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American Federation for Children

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podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews American Federation for Children president, CEO Tommy Schultz, Part 2

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

On this episode, Tuthill continues 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.

In addition to discussing Schultz’s optimism and where he sees the choice movement heading over the next several years, they review recent election results in various states that point to the opportunity for enactment of choice policies like Florida’s and the strategic investments AFC intends to make to help bring those policies to fruition.

“This is about solving poverty, the first link in the chain of something we can get right that can course-correct some of these issues that have been exposed over the past few decades in our country.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

·       Schultz’s optimism that millions of families are waking up to new possibilities and the desire for a new consensus around the definition of public education

·       The leverage families have in exerting influence over the education system

·       AFC’s strategic investments in states poised to enact reform

·       Book recommendations and the importance of systems and systematic thinking

You can listen to Part 1 of Tuthill’s interview with Schultz here.

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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
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.

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.

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AnalysisEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFamily Empowerment ScholarshipFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipGardiner ScholarshipMcKay ScholarshipNewsParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool ChoiceTax Credit Scholarships

Florida K-12 scholarship programs earn top rankings in national guidebook

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

Five Florida K-12 scholarship programs have landed in the top tier of education choice programs ranked by a national school choice advocacy group.

The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and the McKay Scholarship programs each took top honors in their respective categories in rankings released today by the American Federation for Children.

The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship  program, which serves lower-income families, finished first out of 20 in rankings of tax credit scholarship programs across the United States, followed by Florida’s Hope Scholarship program, which allows students who have been bullied in public schools to transfer to participating private schools.

The McKay Scholarship program for students with disabilities, which is open to all students who are on individualized education plans or other plans approved by law, took the No. 1 spot out of 17 programs in the special education category. The Gardiner Scholarship, an educational savings account that serves students with unique abilities and certain special needs, ranked fifth.

The Family  Empowerment Scholarship  program, which was approved by the Florida Legislature in 2018 and began serving families during the 2019-20 school year, ranked fourth on the list of the nation’s scholarship programs. In its first year, scholarships were awarded to 17,802 students.

Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, helps manage all but the McKay Scholarship, which is administered by the Florida Department of Education. John F. Kirtley, the founder of Step Up For Students, is vice president of the organization’s 12-member board of directors.

“We were amazed to see that the Florida Family Empowerment program came so close to meeting its 18,000-student enrollment cap in 2019-20, the program’s first year of operation,” American Federation for Children officials said in a news release. “In response to the popularity of this program, Florida legislators raised the enrollment cap to 46,000 students; Florida is now reporting that over 32,000 students are enrolled in the program for the 2020-21 school year, all of whom meet the lower-income requirements for participating families.”

Each year, AFC compiles a guidebook of comprehensive information on private school choice programs in America. Today, those programs serve more than 575,000 children in 26 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The organization’s leaders say the goal is for the guidebook is to serve as a resource for those looking to better understand educational choice and to advocate for new and improved private school choice policies in 2021.

AFC rankings were based on information primarily from the 2019-20 school year. The group singled out Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio for their impressive growth in education choice programs.

“One commonality across these three states … is a strong nonprofit organization on the ground that does both legislative advocacy and parent empowerment work,” the news release said. “Creating strong educational ecosystems takes coordinated work at all levels, starting with parents and going all the way to governors.

“In the midst of so much uncertainty about the future of our education system, we’re happy to see that some of these ecosystems seem to be working for the best interest of kids.”

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AnalysisCoronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedParental ChoiceSchool Choice

New poll: Support for school choice continues to grow

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

A survey of 2,020 registered voters conducted by RealClear Opinion Research indicates support for school choice is surging as families become increasingly frustrated with district schools’ response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Since April, overall support for the concept of school choice among families with children in public schools has jumped 10 percentage points, from 67% to 77% according to poll results released today.

That support is relatively even across political lines, with 76% of Republicans, 73% of Independents and 72% of Democrats responding affirmatively that they would support giving parents a portion of the $15,424 per student the average American taxpayer spends on K-12 public education for home, virtual or private education if public schools do not reopen for in-person classes.

Additionally, 78% of public school parents and 79% of non-public school parents said they would support the governor of their state putting federal funding for the purchase of education technology and materials, private school tuition and home education directly in the hands of families and allowing them to choose how to use those funds to support their child’s education.

Support for this effort also was evenly distributed among party lines, with 68% of Republicans, 68% of Independents, and 66% of Democrats agreeing.

“The inflexibility of our K-12 system is on full display, leaving families to scramble as the special interests that have controlled our public education system for generations continue to oppose giving families and students greater educational choice,” said John Schilling, president of the American Federation for Children. “It could not be more clear that families are desperate for other options and will support governors and other policymakers as they pursue policies that let them control their child’s education funding.”

The RealClear poll was conducted Aug. 19-21 and carries a margin of error of +/1 2.4%.

