Author

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.

Once again, charter schools dominate Florida’s education choice landscape

Patrick R. Gibbons January 27, 2021

Patrick R. Gibbons

The 11^th National School Choice Week celebration kicked off Monday as various organizations, schools, parents and students celebrate educational opportunities in their own unique way. RedefinED celebrates School Choice Week by releasing its 12^th annual Florida Changing Landscapes document.

This most recent document, created from Florida Department of Education data, reveals that more than 1.5 million K-12 Florida students participated in school choice during the 2019-20 school year.

This year’s Changing Landscape is a little different than past years. Last year, we saw nearly 1.7 million PK-12 students participating in some form of school choice in the Sunshine State. A detailed breakdown of Florida’s VPK program enrollment, the state’s largest voucher program with around 171,000 students, wasn’t available at the time of publication.

This year, we examined only K-12 school choice programs. Where applicable, such as with private school-private pay or the Gardiner Scholarship, pre-K students have been removed from the count. Likewise, Gardiner Scholarship students who are enrolled in home education programs have been removed from the home education count.

As was the case last year, charter schools dominate the top spot with 329,216 students enrolled. Various public school options, such as magnet schools, career and professional academies and open enrollment continue to dominate the landscape. School choice programs offered by public school districts enrolled more than 717,000 students last year, which means there are more students enrolled in public school choice programs than there are public school students in 24 other states.

Overall, growth in school choice was modest in the 2019-20 school year, adding just 25,000 students for 0.9% growth over the prior year.

The Gardiner Scholarship program, administered by Step Up for Students, the nonprofit that hosts this blog, grew by 17%. Virtual education grew by 15% and Advanced International Certificate of Education programs grew by 14%.

Home education proved to be another popular option, exceeding 101,000 students, a growth of nearly 11% over the prior year.

Career and Professional Academies and Choice and Magnet Programs saw enrollment decline by 6% and 5%, respectively. Private pay students attending private schools shrunk by 3.5%. But thanks in large measure to Florida’s scholarship programs, total K-12 enrollment in Florida’s private schools grew by 5%.

The 2019-20 school year ended amidst a global pandemic that shook public education well into the new year. Nationally, both charter school and private school enrollment grew by 3% while home education grew by 2%.

You can view last year’s Florida Changing Landscapes document here.

January 27, 2021 1 comment

Analysis Education and Public Policy Education Choice Featured School Choice

Three books critical of education choice, as well as book review, miss the mark

Patrick R. Gibbons January 26, 2021

Patrick R. Gibbons

Education historian turned education activist Diane Ravitch critiques three recent books on education choice, but her review, as well as the thought line of the books themselves, contains fatal flaws.

Can public education survive against so-called “free market fundamentalists, religious zealots, and others” who hate the idea of public education and want to replace it with “privately managed charter schools, vouchers, tuition tax credits, online learning, home schooling, and for-profit schooling”?

Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University, ponders this question in her recent New York Review of Books examination of three books critical of education choice. But her question, not to mention the review itself, misses the mark, in part because the three authors she reviews substitute “public education” (i.e., taxpayer funded education) for public schools (government owned and operated schools).

Derek Black, author of “Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy,” conflates school choice supporters with segregationists as “opponents of democracy,” even when these groups are at odds or when segregationists used democratic means to achieve their ends.

Katherine Stewart, author of “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism,” conflates all sorts of thinkers as part of a monolithic opposition to public schools while misquoting sources.

And Steven Suitts, author of “Overturning Brown: The Segregationist Legacy of the Modern School Choice Movement,” conflates private school attendance during the 1950s-70s with racist motives.

If the authors are making more complex arguments, Ravitch doesn’t demonstrate it.

Black has argued that following the Civil War “public education corrected the flaws in our democracy.” Citing Black’s book, Ravitch notes that Louisiana’s Constitution of 1868 required all students to have access to free education, regardless of race, and that no school should be established exclusively for any race.

This, we are made to believe, was all undone by “opponents of democracy” who imposed Jim Crow laws and segregated education.

