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  • Home
  • ABOUT US
  • Content
    • Analysis
    • Commentary and Opinion
    • News
    • Spotlights
    • Voices for Education Choice
    • factcheckED
  • Topics
    • Achievement Gap
    • Charter Schools
    • Customization
    • Education Equity
    • Education Politics
    • Education Research
    • Education Savings Accounts
    • Education Spending
    • Faith-based Education
    • Florida Schools Roundup
    • Homeschooling
    • Microschools
    • Parent Empowerment
    • Private Schools
    • Special Education
    • Testing and Accountability
    • Virtual Education
    • Vouchers
  • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
  • Guest Bloggers
    • Ashley Berner
    • Jonathan Butcher
    • Jack Coons
    • Dan Lips
    • Chris Stewart
    • Patrick J. Wolf
  • Education Facts
    • Research and Reports
    • Gardiner Scholarship Basic Program Facts
    • Hope Scholarship Program Facts
    • Reading Scholarship Program Facts
    • FES Basic Facts
  • Search

Parent Empowerment

CustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation Savings AccountsFamily Empowerment ScholarshipFeaturedParent EmpowermentParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

SUFS president delivers remarks before Senate Education Committee

redefinED staff January 15, 2021
redefinED staff

Editor’s note: In a moving 20-minute presentation Tuesday at the Florida Senate Education Committee’s first meeting in advance of the 2021 legislative session, lifelong education choice advocate Doug Tuthill set the stage for continued expansion of school choice as a means of leveling persistent gaps and improving education outcomes for all students. Here are excerpts from that presentation.

“Helping public education fulfill the promise of equal opportunity – this is what gets us up every morning. This is what we think about before we go to bed every night … We know we have huge inequities in our system. We know that not every child has the opportunity to fulfill their potential, and so part of the process here is to make sure we create a public education system that’s flexible enough to make sure every child gets his or her needs met … And you want the parents to be engaged in that process.”

“We have to have a partnership with parents, work with them and collaborate with them to make sure they have the resources and the information they need to make the very best choices for their children. I know a lot of people don’t trust parents to make good decisions, but I think that’s wrong. I think parents are the best educators for their kids. They have to be partners in this process. What I’ve learned over 42 years of doing education reform is that you’ve got to engage the parents in a much deeper way than we have historically. That’s what these programs are designed to do.”

“The other thing I’ve learned over the past 42 years is the power of ownership … I think the sense of ownership is really important. People who own things have a greater commitment to them, they work harder to make those things a success. Too much of our system is designed to treat people as renters and not owners. Part of what the choice movement does is it tries to give that sense of empowerment. It tries to give people that sense of ownership.”

“What we’re seeing in these programs over the past 20, 30 years is that ownership is transformational. When people have a sense of ownership it really transforms them. It motivates them. They engage in ways they don’t if they don’t feel that sense of ownership. And that’s really I think the magic sauce.”

“Choice is now the norm in Florida. It’s not going away. You’re not going to put the genie back in the bottle. The question is equal opportunity. How do we make sure that some kids don’t get left behind? That’s what these programs are about, to make sure we don’t leave any children behind.”

“Oftentimes, we hear people say, ‘You’re giving money to private schools.’ That’s a false statement. None of the programs give money to private schools. What the programs do is give money to families, and families make a choice as to how they want to spend that money … This is a parent empowerment program. It’s not a private school subsidy program. No money goes to private schools. That’s the law. The money goes to the families, and the families make a decision how they want to spend that money.”

“You are going to hear a lot about ESAs over the next several years. Education savings accounts give families more flexibility on how to spend their money. One of the things we learned from the pandemic is in order to keep their children safe and well-educated, families want as much flexibility as possible. You’ve read about families creating homeschool co-ops, learning pods. There is a lot of innovation going on out there by trying to make sure their children are safe. We want to make sure low-income children don’t get left behind. If you’re committed to equal opportunity, you want to make sure that all these families have these options.”

“It’s kind of like missionary work. You do this because it’s a chance to make a difference in people’s lives … Parents fight to get through the application process because they’re fighting for their kids. You have to honor that and respect it. Low-income families in particular who are trying to break the cycle of generational poverty know that education is the key. It’s an honor to work with those families.”

