had divided governments, though Nebraska has a unicameral legislature instead of a traditional bicameral (house and senate). The National Conference of State Legislature’s database was used to determine party control.

The results are the same when examining control of the state legislature only. There were 29 states with full Republican control of the legislature and 16 states with full Democratic control. States with insufficient Hispanic students to provide a score were dropped from the comparison.

The achievement gap between 2017 and 2019 was also more likely to decline in Republican trifectas than Democratic trifectas. Republican trifectas did see an increase in the eighth-grade reading gap, but Democratic trifectas saw a much larger widening of the fourth-grade math gap. Divided governments performed better than Democratic trifectas, except on eighth-grade reading. States with Republican legislatures, but Democratic governors, performed better than those with Democratic legislatures and Republican governors.

Negative numbers in the chart below mean the gap between white and Hispanic students closed. A positive number represents an increase in the achievement gap.

When examining only one-party control of the legislature, Democratic-controlled states perform worse across the board on the change in the achievement gap.

Finally, I checked to see if the Democratic achievement gaps might simply be due to higher overall performance. Democratic-controlled states are, on average, much better at teaching white students than Republican-controlled states but are worse at teaching Hispanics. This remains true for trifectas and one-party legislative control.

In other words, Republican-controlled states are more likely to provide equitable education outcomes than Democratic states. If racism is the cause of achievement gaps, as Polikoff hypothesized, it certainly isn’t more pronounced in Republican states. States under Democratic control, however, might want to look inward.

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Education Savings AccountsParent EmpowermentParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Education savings accounts put families in charge

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

Florida has been a leading K-12 innovator for years, so it is no surprise it became the first state to offer education savings accounts (ESA) to children in public schools.

Launched in 2018 to 5,375 students, the Reading Scholarship provides students in third through fifth grades accounts worth up to $500 to pay for tutoring, afterschool and summer school reading programs, books and other services dedicated to improving literacy.

This year, the Florida Legislature appropriated $7.6 million to fund the scholarship program.

Students must be struggling learners, scoring a “1” or “2”, the two lowest scores, on the Florida Standards Assessment. Level 2 students are described as “below satisfactory” and likely needing substantial support for the next grade. Students scoring Level 1 are considered to have “inadequate” reading skill and highly likely to need substantial support. Students who are English language learners are given priority.

After they receive their children’s reading scores, parents apply through Step Up For Students, one of two approved non-profit scholarship administrators in Florida (and host of this blog). Once the Florida Department of Education ensures students are enrolled in public schools in eligible grades, parents are awarded a $500 scholarship to help improve the literacy of their child. 

For now, parents are reimbursed for purchases within two to three weeks. But that system could change.

Florida’s other ESA program, the Gardiner Scholarship for students with special needs, functions in a similar method. However, Step Up developed a proprietary software program called “MyScholarShop,” allowing parents to directly purchase products and services through their ESA. To date, the parents of nearly 5,000 children have used MyScholarShop to make over 65,000 purchases totaling $19.2 million. MyScholarShop allows Gardiner parents to directly purchase thousands of pre-approved items. In addition to MyScholarShop, parents can use their education savings accounts to directly pay for services from over 9,000 approved vendors, tutors, and medical professionals, without having to wait for reimbursement.

This year 4,039 students have been found eligible on the Reading Scholarship, with 1,690 already funded and more applications on the way.

The Central Florida Urban League in Orlando is a leading proponent of the program, helping hundreds of students apply in the first two years. The chapter even developed and promoted a reading program after partnering with several Orange County public schools.

In the program’s first year, the League partnered with nine public schools to provide tutoring to more than 700 disadvantaged students. With the help of the reading scholarship and a $100,000 donation, hundreds of struggling fourth- and fifth-grade students received free tutoring services.

“It has been a godsend for parents who struggle and can’t afford tutoring for their children,” said Glen Gilzean, the League CEO. Gilzean says other Urban League chapters in Duval, Miami-Dade and Pinellas counties plan on developing their own partnerships with local public schools. Gilzean is the former vice president of family and community affairs at Step Up For Students, the non profit that administers the reading scholarship and hosts this blog.

Charter schools are getting involved, too.

Dayspring Academy may enroll about half of the current Pasco County reading scholarship students, says John Legg, a former state senator who was a primary sponsor of the Gardiner Scholarship and is the CFO of the charter school. Legg is currently a board member of Step Up For Students.

Dayspring offers an hour-long math and tutoring program that meets twice per week during the school year for students in second through fifth grade who score 1, 2 or 3 on the FSA. Dayspring has about 60 students participating in the afterschool program, with nearly 40 enrolled through the Reading Scholarship.

Before the Reading Scholarship was available, the charter school could afford to offer afterschool tutoring for only 30 minutes.

“We could not do this without the Reading Scholarship because the cost would be too great,” Legg said. The math portion of the program is supplemented through a separate grant, according to Legg.

As the program grows, more public schools are expected to participate. Staffers at several school districts, including Liberty, Columbia and Hillsborough counties, have expressed interest in the program.

 “It’s a starting point,” says Gilzean, “but it really does make a difference.”

States wishing to emulate Florida don’t have to copy the program word for word. Since reimbursement programs are harder on low-income families, and the fact that many families use the scholarship to pay for tutoring, a program could function like a traditional voucher to be used at schools or tutoring centers. Eligibility doesn’t have to be limited to public school students or confined to just reading.

Such a program might be available for all students, including private school, charter school, homeschool and public school students, and be used to help pay for afterschool and summer school programs, tutoring for reading and math, to help students with disabilities receive speech, behavioral, or occupational therapy, or provide mentoring and job training for at-risk students and students with special needs.

Giving parents command of K-12 funding in this way may very well be the future of education.

Florida’s two separate ESA programs come the closest to that future, but no state has blended such a diverse array of options together into one program for all students. The race is on to see which state will be first.

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