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    • Voices for Education Choice
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    • Virtual Education
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    • Podcasts
  • Guest Bloggers
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    • Jonathan Butcher
    • Jack Coons
    • Dan Lips
    • Chris Stewart
    • Patrick J. Wolf
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Parent Voices

Charter SchoolsCommentary and OpinionCustomizationDemographic ResearchEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedParent VoicesSchool Choice

Florida can drive fast and freeze out the Texans

Matthew Ladner March 1, 2021
Matthew Ladner

The American economy suffered greatly during the 1970s, with Texas being an exception.

While most of country struggled with unemployment and inflation, Texas struggled with breakneck population growth from people moving in. Drivers experienced overnight traffic jams on Texas freeways, and the classified advertisement section of the Houston Chronicle was an eagerly sought aid to many would-be job seekers nationally.

“Drive fast, freeze a Yankee” bumper-stickers were quite the thing in Texas back in those heady days.

The Texas oil industry didn’t much care for federal price controls on heating oil and natural gas. Milton Friedman famously joked that if you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert in five years there would be a shortage of sand.

Like clockwork, they did the same for oil and gas outside of Texas, whose internal distribution laid beyond the reach of Congressional interstate commerce authority. Recently, however, it was Texans who froze as their Texas-only power grid failed in the grips of a winter storm. Besides the obvious lesson (karma) Floridians should view the Texas power fiasco as an example not to follow (more on that below) and an opportunity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an accelerant of pre-existing trends. If you have anything to say to beloved institutions such as shopping malls and print newspapers, best to say it now.

One of the clearly accelerated trends has been the decline of the state of New York and the rise of Florida and Texas. New York had quite the run as the financial and cultural capital of the United States and then the world as a whole. It has bounced back before, but in a column in last week’s Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan laid out a case not to assume it will bounce back this time:

The Partnership for New York City reports 300,000 residents of high-income neighborhoods have filed change-of-address forms with the U.S. Postal Service. You know where they are going: to lower-tax and no-income-tax states, those that have a friendlier attitude toward money making and that presumably aren’t going hard-left. Florida has gotten so cheeky that this month its chief financial officer sent a letter inviting the New York Stock Exchange to relocate to Miami.

New York needs to hold on to the wealthy—the top 5% percent in New York pay 62% of state income taxes—and force down crime. If you tax the rich a little higher, most will stay: There’s a lot of loyalty to New York, a lot of psychic and financial investment in it. But if you tax them higher for the privilege of being attacked on the street by a homeless man in a psychotic episode, they will leave. Because, you know, they’re human.

The New York Stock Exchange in Miami? Might as well follow all the former New Yorkers there.

New York produces bad public services at extremely high costs and it’s been losing population to Florida for decades. Despite New York’s former greatness, as a competitor to Florida, it’s yesterday’s news. Florida and Texas, meanwhile, are rising, and Texas makes for a far more formidable opponent moving forward.

As a Texan living abroad (in Arizona) I will tell you the advantages Florida has over Texas in an Alcibiades-advising-the-Spartans type fashion.

Texas has an abundance of strengths: a huge amount of privately held land (unlike the remainder of the American west), abundant natural resources, a wildly innovative private sector and the friendly attitude towards money-making Noonan referenced.

Texas has access to the ocean and has largely succeeded at making diversity a strength of its growing society. It’s no accident that it was a Texan who revolutionized global energy markets. If you are going to compete with Texas, you had better bring your A-game.

Florida also, however, has many of these strengths, and something that Texas (alas) lacks: a willingness to do the hard work of innovation in the public sector. K-12 reform in Texas, as an example, emphasized testing over setting families free, while the Florida model emphasized both improvement strategies.

Additionally, Texas has no equivalent of the Florida Virtual School, no private choice programs, and caps on enrollment for charter schools.

The Texas effort at improving K-12 outcomes through testing collapsed in 2013, and as far as I can tell, nothing approaching a real strategy is under serious discussion. While Florida lawmakers pioneered allowing children with disabilities to choose private schools through the McKay and subsequently the Gardiner Scholarship programs, the Texas Education Agency shamefully created covert caps on public school students receiving special education services at all.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the former came despite the objections of incumbent interests, and the latter with the complicity of incumbents.

You may recall the academic growth chart for Texas charter schools that accompanied last week’s post. Green is high growth, blue is low growth, and only Texas charter schools are in the chart reprinted below. Now, ask yourself: Does this look like something you want to cap?