“I’ve had grandmothers come up to me and say, ‘I dropped out of school in eighth or ninth grade because of financial situations, home situation. I had to work to take care of my family. My grandchild is now on a scholarship, my grandchild is doing amazingly well. I’m so moved by the transformation of my grandchild I’ve gone back to work on my GED.’ Those stories are just powerful. It’s really about hope, it’s really about empowerment, it’s really about ownership. Those things are the magic sauce in changing people’s lives.”

“We serve the highest poverty, lowest performing kids in the state, which makes sense. If you’re going to go through this process, it’s because you’re desperate. That’s what we see, families who are desperately advocating for their children.”

“What the programs do is they give people hope, meaningful hope, that leads to transformation in people’s behavior.”

“It’s impossible to be serious about equal opportunity if you only think about school as six hours a day, 180 days a year … We’ve got to figure out how to deal with all the learning that happens outside of school, and what an education savings account does is it allows families to spend money not just on the school day but on after-school activities and summer activities to begin leveling that playing field. It’s really important as we move forward that we talk about how we can provide families with the resources they need, not just during the school day, but after school and during the summer to begin to level the playing field, to be really serious about equal opportunity.”

To view the Senate Education Committee meeting in its entirety, click here.

January 15, 2021 1 comment
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Blog GuestCommentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedJack CoonsParent EmpowermentParental Choice

This is liberal ‘equality’?

John E. Coons January 8, 2021
John E. Coons

The men of culture are the true apostles of equality.

Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy

Our national constitution recognizes the right of all parents to decide where, and by whom, their child will be schooled; this equal prerogative is assured not merely by the First Amendment, but by the rule of equal treatment that is assured by the 14th Amendment.

In the current media focus upon something called “equality for all,” it would seem that the good “cultured” liberal minds would lead in the national effort to empower the poor family to exercise this fundamental responsibility.

Tragically, Arnold was wrong.

The world of the elite liberal decided 150 years ago to treat the poor parent as serf to the new “public” school system that respects the power of the comfortable family to choose but delivers the child of the poor to the state and its highly organized agents. The principles of equal treatment and of honoring the right of both parent and child are flouted in the name of what?

The 19th Century design of the “public” school systems was intended to secure the position of Protestantism and to “Americanize” the poor immigrants and their children who were mostly Catholics and Jews.

Over the next century, that religious purpose wore thin and was gradually replaced by secular theories of schooling, but the structure that disempowered the poor has remained ever in place, eventually becoming dominated by the government unions whose leaders’ interest in the poor was, and remains, to insure their presence in unchosen, mostly urban, public schools.

Yet most of my “liberal” colleagues and friends continue to imagine that these institutions serve as primary hope for a truly civil society. The anti-liberal essence of our inner-city schools simply eludes their eyes.

If equal treatment of all our people is truly a vison of the self-styled liberal, let us pray that he or she awakens to this contradiction that has for so long eluded the liberal eye.

January 8, 2021 0 comment
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Advocate VoicesCommentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation PoliticsFeaturedParent EmpowermentParent VoicesParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Dear Dr. Cardona: An open letter from a Connecticut mom

Special to redefinED January 7, 2021
Special to redefinED

Education choice advocate Gwen Samuel of Connecticut frequently speaks to parent groups, reminding them of their right to education options for their children.

Editor’s note: This commentary from Gwen Samuel, founder of the Connecticut Parents Union, a grassroots advocacy group that recruits and prepares parents to harness their collective voices to protect their children’s educational rights, appeared recently on the EdChoice blog.

Dear Dr. Cardona,

Congratulations on your nomination to become the next U.S. Secretary of Education.

It doesn’t seem so long ago that we were sitting in your office here in Meriden discussing a bullying issue regarding my child. You were so attentive, and while I might not have been happy with all the decisions made, I always appreciated that you took the time to actually listen and recommend some appropriate supports — in a timely manner.

Your willingness to listen is a huge asset, and it’s why I wasn’t always *that* thorn-in-your-side mom advocating for my child.

I must be honest, as a Black parent, I was very surprised when I heard you were going to be President-elect Biden’s pick for Secretary of Education. I can’t imagine how it feels going from leading a school district of almost 8,000 students — 10 percent Black and 55 percent Latino/Hispanic — to leading our state department of education to leading the federal education agency all within a couple years.