More school choice polling can be found here.

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DeVos school choice Nashville
Advocate VoicesProgressives and ed reformSchool Choice

Commentary: “What do you think of Betsy?”

Catherine Durkin Robinson
Catherine Durkin Robinson

“What do you think of Betsy DeVos?”

I get this question a lot. Family members and longtime friends know me as a left-wing activist with over 30 years of experience advocating for everything from women’s reproductive rights to environmental causes to gun control.

I’m a card-carrying member of the ACLU.

My loved ones trust me.

I’m one of them.

A professional, liberal rabble-rouser.

Surely I hate U.S. Secretary of Education DeVos.

Right?

Wrong.

While I hold many of the most socialist views, I’m adamantly and unapologetically pro-school choice. As executive director of Florida Parent Network, I’ve been helping families protect and defend their choices for over six years.

I consider myself a progressive and yet support a movement that most progressive politicians oppose.

It’s hard for those who see things in tribal terms to come to grips with this idea.

I don’t have a problem with it.

I’ve been thinking for myself for years.

But I get it. There are so many issues, movements and campaigns out there, bombarding us with information every day, and we’re all fatigued by it. Most just want to know where their political leaders and champions come down on an issue. That’s how they know where they stand as well.

It’s not that they’re lazy or uninterested.

They’re overwhelmed.

I’m Irish and Jewish. A pro-choice feminist from a strong pro-life family. I’m a vegetarian who cooks chicken for friends and loved ones. I’m an anti-capitalist who routinely partners with Americans for Prosperity. I’m the granddaughter of Teamsters who thinks the teachers unions have done serious harm to American education.

I volunteer for Bernie Sanders.

I’m overwhelmed, too, but I don’t get to rely on my political heroes because I don’t have any. I don’t enjoy the privilege of deferring to someone else’s judgment.

I must research and dig for answers to find out how I think.

This means I’m exhausted most of the time.

I was fortunate this week to attend the American Federation for Children’s annual summit in Chicago, networking with educational choice activists from all over the country.

Our education secretary was the keynote speaker.

Here comes that question again.

What do I think of Betsy DeVos?

I like her.

This answer surprises everyone I know.

I agree with her on one issue, educational choice, but I find her agreeable in every way. In the few conversations we’ve had, she has proven herself to be open-minded, kind and generous.

My friends hate when I report this.

“You hardly like anyone, and you like her?”

My genuine and nuanced view of a divisive political figure causes those who trust me to think twice before dismissing someone based on what others think.

In this day and age, that’s a good thing.

Years ago, when Florida started the Gardiner Scholarship program, the Legislature didn’t allocate funding for Step Up for Students (which hosts this blog) to run it properly. Betsy made a personal donation to help us get started. It is a shame that parents, who’ve benefited from this program, have no idea how much she helped them.

She continues to work for children and families all over this country.

Betsy’s is an inclusive message, encouraging us to think outside the box about all the ways personalized learning can help our kids. At the AFC Summit Thursday night, she talked about post-high school learning, other than four-year colleges, that can open up a whole new world regarding career and technical education for our kids. She talked about establishing a federal tax credit scholarship program and the ways in which teachers should be able to control their own personal and professional development.

As she has often said, our movement is about more than vouchers.

I tell advocates in Florida that we don’t have to worry about the mess in D.C. and I follow that same advice. We are a statewide program. We don’t need to argue with opponents about Congress or the White House.

I liked and respected Betsy before she became education secretary and the mess that is D.C. has not changed that.

When asked about how she maintains civility and poise in the midst of such partisan vitriol and anger, Betsy said simply that she applies advice given to her by her father. Turn the page, he would say after challenging episodes. Keep moving. Start the next chapter.

That’s advice that will help all of us as we leave this summit of like-minded folks and tread back into a polarized country. I will keep thinking for myself and puzzling liberal loved ones. Betsy will continue advocating for those who need help the most. And all of us will keep moving.

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BipartisanshipDemographic ResearchSchool Choice

Poll shows increase in number of likely voters who support education choice

Donna Winchester
Donna Winchester

A national poll conducted by the American Federation for Children shows that support for school choice stands at 67 percent, a 4 percentage-point increase from a year ago.

The poll surveyed 1,200 likely November 2020 voters to determine general support and opposition, posing the question, “Generally speaking, would you say you favor or oppose the concept of school choice?”

Annual polls by the American Federation for Children shows overall support for school choice had held steady over the past five years, in some cases growing in popularity.

Among the two-thirds of respondents who said they favor school choice, 40 percent said they strongly support it.

Survey results, released Thursday, show that support for school choice is broad across demographic categories. Latinos lead with 73 percent, followed by Whites with 68 percent and African Americans with 67 percent.

Eighty percent of Republicans support school choice, up from 75 percent in 2018, compared with 56 percent of Democrats, up from 54 percent. Sixty-nine percent of Independents voiced support for choice, up from 62 percent in 2018.