Well, it does if you are a Texas school board or an education union lobbyist. They want to keep Texas charter schools capped regardless of the value they bring to Texas families and taxpayers. They have routinely prevailed in such efforts.

Now, back to the Texas power grid failure.

It was both predicted in advance and entirely inevitable, the result of bad public policy. A legislative effort was made in 2011 to move toward fortifying the Texas grid and energy production against cold weather, but it was blocked (with sad predictability) by incumbent interests.

Incumbent interests also routinely block efforts at meaningful education reform in Texas. The Texas public sector accordingly lacks the vitality of the Texas private sector- more like New York in this regard than Florida.

In an age where states compete not just for companies but also remote workers, innovation in the public sector can be an important advantage. When it comes to expanding education and other freedoms, Florida should drive fast and freeze out the Texans.

Or, as the new Texas Longhorn Football coach Steve Sarkisian puts it, Florida lawmakers should go #AllGasNoBrakes on expanding freedom.

March 1, 2021 0 comment
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Advocate VoicesCommentary and OpinionCommunity LeadersCustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedMicroschoolsParent EmpowermentParent VoicesSchool ChoiceVoices for Education Choice

Micro-schools could be answer for low-income Black students

Special to redefinED February 27, 2021
Special to redefinED

Glenton Gilzean speaking in September on a podcast about his early entrepreneurial experiences. Listen to the full interview at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3417597471621950.

Editor’s note: This commentary from Glenton Gilzean Jr., president and CEO of the Central Florida Urban League and former Pinellas County School Board member and Florida A&M trustee, appeared earlier today in the Orlando Sentinel.

 When I became president and CEO of the Central Florida Urban League, it was clear that our community faced some incredible challenges. Yet, I always believed that the path forward began with education.

Generational poverty stems from a vicious cycle that we’re all too familiar with. While our organization has helped upskill thousands to compete for high-paying, high-skilled jobs, this is a Band-Aid solution. If our goal is to end this cycle, our fight must begin with children.

For generations, children in low-income Black communities have endured a sub-par education model and these underperforming schools not only hurt our children, but our entire community.

According to the Orlando Economic Partnership, the average net worth for Black adults in Central Florida is less than $18,000 annually, compared to more than $215,000 for white adults. This overt discrepancy is a direct result of a failing education system. Without innovation, these failures will continue to compound as parents are forced to choose between feeding their families and supplementing their children’s education.

With a lack of support both at home and in school, the interest of our children to engage in their learning wanes. While I believe that every child is born with a thirst for knowledge, those in our community are born into a drought with no end in sight.

We can change this. Imagine a school with only a handful of students, learning in a safe and welcoming environment. With such small numbers, their teacher can work with each student, developing and following a personalized learning plan.

Aptly called micro-schools, this is the reality for those with means. But if the state passes a new education choice bill, this can become a reality for those in underserved communities too. Simply put: the low-income Black children who need them the most.

Senate Bill 48, sponsored by Sen. Manny Diaz Jr. (R-Hialeah Gardens), combines five education scholarship programs into two. The bill also extends the use of education savings accounts (ESAs), currently only available to the Gardiner Scholarship for special-needs students and the Reading Scholarship, to the newly merged income-based scholarships.

These accounts could be used to cover private-school tuition, technology, tutoring, curriculum and other approved items. Families would have the flexibility to spend their education dollars, providing them access to the learning environment that best fits their children’s needs.

This bill puts us on the cusp of providing these youth with a high-quality learning environment that will begin to close both the historical achievement gap, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the growing COVID-19 learning gap.

The past year has demonstrated that, now more than ever, families require educational options. Most children have regressed, struggling to maintain even the most basic curriculum. Throwing these students back into an unsuccessful system will further exacerbate their situation.

While the benefits for our youth are clear, micro-schools also provide economic opportunities. If parents have the freedom to spend their children’s education dollars through ESAs, they will demand providers that meet their needs. Entrepreneurs will invest in our communities and this cannot be understated.

As a result of the pandemic, over 40% of Black-owned businesses have closed, while the Black unemployment rate is hovering around 10%, four points higher than the state average. Networks of micro-schools would not only our lift up our children, but their families too.

My organization knows first-hand the success of ESAs. The Urban League partnered with several Orange County Public Schools to register more than 700 students to receive supplemental tutoring funded by the Florida Reading Scholarship. This was a blessing for parents who were unable to afford tutoring for their children.