Not only was this not public education fixing flaws in democracy; racial integration wasn’t even achieved democratically in 1868. That was done by the Fifth Military District and Gen. Philip Sheridan. Sheridan had the power to remove democratically elected leaders and replace them with favored political appointees who were loyal to the Union and committed to the cause of racial integration and legal equality.

Louisiana wasn’t the only state that required free schools for Black students following the war. Florida did as well, and like Louisiana, quickly abolished any pretense of equality shortly after democracy was restored.

Louisiana replaced its constitution in 1879, and by 1885, Florida had done the same, cementing racial segregation in law for another 83 years. The state’s first democratically elected superintendent of public instruction spent his career trying to shut down a racially integrated private school and prevent white teachers from educating Black students.

To argue that public education, or even public schooling, is a cornerstone of democracy, there needs to be an acknowledgement that democracy brought about racial segregation. It was non-democratic means, a massive Civil War, and later the U.S. Supreme Court that began the slow march toward equality in education.

Here it seems almost as if Ravitch, and perhaps Black, Suitts and Stewart, are unaware or unwilling to acknowledge that public school advocates could also be staunch segregationists.

Historian Phil Magness noted that public school lawyer and advocate John Battle Jr. opposed school vouchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the grounds that it would weaken the district’s ability to resist racial integration. Battle found other pro-segregation allies to oppose school vouchers, including the all-white Virginia Education Association.

Racists and segregationists, such as Gov. Walter Pierce of Oregon and William N. Sheats, recognized as the father of Florida’s public school system, have supported public schools and opposed private ones.

Stewart unearths quotes from obscure villains to argue opposition to public schools is rooted in racism Christian and free market fundamentalists. But this strategy ignores the real and complicated debate about public education and school choice.

Public schools have been supported by “free market fundamentalists” such as Richard Cobden and even the father of capitalism himself, Adam Smith. And they’ve been opposed by thoughtful thinkers such as the scientist who discovered oxygen, Joseph Priestley, as well as New York statesman and abolitionist Garrit Smith.

The father of the modern voucher movement, Milton Friedman, was an agnostic who found racism and segregation to be morally repugnant.

Ravitch’s book review venerates public school advocates as saints defending the education of children fighting racism and saving democracy. The reality is that there have been heroes and villains on both sides, and it’s not clear these books take seriously the rich and complex history of American education and school choice.

In the end, Ravitch remains convinced that most parents remain loyal to their public school despite 47 states offering voucher, tax credit or charter school programs.

Indeed, many parents are satisfied. But that doesn’t justify her opposition to giving all parents, especially those in underserved communities, the same choices she had.

January 26, 2021 0 comment

Analysis Coronavirus / COVID-19 Demographic Research Education Polling Featured Private Schools School Choice

Private school families more satisfied with schools during pandemic, survey finds

Patrick R. Gibbons January 21, 2021

Patrick R. Gibbons

Nearly a year after the COVID-19 pandemic began and reshaped the nation’s education system, parents of private and charter school students are more likely to be satisfied with their schools and less likely to report a negative effect on learning than their public school counterparts. That’s a key finding in the latest survey from Education Next.

The survey was conducted by Michael B. Henderson of the University of Louisiana, and Martin West and Paul E. Peterson, both of Harvard University. The researchers surveyed 2,155 American parents with children in grades K-12 in December, examining parental satisfaction as well as the impacts of remote and hybrid learning on students since the pandemic started.

As with the last survey in September, parents expressed general satisfaction even as their children are learning less. Private school students continue to be more likely to receive in-person instruction, where parents are more likely to report lower levels of learning loss and lower negative impacts on the student’s social, emotional and physical well-being. Overall, parents are generally satisfied with schools (71% district, 73% charter and 83% private). Private school parents are more likely to be very satisfied – 55% – compared to 35% for charter parents and 25% of district parents.

Just 18% of private school parents reported their children were learning remotely, compared to more than half for district and charter school students.

Despite this broad satisfaction across sectors, 60% believe their children are learning less than they did before. In-person learning was closely related to higher reported satisfaction and lower reported learning losses.