I don’t have to tell you that we face some big, serious challenges — for the students here in Meriden and the millions across our country.

As you embark on this next chapter of your life, I wanted to pull up a virtual chair in your office like old times and offer five pieces of advice:

Keep diverse voices front and center. 

Historically, my journey as a Black mom looks and feels different from what White, Latino, Asian and other parents and guardians encounter. Invite us all to the table, and make sure you hear and take into account our feedback. Listen to families, who are directly impacted by your choices, before you listen to anyone else. We’re the ones who know our kids best, and it’s easy to lose that perspective when you’re making big, blanket decisions from an office in Washington.

Ensure that all parents have options. 

There’s no delicate way to say this, but the traditional public school system doesn’t meet every child’s needs — that is a fact — and parents and our children don’t have time to sit around and wait for the system to recognize and respond to this fact. There are lots of schooling types out there, and they should all be part of the mix, especially during this unprecedented pandemic where so many kids’ educational needs are not being met due to mass school closures.

That conversation takes a political turn far too frequently, so I’d urge you to imagine you’re sitting face-to-face with a parent like me before you erect any barriers that make it harder for families to get what they need academically. The financially stable families have always had a choice in K-12 education; the rest of us are looking for leaders to help change the educational landscape so we can have that same kind of access, too.

Make space for innovation. 

If this pandemic has shown us parents anything, it’s that we are resilient and able to adapt, especially when it comes to schooling. It’s also painted a clear picture of the haves and have-nots when it comes to K-12 education in America. Tens of thousands of students — many low-income and from communities of color — have literally gone missing from the system; we have to find them and get them back on track.

In order to do that, we have to maintain our innovative spirit and meet them where they are instead of forcing them to fit into a system that’s been letting them down and leaving them behind for generations — well before the pandemic.

Keep states in the driver’s seat. 

Your background in our Meriden school district and running a state department of education is critical as you step into this federal role. You know how much things are different from one district to the next — and how much state policies and priorities shape the way parents, students, educators and schools interact.

A top-down approach to K-12 education is not what we need right now; rather, I hope you’ll survey the state-by-state terrain, see what’s working and hold up those examples for others to replicate. Highlight what works best for children!

Watch your back. 

I say this to you with my mom hat on. Washington is filled with special interests and people who are entrenched and committed to doing things the way they’ve always been done because that’s how they earn a paycheck. I’m not mad at them for that, but make no mistake: They don’t represent my interests as a Black mom from Connecticut who’s trying to do what’s right by my family and other families.

Parents don’t have a highly paid lobbyist. It’s just us, and that’s how millions of parents across America feel. Those who depend on a system to make a living will do anything to defend that system. Be wary. Be skeptical. Be there for us as we parents will be there for you — working side-by-side.

I’ve always believed that families need to be part of a student’s academic journey, and the research supports my belief. That’s why I founded the Connecticut Parents Union, and that’s why I’ll keep fighting for my kids, kids in our home state and kids across the nation.

If we’re not doing everything we can to put power in the hands of parents — you from Washington, me back here in Meriden — then we’re not doing our jobs. Our kids deserve the best we as adults have to offer them to ensure a self-governing, hopeful future.

January 7, 2021 1 comment
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Advocate VoicesCommentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedParent EmpowermentPodcast

podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews American Federation for Children president, CEO Tommy Schultz

redefinED staff January 6, 2021
redefinED staff

On this episode, Tuthill begins a conversation with Schultz, incoming leader of the American Federation for Children, a national advocacy organization focused on state-level systemic change that advocates for legislation to expand education choice opportunities, particularly for low-income families.

https://www.redefinedonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Tommy-SchultzPt1_EDIT.mp3

Schultz, who grew up on a farm in rural California and attended high school 60 miles from home, discusses how education choice impacted him and shares his belief that the COVID-19 pandemic has awakened many people to inequities in the modern public education system. These inequities, Schultz proposes, create an uneven playing field for many families that must be addressed by robust legislation to assist families in customizing their children’s education to best serve their needs.