We now have the opportunity to take ESAs to the next level and positively impact not hundreds, but thousands of children. I pray that our elected representatives listen to their constituents. Please fund students over systems, put money in the hands of parents who know what’s best for their children, and bring micro-schools to communities that desperately need them.

February 27, 2021 0 comment
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A parent’s perspective: Unwrapping the Senate HELP confirmation hearing of Miguel Cardona

Gwen Samuel February 17, 2021
Gwen Samuel

Editor’s note: redefinED is pleased to introduce our newest guest blogger, Gwen Samuel, founder and president of the Connecticut Parents Union. Samuel will be a regular contributor to redefinED.

February 3 was a very reflective day for this Black Connecticut mom.

There were virtual celebrations across the country honoring past and present Black leaders, of all ages, as part of Black History Month, a time during which President Gerald R. Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

I personally rang in my double nickel birthday—55 years on this earth, much of it as a mom and grandma trying to make my home, my community, my state and my country a better place as an unapologetic activist and advocate for safe, quality educational opportunities for all children.

A few hundred miles down the road in Washington, D.C., Dr. Miguel Cardona—Connecticut’s first Latino Commissioner of Education—found himself sitting in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) answering questions in a confirmation hearing to become the next U.S. Secretary of Education.

As I contemplated the past, I found myself wanting to be so excited for the future. I thought to myself, “Yes, this Senate U.S. Secretary of Education confirmation hearing could be the best birthday gift ever!”

Finally, the voices of parents, students and families will be paramount and encouraged under the new Biden-Harris administration as education decision-makers realize that “one size fits all children” schooling has never been a best practice or sustainable solution to meet the diverse learning styles and needs of the millions of America’s children.

What could demonstrate this more clearly than the deadly COVID-19 pandemic that continues to exacerbate the many inequalities that have always existed within public education throughout the United States?

That is the message I hoped to hear as I listened intently to the senators questioning Dr. Cardona. What I heard instead were more paternalistic talking points and rhetoric, the episodic, unfulfilled promises that families—especially Black families—have heard for years, from one administration to the next.

Families and parents were mentioned so infrequently during the hearing that one would think “we” are not part of the “us” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) kept referring to. The way they were talking, you might think our children are born to classrooms, not into actual families.

Said Sen. Murray: “We have a lot of work to do, we have an excellent candidate to help us get it done, and we have no time to waste. Any senator who has heard from a parent who wants to get their child back to the classroom safely — and I am sure everyone has — should vote to advance and confirm Dr. Cardona, without hesitation. And I’m hopeful when the time comes, they will do just that.”

Obviously, we need to place a priority on the safe reopening of schools, but that’s not a progressive agenda in itself. As a former track runner in high school, I see it more as a hurdle that we need to clear so we can get to the more important conversations about our kids:

Are we doing everything in our power to get them the quality K-12 opportunities they deserve and are legally entitled to?

Let us talk facts. The Constitution and its protections do not end at the school-house door!

It’s true that parents are concerned about their kids getting back to school, though 44% say they would like to continue a mix of school and home learning after the pandemic, according to recent polling data from EdChoice and Morning Consult. That preference jumps to 64% among private school parents.

That’s a data point worth talking about in the context of how this pandemic has changed our lives forever — and why the input of parents and families matters to help ensure an equitable delivery of educational opportunities across our country — regardless of race, zip code or income level.

Instead, the politicians only seem to be able to focus on which political party is better, bickering about ideologies, quick-fix vaccinations and HVAC systems. Why are they not talking about money following each child to a school or a schooling option that best meets their academic and life needs?

Why are we not talking about a massive, nationwide tutoring effort to combat critical learning loss? Why are we not talking about whether we need all these aging school buildings or if there might be different ways or places to efficiently and effectively educate our country’s future leaders — our kids?

It has been almost one year since our country engaged in mass school closures, and we are still trying to apply pre-pandemic educational solutions to what will be a post-pandemic education landscape. This business as usual approach has resulted in millions of  children across the U.S. not having received any formal education since their schools closed in March, a sobering new estimate of the havoc the coronavirus pandemic is wreaking on the country’s most vulnerable students.

If you were looking for a commitment from education decision-makers to really listen to families back in that Feb. 3 hearing, you probably were as disappointed as I was.

What I did not hear was that families that look like mine would be more than window dressing under this administration. I did not hear that diverse parents would be at the decision-making table alongside those we voted into office.

This would change the business-as-usual practice of the status quo long deciding what’s best for us even though we are supposedly free to choose. I did not hear about an education revolution that will break down barriers and upend a K-12 framework designed for the wealthy.