A small difference exists between sectors regarding impacts on “student’s academic knowledge,” with 38% of district parents reporting negative impacts to 30% of private school parents. A similar 8-point difference was observed for parents reporting negative effects on their child’s emotional well-being.

Parents do report significantly higher negative impacts on their child’s social relationships and physical fitness at district and charter schools compared to private ones.

Private schools offering remote learning do lag behind their counterparts for teachers meeting with the entire class, but there’s little difference on one-on-one teacher student meetings. Remote private schools also lag behind on weekly homework assignments (84% of parents report weekly assignments) compared to district schools (93% of parents report weekly assignments).

The survey also makes several interesting observations.

While district enrollment fell 9 percentage points between the Spring and Fall of 2020, researchers found it had little to do with the school districts’ response to the Covid pandemic.

Just 10% of new private school students and 14% of new charter school students switched due to dissatisfaction with their prior school’s response to Covid. However, among new home school parents, 61% were dissatisfied with their prior school’s response to Covid.

Meanwhile, 32% of private school parents and 19% of charter parents were dissatisfied with their prior school in some way. Parents were more likely to switch schools because of moving or because their prior school no longer offered the child’s grade level.

Covid safety appears to be roughly similar across sectors. While private school students are far more likely to attend school in person, parents across all sectors report incidents of Covid infections at roughly the same rate. Parents also equally report their school sector is doing “about the right amount,” when it comes to Covid safety measures.

Another discovery was the rate at which parents utilized in-person learning when compared to local Covid infection rates. Counties in highest quartile of infection rates offered more in-person learning options than counties with the lowest options.

Despite noting this “perverse result,” researchers also state that the observed result does “not constitute evidence that greater use of in-person learning contributed to the spread of the virus across the United States.”

Despite children learning less, parents are generally satisfied across all school sectors.

January 21, 2021 0 comment

Courts Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Legislation Featured News Parent Empowerment Parental Choice Private Schools Religious Education

redefinED’s best of 2020: Supreme Court in Espinoza ruling opens door to state funding for religious schools

Patrick R. Gibbons December 28, 2020

Patrick R. Gibbons

Kendra Espinoza of Kalispell, Montana, lead plaintiff in the case, with her daughters Naomi and Sarah outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in January.

Editor’s note: During the holiday season, redefinED is reprising the “best of the best” from our 2020 archives. This post originally published June 30.

In a landmark decision today on school choice, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Montana Department of Revenue’s shutdown of a tax-credit scholarship program for low-income students is unconstitutional, potentially opening the door for states to enact such programs for students to attend private faith-based schools.

The court said in its 5-4 decision on Espinoza vs. the Montana Department of Revenue, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, that the Montana Department of Revenue cannot disqualify religious schools simply because of what they are.

“A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious,” the opinion said.

The ruling also stated:

“Drawing on ‘enduring American tradition,’ we have long recognized the rights of parents to direct ‘the religious upbringing’ of their children … Many parents exercise that right by sending their children to religious schools, a choice protected by the Constitution.”

Roberts was joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Dissenting were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer.

“The Supreme Court delivered a major victory to parents who want to choose the best school for their children, including religious schools,” said Institute for Justice senior attorney Erica Smith, who was co-counsel on the case. “This is a landmark case in education that will allow states across the country to enact educational choice programs that give parents maximum educational options.”

Organizations that support education choice praised the decision.

“It’s a good news day for those who love the freedoms we enjoy in this country and seek to advance and preserve those freedoms,” said Leslie Hiner, leader of the Legal Defense & Education Center for the nonprofit advocacy group EdChoice. “Today the Supreme Court has re-affirmed its role as the guardians of our Constitution. The Montana Supreme Court has disregarded the U.S. Constitution, and in particular the First Amendment’s clause protecting our right to the Free Exercise of whatever faith we choose as individuals, when it struck down a modest school choice program that allowed parents to choose any school, religiously-affiliated or not, for their children’s education.”

The case started in 2015, when the Montana Legislature enacted a program that provided a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for taxpayers who donated to a Student Scholarship Organization. That meant a Montana resident could donate to a scholar organization, and in turn, would receive a tax credit for the donation.