Millennials continue to be the most robust supporters of school choice in terms of age groups, with 75 percent voicing approval. Parents and grandparents, including those with children in traditional public schools, back school choice by a 3-to-1 ratio.

The survey also polled families on their preference for private versus public schools. While 58 percent of respondents said their children attend a traditional public school, only 35 percent of them said public schools are their first choice of school. Meanwhile, 59 percent of respondents said they would prefer for their child to attend a different type of school, with 29 percent citing a religious school, 18 percent a private non-religious school and 11 percent a charter school.

Almost three in five respondents selected three or more actions from a list of possible personal sacrifices they would be willing to make to send their child to a private school for free. About half said they would be willing to drive their child 25 miles each way to school; 46 percent said they would be willing to move 10 miles; and 41 percent said they would be willing to change jobs.

This year marks the fifth year that the American Federation for Children has conducted its National School Choice Poll. The survey fielded Jan. 6-10 with interviews conducted on landline and cell phones in English and Spanish. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.

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Advocate VoicesBlog GuestSchool Choice

Coco Llenas: Wishing all families had education choice, now

Special to redefinED
Special to redefinED

By Hergit “Coco” Llenas

I wish tomorrow was here already. I wish we could look at today’s school system from the vantage point given from 30 years into the future.

Let’s imagine it is 2050, and in the United States of America every child, rich or poor, has access to a high-quality education, and the parents have become accustomed to deciding what is the best environment for their little ones. The arbitrary lines that forced a child to go to a particular school is a concept long gone and forgotten. In fact, people remember those rules and laugh at the absurdity of it all.

While taking a tour inside a gray, prison-like building turned into a museum of an old school, a child asks:

“Mom, who lived in these cages?”

“I don’t know,” Mom says. “I just don’t know how human innovation and imagination was cultivated in between these rows of chairs lined up like an assembly line.”

In silence, everybody in the tour group asks themselves: “Why did we allow this system to go unchecked for so long? For 150 years!”

“Well,” says the museum guide, as if he heard the group’s thoughts, “change may take forever if it does not come from the people. The people decide when it is time to crawl out of the sunken place and move into the light.”

If it is not serving you, my child, then GET OUT! That was the cry which inspired the ed-reformers. Those brave pioneers fought to provide a conduit for children trapped in schools that weren’t working for them, so they could flee to a new world in K-12 education, just like the underground railroad shifted slaves from captivity to freedom.

Finally, the system started to readjust, to accept the healthy co-existence of more and more school choices, until freedom of choice emerged as the new normal.

Change in public education came, just like change in other arenas, such as acceptance of biracial marriage, the right of women to vote, and the desegregation of schools. Oh, wait! …

Why is the achievement gap never closed? Why does the school-to-prison pipeline continue to be fed with dark-skinned youth? And why does the union fight so hard to stop progress from arriving?

The logic that supported the persistence of such a monolithic public school system would sound barbaric to the ears of the audience in 2050. Just like it sounds barbaric to us that in medieval times, doctors didn’t know about bacteria, and, as a result, went into surgery without ever washing their hands.

This Christmas, I have a wish: That we won’t have to wait 30 years to see that school choice has been on the right side of history all along.

School choice can be adopted across this land now. And then, finally, families could enjoy the right to choose any kind of high-quality school for their children as one of their many other rights, regardless of their socio-economic status or race.

Hergit “Coco” Llenas is Director of Latino Outreach for the American Federation for Children.

Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of posts where various members of the education choice world share an #edchoice wish. For Friday’s post, CLICK HERE.

COMING WEDNESDAY: Step Up For Students President Doug Tuthill shares a bevy of education and criminal justice wishes. 

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Betsy Devos portrait
Charter SchoolsPrivate SchoolsSchool Choice

DeVos pushes ‘most ambitious’ school choice expansion ‘in our nation’s history’

Travis Pillow
Travis Pillow

INDIANAPOLIS – Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told a friendly crowd that President Trump will release a spending plan today to support “the most ambitious expansion of education choice in our nation’s history.”

But a lot of questions remain about how the federal government might achieve that expansion.

Speaking Monday at the American Federation for Children’s annual policy summit, DeVos offered few details about what a national plan would look like. But she outlined a series of principles.

School choice options would have to be accountable to parents, not officials in Washington. The new administration would avoid “creating a new federal bureaucracy or … bribing states with their own taxpayers’ money” — a subtle jab at Obama-era initiatives like Race to the Top.

States would decide whether to participate in the new federal push. DeVos said declining to create new options for their residents would be a “terrible mistake,” but one for which state-level politicians would have to defend.

“The future is bleak for millions of students if we only continue to tinker around the edges of education reform,” she said. “The time has expired for ‘reform.’ We need a transformation — a transformation that will open up America’s closed and antiquated education system.”

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