In the coming days, months and years, Dr. Cardona has a chance to find his own voice, transform this one size fits some educational system from the inside out, and do what’s right for all families, not just the ones who’ve been blessed with privilege and connections. Many parents like me will not stop fighting until we reach that day.

To quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes through continuous struggle.”

I hope that in a year’s time, on my next birthday, I can write that our struggle for educational freedom — which is a form of justice and the persistent fight for our kids and their kids and grandkids’ future — led to change that started at the bottom and rippled out to every single family in this country.

Only then will this Black mom be satisfied. Only then will I be able to congratulate our elected officials and Dr. Cardona on a job well done.

February 17, 2021 0 comment
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Commentary: School choice helps Florida families

Special to redefinED February 16, 2021
Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This post from longtime Sarasota resident, mother and special education teacher Keri Zane appeared earlier today in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

As a mother with a daughter on the Gardiner Scholarship for special needs students, I was puzzled by Carol Lerner’s recent column criticizing a proposal to give parents more educational choices for their children.

Lerner wrote that while “vouchers fund only private schools, education savings accounts can fund so much more.” Yes, and thank goodness for that! 

I’m a single mom and a special needs teacher raising three children.

My oldest child, Avaryanna, is 11 years old; she is severely dyslexic and has attention deficit disorder, as well as anaphylaxis and auditory and sensory processing disorder. She has been on the Gardiner Scholarship for four years.

Her brother, Victor – who is 9 years old – is also dyslexic; he is on the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for lower-income students. My youngest child, LeeEmry, is 4 years old and in voluntary pre-kindergarten. I already detect early signs of dyslexia in LeeEmry, and I will seek to get her on the tax credit scholarship when she starts kindergarten.

The scholarships have allowed me to put my kids in one school, Dunn Prep/Woodland Early Childhood Center, that best meets their learning needs. And it also helps me with my busy schedule: I don’t have to run around to different schools for each child.

The Gardiner program stands apart in Florida in that it operates as an education savings account, which allows parents to spend their children’s scholarship dollars on a wide variety of things – private school tuition, educational materials, therapies and other services – so that learning can be customized to suit a student’s individual needs. I believe that the Gardiner program’s flexible spending approach should be applied to other education scholarships in our state.

Children have so many unique learning needs that it makes sense to give parents as many educational options as possible: public, private, homeschool, “pod” – whatever works. That seems especially important during this pandemic, which has forced brick-and-mortar classrooms to close – and forced children to do online learning at home.

That works for some kids, but it doesn’t work for others; they need alternatives.

I’ve relied on multiple choices for my children’s education. Avaryanna cannot function in a traditional classroom, so we tried a charter school for both her and Victor. But that didn’t work out, so I homeschooled Avaryanna and Victor for a period of time.

I wish I had known about the Gardiner Scholarship back then because it would have eased the financial burden on my family. I’m thankful that I discovered Dunn Prep, which has been a great fit for all my kids. And I’m grateful that a friend told me about Gardiner; it has been a blessing for my oldest daughter.

Gardiner helped me buy an iPad for Avaryanna, which she uses to access educational apps, online learning and other programs. I would love to be able to use a portion of Victor’s tax credit scholarship to also supplement his learning.

To quote Laura Weaver and Mark Wilding, authors of “The 5 Dimensions of Engaged Teaching,” “When students feel safe and supported, they are truly able and ready to learn.” To best achieve that we should make it easier for all parents to make the best educational decisions for their children – whether it’s choosing a public school, a private school, a homeschool or another option.

At the end of the day, what matters most is that our children, all our children, reach their full potential. That’s much more important than the type of school – or the type of educational program – that allows them to reach their full potential.

February 16, 2021 0 comment
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Commentary: Pass flexible savings account bill

Special to redefinED February 15, 2021
Special to redefinED

Nick and Keely Cogan are pictured at their Tallahassee home with their children, four of whom participate in the Gardiner Scholarship Program.

Editor’s note: This commentary from Nick Cogan of Tallahassee first appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat.

I’m a math professor at Florida State University. My wife Keely and I have seven children – three biological and four with special needs we adopted from China. Two have cerebral palsy, and two have Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita, a rare joint and limb condition.

All four are on the state’s Gardiner Scholarship, a flexible savings account that allows parents to spend their education dollars on the services such as school tuition, tutors, technology and curriculum that match their children’s unique needs. I don’t know where we would be without the scholarship. It has been a life-changer.