The Student Scholarship Organization used the donated money to provide scholarships to students to attend private schools, including private schools affiliated with a religion.

Shortly after the program was enacted, the Montana Department of Revenue promulgated an administrative rule (“Rule 1”) prohibiting scholarship recipients from using their scholarships at religious schools, citing a provision of the state constitution that prohibits “direct or indirect” public funding of religiously affiliated educational programs.

Kendra Espinoza and the two other mothers filed a lawsuit in state court challenging the rule. The trial court determined that the scholarship program was constitutional without the rule and granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the Department of Revenue argued that the program is unconstitutional without Rule 1. The Montana Supreme Court agreed with the Department and reversed the lower court.

At issue in the case are Blaine Amendments, also called “No Aid” clauses, which are provisions in 38 state constitutions, including Florida’s, that bar public aid to religious organizations. They get their name from James G. Blaine, a congressional representative and later senator and presidential nominee from Maine who unsuccessfully attempted to amend the U.S. constitution in 1875 to include “anti-aid” language onto the end of the first amendment. Where he failed at the federal level, many states inserted Blaine Amendments into their constitutions. As a result, Blaine Amendments frequently act as state-level barriers against school choice.

“I am thrilled that the courts ruled in favor of the Constitution and maintained a parent’s right to choose where their children go to school,” Espinoza said in a news release issued by the Institute for Justice. “For our family, this means we can continue to receive assistance that is a lifeline to our ability to stay at Stillwater. For so many other families across America, this will potentially mean changing lives and positively altering the future of thousands of children nationwide. What a wonderful victory.”

The win and the promise of continued scholarships is a significant boost to Espinoza, who has had to work multiple jobs, including cleaning houses and doing janitorial work, to afford her daughters’ tuition payments at a private Christian school in Kalispell. Kendra transferred her two daughters to Stillwater Christian School after they struggled in their public school. Montana’s scholarship program has helped Kendra and families across the state keep their children in the school that works best for them.

“It’s been a century-and-a-half since the bigoted Blaine movement took root in state constitutions throughout the country,” IJ Senior Attorney Richard Komer, who argued the case before the Court said in the news release. “Today’s decision shows that it is never too late to correct an injustice, even one with as long and ignoble a pedigree as this one.”

Today’s decision will affect most of the 14 states that have strictly interpreted their state constitution Blaine Amendments to bar scholarships to children at religious schools. For decades, the creation and expansion of school choice programs have been inhibited by legislative concerns that they might conflict with state constitutions. Those concerns are now removed with today’s decision in Espinoza.

December 28, 2020 0 comment

Education Choice Education Equity Family Empowerment Scholarship Featured Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Gardiner Scholarship Hope Scholarship News Parental Choice Private School Scholarships Reading Scholarship School Choice Tax Credit Scholarships

Step Up For Students ranks 21st on Forbes’ list of top charities

Patrick R. Gibbons December 11, 2020

Patrick R. Gibbons

All students at each of three Academy Prep campuses — St. Petersburg, Tampa and Lakeland, Florida — attend on state scholarships administered by Step Up For Students.

Americans donated more than $450 billion to charities last year. Of that amount, $49.5 billion went to the top 100 charities, according to Forbes Magazine’s America’s Top Charities rankings.

Step Up for Students, a scholarship granting nonprofit that administers five school choice scholarship programs in Florida, ranked as the 21^st largest nonprofit in America. Step Up, which raised $618 million in private donations last year and hosts this blog.

Step Up’s scholarship programs include the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for lower-income and working-class students, the Gardiner Scholarship for students with unique abilities, the Hope Scholarship for victims of bullying and harassment, the Reading Scholarship for public school students struggling with reading and literacy, and the Family Empowerment Scholarship for lower- and middle-class students.

Step Up’s goal for the fiscal year 2021 is to raise $700 million to fund the Florida Tax Credit and Hope Scholarship programs. The Gardiner Scholarship, Reading Scholarship and Family Empowerment Scholarship programs are funded by the Florida legislature, though Step Up advertises these scholarships, processes applications and helps manage accounts for Gardiner and Reading scholarship families.