“Hearing sentiments from students that we’ve been able to help, especially from lower-income communities where they’ve said their education changed the course of their family’s life … to me it gets to the fundamental core of our work.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

The mission of the American Federation for Children, Schultz’s background, and his start in the education choice movement

Schultz’s priorities as he takes the helm at AFC

Why Schultz made the decision to move AFC’s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Dallas and the future of choice in Texas

How the COVID-19 pandemic will impact and shape education choice legislation

LINKS MENTIONED:

AFC’s Voices for Choice advocacy program

Be sure to return next week for Part 2 of Tuthill’s interview with Schultz.

January 6, 2021 0 comment
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CourtsEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation LegislationFeaturedNewsParent EmpowermentParental ChoicePrivate SchoolsReligious 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
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Advocate VoicesEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFamily Empowerment ScholarshipFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipGardiner ScholarshipNewsParent EmpowermentParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsProgressives and ed reformSchool Choice

redefinED’s best of 2020: Two decades of dedication, focus result in new landmark for Step Up For Students

Lisa Buie December 23, 2020
Lisa Buie

Martin Luther King III led a rally in January 2016 that drew more than 10,000 people to Tallahassee in support of education choice in response to a lawsuit brought by the Florida Education Association demanding that the courts shut down scholarship programs in the state.

Editor’s note: During the holiday season, redefinED is reprising the “best of the best” from our 2020 archives. This post originally published Oct. 14.

Nearly two decades after Step Up For Students began awarding tax credit scholarships for lower-income students to fulfill their school choice dreams, the organization is marking another milestone: the funding of its 1-millionth scholarship.

Over the years, as the concept of education choice has evolved, the scholarship offerings managed by Step Up For Students have changed to fit families’ needs. Today, students can choose from a variety of offerings ranging from the original tax credit scholarship to a flexible spending account for students with special needs to scholarships for victims of bullying. There’s even a scholarship for public school students who need help with reading skills.

“I’ve said from the very beginning my goal was that someday every low-income and working-class family could choose the learning environment that is best for their children just like families with money already do,” said John F. Kirtley, founder of Step Up for Students, the state’s largest K-12 scholarship funding organization and host of this blog.

Kirtley started a private, nonprofit forerunner to Step Up For Students in 1998 and since then has experienced all the milestones and challenges leading up to the millionth scholarship.

At the beginning, “It was just me, and I had enough money to fund 350 scholarships,” recalled Kirtley, who can recite statistics about the scholarship program the way a baseball fan quotes facts and figures about a favorite player.

Soon after, he learned of a new national non-profit, the Children’s Scholarship Fund, started by John Walton of the famous retail family and Ted Forstmann, chairman and CEO of a Wall Street firm.  Kirtley connected with that group, which was seeking to match funds raised by partners in different states for economically disadvantaged families to send their children to private schools of their choice.

“We hardly did any advertising at all,” Kirtley said. “It was just me walking around to churches and housing projects talking about the program.”

Truth be told, he didn’t need glitzy marketing. The program drew 12,000 applications in just four months, confirming what Kirtley already suspected: Parents of modest means wanted the best education for their children just as much as people who could afford to pay private school tuition or buy homes in desirable neighborhoods.

In 2001, Kirtley took his pitch to Gov. Jeb Bush, House Speaker Tom Feeney and Senate President John McKay, all of whom strongly supported the creation of the Florida Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship program. When the program, capped at $50 million, began awarding scholarships worth $3,500 in 2002, there were just 15,000 scholarship students. Joe Negron, who sponsored the bill while serving as a state representative and later supported scholarship expansion as a state senator, recalled the strategy he employed to get the bill passed.

“My best argument was that the liberal establishment also supported school choice – for their children, but not for families with modest means,” said Negron, who is now a business executive. “In addition, the personal stories from parents whose students were benefitting from the privately funded program were very powerful.”

High demand created wait lists, prompting lawmakers to raise the cap to $88 million in 2005. The next year, the award increased from $3,500 to $3,750. The state required students to take a nationally norm-referenced test to ensure accountability.

Families kept coming. By 2009, the cap stood at $118 million, with awards at $3,950. Despite the increases, the state’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability reported that the program had saved taxpayers $38.9 million in 2007-08.