I believe all parents deserve the same opportunity.

Fortunately, a bill in the Florida Legislature would turn all the state’s school choice scholarships into flexible spending accounts like Gardiner. I hope it passes so more families can control their education dollars as they see fit.

We’ve used Gardiner for almost everything it’s been designed for. When we adopted our oldest son, Kai, he was an 11-year-old working on a first-grade level. It was hard to mainstream him. The public school district wanted to put him in fifth grade. Thankfully, we found a private school that was willing to put him with younger kids in a more academically appropriate environment. The Gardiner scholarship helped pay that private school tuition.

Later we decided to take Kai out of private school and homeschool him with his other siblings — Kade, Kassi and Karwen — who also attended a private school at one time or another. We rely on Gardiner to pay for books, curriculum, equipment and other educational supplies for all four kids.

Gardiner has made it possible for our children to receive the various physical and emotional therapies they require to develop. For instance, my daughter Kassi has made a lot of progress with her speech therapy. My health insurance covered only a limited amount of that therapy. Gardiner has ensured she gets the therapies that she needs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been highly disruptive to education, and my homeschooled family has not been spared its effects. We typically participate in homeschool co-ops with other families, but those sessions have been suspended during the pandemic. 

The Gardiner program gave us the means and the ability to swiftly respond to the crisis and direct our children’s education dollars into effective alternatives.  

We bought pre-built curricula so we could have a consistent set of tools at home. These included some online resources and “workbook”-type resources. These have features for languages and math that offer dynamic feedback for students. We started a Duolingo classroom for the kids to learn Ukrainian (we are in the last stages of adopting two children from the Ukraine). The classroom option does a good job of tracking progress for us. We bought ours from a family-run business, which just shows the diversity of resources out there. 

I am a strong supporter of public schools, but because of their special needs, our kids would not fit there. Gardiner gives us options that otherwise wouldn’t be available to us. That applies to other families as well, as each child has unique learning requirements. It’s important to be able to customize education for each child.

That’s why I urge lawmakers to pass the bill that converts state scholarships to flexible spending accounts. The pandemic has showed that, now more than ever, families need as many options as possible.

February 15, 2021 0 comment
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Commentary: More parents should have the learning options we have

Special to redefinED February 8, 2021
Special to redefinED

Eli Conner, shown here with his mother, Stephanie Conner, and his sister, Madeline, benefits from the flexibility offered by the Gardner Scholarship, Florida’s education savings account for students with special needs.

Editor’s note: This piece from Stephanie Conner, who lives in LaBelle, Florida, first published in the Naples Daily News.

My 14-year-old son Eli has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and other development delays, and he communicates mostly through sign language. A few years ago, he was anxious and struggling in public school. But then he got a state scholarship that changed everything.

Florida’s Gardiner Scholarship for students with special needs is an education savings account. It gives parents the power to create a learning program that is just right for their child, covering tuition, tutors, therapists, technology, curriculum, etc., in whatever combination works best. My husband and I used it to educate Eli through both home education and private school.

Eli was once far behind his academic potential, but now he is gaining ground, especially in reading. The sensory integration therapy he gets through scholarship funding has made it possible for him to learn in more settings, from field trips to classrooms, including the private school he attends part time.

For Eli, the scholarship has been life changing. And it would be life changing for more children if more families had what we have.

In Florida, that might happen.

In coming months, lawmakers will consider a proposal to convert the state’s school choice scholarships into education savings accounts. That will give tens of thousands of other families the kind of control over their children’s educations that we have. Especially now, in the midst of the pandemic, that ability to create as many options as possible makes sense.

Families like mine are sometimes called education pioneers, but we didn’t set out to be. I’m a former teacher, my husband is a teacher, and he comes from a family of teachers, including his father, a former superintendent in Hendry County. All four of our children use choice scholarships.

Our 10-year-old, Madeline, has been diagnosed with bilateral congenital deafness and also uses a Gardiner Scholarship. Our 6-year-olds, Meizi and Gideon, use the Family Empowerment Scholarship, which is available to low- and middle-income families.

We are grateful for both scholarships, but the flexibility of education savings accounts makes them especially nice. Before the Gardiner Scholarship, we considered moving from Hendry County so we could be closer to the therapists Eli needed. We agonized over that possibility, given all the family we have here. But the Gardiner Scholarship spared us.

Instead of relocating, I take Eli to Orlando several times a year for intensive therapy. The rest of the time, I work with Eli and Madeline at home, using the specialized tools we purchased with scholarship funds.