Since offering the first scholarships during the 2002-03 school year, Step Up has awarded scholarships to more than 1 million students. The organization served more than 150,000 students during the 2020-21 school year.

December 11, 2020 0 comment

Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Reporting Family Empowerment Scholarship Featured Florida Tax Credit Scholarship News Private School Scholarships School Choice

Florida DOE releases numbers for state scholarship program

Patrick R. Gibbons December 4, 2020

Patrick R. Gibbons

Florida Tax Credit Scholarship enrollment by grade level, 2020-21

Official enrollment figures for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship are in. According to the September 2020 quarterly report, released this week by the Florida Department of Education, 100,008 students enrolled in the program for the 2020-21 school year.

The program, which relies on private corporate donations that receive 100 percent state tax credits, is available to low-income and working-class students in Florida. Approximately 74% of scholarship students are non-white, and 55% live in single-parent households. The average annual family income of scholarship students is about $33,000.

As with past years, the majority of students (58,535) are enrolled in grades K-5, where tuition costs are often the lowest.

This year, 1,899 private schools across 64 Florida counties enrolled students in the FTC program. Of those schools, 66% identified as a religious school. Miami-Dade County enrolled the most students – 23,344. Calhoun, Holmes and Union counties had no participating private schools, while Calhoun and Liberty counties had no participating students.

This year’s September enrollment figure is 22 students fewer than the September 2019 report (which was 100,030). At the same time, enrollment in a similar program, the Florida Empowerment Scholarship, has doubled. According to a Florida Department of Education spokesperson, the FES program increased from fewer than 18,000 students at the end of 2019-20, its first year, to 36,161 students this year.

Like the FTC, the FES is geared toward low-income and working-class students. The FES is funded directly by the state and the household income threshold is roughly $10,000 higher. This year, a family of four could qualify for the FES program if its household income was lower than $78,600, whereas the FTC program caps eligibility at $68,120 for a family of four.

December 4, 2020 0 comment

Analysis Charter Schools Demographic Research Education Choice Education Polling Featured Magnet Schools Private School Scholarships Private Schools Public School Choice School Choice

Office of the President releases new data on education choice

Patrick R. Gibbons October 30, 2020

Patrick R. Gibbons

Percentage distribution of students age 5 through 17 attending kindergarten through 12^th grade by school type, 1999 and 2016

The percentage of students accessing schools of choice has increased dramatically over the past 30 years, with growth coming from the expansion of both public and private school choice options, according to a new report from the Council of Economic Advisers.

Among the findings of the council, an agency within the Executive Office of the President charged with offering the President objective economic advice on the formulation of domestic and international economic policy:

Private school scholarships have grown considerably, but still make up a small portion of the K-12 student population, with 539,000 students utilizing tax-credit scholarships, vouchers or education savings accounts to enroll in private schools.

With the inclusion of public options, more than 5.8 million students were enrolled in charter and magnet schools in 2016, the latest available public school data. That figure was up from about 1.5 million students enrolled in charter and magnet schools in 2000.

Importantly, the number of students attending their assigned public school dropped from 74.1% to 68.8% between 1999 and 2016. In Florida, 54.8 percent of K-12 students attended assigned public schools in 2018-19, the most recent figure available.

Public choice schools grew by 4.3 percentage points and home education grew by 1.6 percentage points. Though private school scholarships have grown considerably, private school enrollment has dropped 0.8 percentage points nationwide.

The report’s authors conclude that expanding choice options could help low-income and minority students. Florida already is a national leader on that front, with 41% of students attending schools of choice in 2018-19, the latest data available.

The state’s most popular options include charter schools, open enrollment, magnet schools and career academies enrolling more than 600,000 students, about half of all choice students in the state. By comparison, only about 152,000 students utilized scholarships to attend private schools in Florida.

With the inclusion of 237,200 students attending private schools through private pay, more than 45% of Florida students attend schools of choice.

October 30, 2020 0 comment