Shortly after the program was renamed the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, the first state-commissioned evaluation report showed students on the program in 2007-08 experienced learning gains at the same pace as all students nationally. Then in 2010, with bipartisan support, the Legislature approved a major expansion of the program. The bill allowed tax credits for alcoholic beverage excise, direct pay sales and use, and oil and gas severance taxes. The program also could grow with demand.

The Legislature returned again in 2014 to provide another significant boost in response to growing demand, prompting the Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, to bring a lawsuit demanding that the courts shut down the program.  Education choice supporters responded with a rally that drew more than 10,000 people to the steps of the state Capitol, including Martin Luther King III, son of civil rights icon Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 

King told the crowd, more than 1,000 of whom had ridden buses all night from Miami to attend: “Ultimately, if the courts have to decide, the courts will be on the side of justice. Because this is about justice, this is about freedom—the freedom to choose what’s best for your family, and your child.”

The lawsuit failed in two lower courts and ultimately was rejected by the Florida Supreme Court in 2017.

The Tax Credit Scholarship was joined in 2014 by an attempt to give educational flexibility to students with severe special needs. Florida became the second state in the nation after Arizona to offer educational savings accounts to such students. Named the Gardiner Scholarship program in 2016 in honor of state Sen. Andy Gardiner, a strong supporter who shepherded the bill through the legislative process, the accounts could be used to reimburse parents for therapies or other educational needs for their children.

The state set aside $18.4 million for the program, enough for an estimated 1,800 students. A scant three months later, 1,000 scholarships had been awarded, and parents had started another nearly 3,700 applications. By 2019, the program was serving more than 10,000 students, making it the largest program of its kind in the nation.

Understanding the need for expanding the program so more families could participate, Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2020 approved a $42 million increase to the program, bringing the total allocation to nearly $190 million. The program which served 14,000 students during the 2019-20 school year, expects to serve approximately 17,000 students during the 2020-21 school year.

Choice programs also expanded in 2018 to help two groups of students dealing with challenges. The Hope Scholarship program became the first of its kind in the nation to offer relief to victims of bullying by allowing them to leave their public school for a participating private school. Reading Scholarship Accounts were aimed at helping public elementary school students who were struggling with reading.

Meanwhile, growing demand among lower-income families for Florida Tax Credit Scholarships prompted the Legislature to create the Family Empowerment Scholarship program in 2019. The program operates similarly to the tax credit scholarship program but is funded through the state budget.

Today, the five scholarships serve approximately 150,000 Florida students. As the number of students in the programs has grown, so have educational options available to them.

Charter schools, magnet schools, homeschools and co-ops, learning pods and micro-schools all address different needs. About 40% of students in Florida now choose an option other than their traditional zoned schools. In the Miami Dade district, the state’s largest, that figure is more than 70%.

Step Up For Students founder Kirtley sees a vital need to keep pace with that evolution and to eliminate the inequities these new programs can create for those of modest means.

“I have changed my stated goal to ‘Every lower-income and working-class family can customize their children’s education so they reach their full potential,’ ” Kirtley said, “just like families with more money do.”

December 23, 2020 0 comment
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Education and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedNewsParent EmpowermentParental ChoicePublic School ChoiceSchool Choice

Legislation that would put holding back students in parents’ hands draws praise from Florida mom

Lisa Buie December 14, 2020
Lisa Buie

Brody Cholnik’s mother, Nicole, chose to send the 5-year-old to a private school so she could retain control of her choice to decide if he should repeat kindergarten. New legislation could put that choice in the hands of public school families.

When Nicole Cholnik learned earlier this year that her 5-year-old son’s district school principal would get the final say in whether he would be allowed to repeat kindergarten, she took matters into their own hands and enrolled him in a private Montessori kindergarten program.

“We thought out of the box,” said Cholnik, who was dismayed to learn that she and her husband would have no say next year in what would happen to Brody, who had struggled during online pre-kindergarten when the coronavirus pandemic began in the spring.

But a bill filed by state Sen. Lori Berman, D-Boynton Beach, would prevent other parents from having to pay out of pocket for private school if they disagreed with a principal’s decision. SB 200 would let parents decide whether their children need to repeat a grade next year.