The scholarship pays for private school tuition too. Being in school is excellent for Eli, but full time would be too much. So, Eli goes part time to a loving school near our home, which is happy to offer part-time services.

Meizi and Gideon attend the school full time, while Madeline goes for PE. Last year, Eli attended for PE, lunch and a science/social studies class. This year, he added a keyboarding class, and the school adjusted tuition accordingly. When education savings accounts become more common, more families and schools will be able to benefit from similar opportunities.

Knowing every child is different, I think it makes sense for every child to have a learning program that accounts for those differences. The scholarships available to my family allow us to create that unique learning program, but they shouldn’t be limited to a few families.

Florida would be an even more beautiful place if more families could do the same.

February 8, 2021 0 comment
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Parental choice retention bill clears Senate Education Committee with bi-partisan support

Lisa Buie February 4, 2021
Lisa Buie

A bill that would allow parents to hold their children back a grade to make up for COVID-slide learning losses sailed through the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday.

S.B. 200, filed by state Sen. Lori Berman, D-Boynton Beach, would let parents of children in kindergarten through eighth grade make the decision to have the child repeat a grade only during the 2021-22 school year. Current law allows district school principals to make retention decisions. The law prompted one parent to pay out of pocket for her son to a private kindergarten so that she and her husband could decide whether he was ready for first grade.

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 formalize his intentions with an executive order, and later guidance from Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran recognized that while parents have a right to provide input, the final decision regarding student retention rests with school officials.

Berman filed her bill in response to parents’ concerns over the learning losses that occurred in March after the pandemic shuttered school campuses. Though all Florida district schools were required to open in August for full-time, in-person instruction, some families enrolled their children in online options that the districts could offer under an executive order from the DOE.

“We know that the COVID slide is real and troubling,” Berman told education committee members during the meeting. She cited data from Palm Beach County that showed the percentage of middle school F’s increased from 1.6 to 7.7% this past year.

Under the bill, parents with children enrolled in elementary and middle schools would have until June 30 to request from their district superintendent that their child repeat a grade next year. Superintendents would be required to approve all timely petitions and would have discretion over requests that are filed late.

Berman said she agreed to narrow the scope of the bill to exclude high schoolers ahead of Wednesday’s meeting after speaking with Corcoran, who expressed concerns about its effect on older students and athletes.

“One of the reasons why we amended the bill overall down to K-8 was so that we would not run into a lot of the issues that happened in high school with eligibility and things like parents wanting their child to attend prom,” Berman said in response to questions from Sen. Travis Hutson, R-St. Augustine, who asked if the bill could include provisions for retained students who were deemed ineligible to participate in activities as a result of their parents’ decision in 2021 to hold them back a year. Berman said she was open to considering it.

The bill cleared the committee by a 9-0 vote. Sen. Doug Broxson, R-Gulf Breeze, did not vote on the proposal.

The bill has two more committee hearings in the Senate. A companion bill is expected to be filed soon in the House by state Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton.

February 4, 2021 0 comment
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Commentary: In Florida, flexible education paves the way for promising futures

Special to redefinED February 2, 2021
Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This opinion piece from Kamden Kuhn, who lives in Tampa with her family, appeared this morning on the Tampa Bay Times.

When we adopted our son Malachi from an orphanage in Ethiopia five years ago, we didn’t fully understand the depth of the challenges a child with special needs faced.

Florida’s Gardiner Scholarship and its flexible spending has helped us overcome some of those obstacles.

Born with spina bifida, Malachi had limited access to both health care and education in Ethiopia. His caregivers did the best they could with what little they had.

Kamden Kuhn

Blessed with plenty, my husband and I wanted to play a very small role in Ethiopia’s orphan crisis by helping just one child, Malachi, receive the education, the health care and the family that he deserved.

Along our journey, we’ve encountered a community of support — sweet friends, family, doctors, nurses, therapists and teachers who have invested their time and resources to help Malachi. The Gardiner Scholarship — an education savings account program for students with special needs — has been a significant piece of that support system.

The Gardiner Scholarship gives families control over a flexible spending account which can be used to pay for tuition, fees, tutoring, curriculum, assistive technology and more.

A bill in the Florida Legislature would extend those opportunities to more families by turning all the state’s education choice scholarships into flexible spending accounts similar to Gardiner. Imagine the possibilities of matching resources chosen by parents to the specific needs we see in our children.

Continue reading here.

February 2, 2021 0 comment
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