The bill follows through on an announcement that Gov. Ron DeSantis made last spring that parents would be allowed to hold their children back a grade in the fall if they had concerns about learning losses from online instruction.

DeSantis did not issue an executive order, and later guidance from Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran softened the governor’s stance by recognizing that while parents have a right to provide input, the final decision regarding student retention rests with school officials.

Berman’s bill would secure that authority for parents, which came as welcome news to Cholnik.

Private kindergarten has alleviated stress for the family and has allowed Brody’s teachers to pursue different approaches to find out the best method of education for him, she said. Most important, it ensures that she and her husband will be the ones to decide whether he begins the 2021-22 school year at his district school as a first-grader or a kindergartener.

“We know our kids best,” she said. “We should have a say in our kids’ future.”

December 14, 2020 0 comment
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Commentary and OpinionDemographic ResearchEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation LegislationFeaturedHope ScholarshipParent EmpowermentParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Manhattan Institute releases report on Florida Hope Scholarship Program

Matthew Ladner November 25, 2020
Matthew Ladner

Manhattan Institute senior fellow Max Eden recently authored a report on the legislative origins and history of the first education choice program for students who have experienced bullying in public schools.

In the report, Eden wrote:

“Education reformers have long lamented America’s persistent racial and socioeconomic achievement gap and framed school choice as a means to provide low-income students of color trapped in failing schools with a ticket to a better education. Yet when parents who participate in school choice programs in states like Georgia or Indiana have been surveyed, at least half of them cite safety as a primary motivating factor.”

Eden familiarized himself with the subject of bullying in Florida public schools when he co-authored the book Why Meadow Died about the Parkland, Florida, school shooting. Why Meadow Died lays out a methodical case regarding the dozens of times a disturbed and violent public school student has been mishandled by school and police authorities before finally going on a murder spree.

In this new report, Eden more happily profiles a program designed to allow the victims of bullying to escape from their tormentors. He writes:

“The Speaker’s office noticed that they were receiving e-mails from parents who were upset at the school’s inability to protect their kids. Parents were saying, ‘This has been happening for years, and they do nothing. They just, at most, give the kid a detention or an in-school suspension and say, ‘That’s the most we can do.’

“Corcoran and his staff reviewed data from Florida’s School Environmental Safety Incident Reporting (SESIR) system, which showed 47,000 incidents in the latest reported year (2015–16) — a figure they felt certain represented only a small fraction of the total. They estimated that there could be as many as 100,000 victims of bullying and abuse. ‘We started brainstorming,’ Ochs says. ‘What could we do? There were already policies in place to address bullying. Maybe we could increase the penalties based on the number and type of an incident? Then a lightbulb just kind of went on for us: this fits with the school choice paradigm. We need to empower parents. They just want their kids protected, and that’s not always happening, so we need to give them the power to force the school’s hand or just get their kid to a safer environment.’ ”

The report quotes several families whose lives have been transformed by the program. One parent described their child as having previously been through “daily torture” while another described a public school whose discipline was so ineffective that that the family sought and received a restraining order from a judge.

In Year 2 of existence, the Hope Scholarship remains a small program. A lack of public awareness and a seeming unwillingness on the part of school district officials to follow the law seem to be contributing factors.

A spring 2020 survey of participating parents by Florida State University’s Learning Systems Institute found that about 70% of respondents learned of the Hope Scholarship on their own or from a third party, not from the school district that had a legal obligation to inform them of it. Some parents reported resistance from public school officials. According to one parent, “The school seemed very hesitant to give me the form. I had to go to the office and basically demand it and make them sign it.”

Another group of parents indicated that the school had refused to acknowledge that bullying had occurred. One parent indicated “the Hope notification form was a challenge because the principal and dean at [school name redacted] refused to acknowledge that the bullying was taking place. They refused to communicate with me in a timely manner. I had to make threats to go to the school board commissioner to get them to respond to the bullying issues.”

While Florida’s bullied children have access to a variety of education choice programs beyond the Hope Scholarship, the Florida Legislature should make this program more accessible. Expecting district school principals to investigate and acknowledge in writing that bullying may be occurring in their schools is unrealistic and is an obstacle that few families are able to overcome.

A program for bullied children would be substantially more useful if it were not so easily thwarted.

November 25, 2020 0 comment
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