A research arm of the Florida Legislature on Wednesday presented to the state’s Appropriations Subcommittee on Education a detailed 132-page report showing how Florida families are participating in education choice programs.

The report from the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) expands upon the one-page summary produced for the past 12 years by Step Up For Students, the state-approved nonprofit funding organization that helps administer five scholarships for Florida schoolchildren.

OPPAGA reviewed 21 school choice programs, providing detailed descriptions of each program including the number and percentage of students participating. The report provides a county-by-county breakdown of students enrolled in choice programs throughout the state and provides demographic data for most of the choice programs.

According to OPPAGA, 86% of students attend public schools, 11% attend private schools, and 3% are educated at home. Of those public school students, 12% are enrolled in public charter schools.

Overall, 46% of all Florida K-12 students participated in a school choice option. Of the students exercising choice, 69% exercised a public school choice option.

Florida’s public schools, including choice schools, enroll nearly 2.8 million students. Public schools have “grown incrementally” according to the authors, increasing by about 62,000, or 2.2%, over the last five years. Of public school students, 63% are nonwhite; 55% are eligible for free or reduced-price meals; 14% are students with disabilities; and 10% are English language learners.

Charter schools grew 22%, with enrollment growing by more than 58,000 students over the last five years. Of charter school students, 70% are nonwhite; 43% are eligible for free or reduced-price meals; 10% are students with disabilities; and 10% are English language learners.

Home education grew the fastest of the three education sectors, increasing by 27% over the last five years by adding nearly 23,000 students.

Meanwhile, private school enrollment increased by about 52,000 students, or nearly 18% over the last five years. Private schools overall are 50% nonwhite.

Fifty-six percent of students who participate in the Family Empowerment Scholarship program for low-income and working-class families are nonwhite. Forty-seven percent of special needs students who participate in the Gardiner Scholarship program and 55% who participate in the McKay Scholarship program are nonwhite.

The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, which serves low-income students, is Florida’s largest private K-12 scholarship program. That scholarship enrolled 113,120 students, up 41% over the last five years. About 73% of these scholarship students are nonwhite.

The public-school program enrolling the highest percentage of minorities is Jeb Bush’s Opportunity Scholarship program, with 74% of students being nonwhite. The Opportunity Scholarship allows students in the lowest performing public schools to enroll in higher performing public schools. Prior to being struck down by the Florida Supreme Court in 2006, that program provided scholarships for students to attend private schools as well. At the time, 86% of the students were nonwhite.

The program with the fewest minorities is Florida Virtual School, with 42% of its students being nonwhite. FLVS is also one of the few choice programs that have been shrinking, with enrollment declining by 9% over the last five years.

Among the other interesting findings, OPPA noted that:

·       Charter schools are the most popular alternative public school enrolling 323,385 students

·       Specialized public school programs were the second most popular option with 208,644 students enrolled in magnet schools; 185,699 students enrolled in career and professional academies; and 178,162 students enrolled in admission selective programs for gifted children.

·       Accelerated programs such as Advanced Placement, Dual Enrollment, Advanced International Certificate Education and International Baccalaureate have grown to a combined 366,101 students, up 22% from 300,224 students just five years ago.

·       Miami-Dade County Public Schools has three times as many students attending magnet schools as the next highest county, Orange.

A bill that would simplify Florida’s education choice programs by merging five scholarships into two and add a flexible spending option advanced one more step toward passage today after clearing the Florida Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education.

By a vote of 6 to 3 along party lines, members approved SB48, which would transfer students receiving the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program (FTC) to the Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES), which was signed into law in 2019, and sunset the 20-year-old FTC.

“I am glad to see the bill will give myself, a single mother of four, and other families the opportunity to have flexibility in utilizing the scholarship,” said Natalie Wiley of Jacksonville, whose children are on FTC and FES scholarships. “This will improve programs that have made a huge impact in my family.”

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Manny Diaz Jr., R-Hialeah, was approved Feb. 3 by the Senate Education Committee.  (For more information about what the bill includes, go here.) A companion bill is expected in the House.

“This bill is not an expansion but really a streamlining,” Diaz said during the subcommittee meeting. He said the pandemic amplified the need for increased innovation and flexibility, with many parents working with their kids at kitchen tables. “I still believe the parent is the best decisionmaker for the child.”

Under the bill, donors would still be allowed to contribute to the tax-credit program through a newly created state trust fund. However, donations would go to serve K-12 education generally in the state, rather than pay for scholarships. Both the FTC and the FES are income based and serve students whose families meet financial eligibility rules.

The bill does not materially change the eligibility criteria for any of the scholarship programs, and actually reduces the currently allowable statutory growth in some of the programs.

The bill also would merge the McKay Scholarship Program for Students with Disabilities and the Gardiner Scholarship Program, creating a new program for students with unique abilities called the McKay-Gardiner Scholarship Program.

That program would allow families in all state scholarship programs to have flexible spending accounts, also known as education savings accounts, or ESAs. Currently, only students enrolled in the Gardiner program have such flexibility.

The accounts allow families to spend their money on pre-approved services and equipment in addition to private school tuition. Approved expenditures include electronic devices, curriculum, part-time tutoring programs, educational supplies, equipment, and therapies that insurance programs do not cover. The bill would expand eligible services for McKay-Gardiner students to include music, art, and theater programs, as well as summer education programs.

The scholarship programs are also available to homeschool students and those enrolled in eligible private schools.

In addition, victims of bullying at district schools who transfer to private schools as part of the Hope Scholarship Program would also be served by the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program and receive the same spending flexibility.

Several families spoke in support of the bill. Natalie Wallace of Tampa told senators how programs allowed her son, daughter and nephew to attend Hillel School of Tampa after they were not academically challenged enough, and her youngest child was bullied.

“Hillel gives my kids smaller classes, more learning support, a safe environment, and it reinforces our family’s beliefs and values,” she said. “The scholarship has lessened the financial burden on my family and given us the same opportunities at a good education as those who are more privileged. And now, thanks to Sen. Diaz, this bill can make it even better by giving scholarship families more spending flexibility to further meet their children’s needs.”

In addition to scholarship families, the bill received support from the Libre Initiative – Florida and Americans For Prosperity, which have announced a joint campaign  to promote the bill.

The bill’s next stop is the Senate Appropriations Committee.

There are many important policy improvements in Florida Senate Bill 48, the innovative education choice legislation sponsored by Sen. Manny Diaz Jr. that is receiving so much national attention. But my favorite enhancement is the creation of education savings accounts (ESAs) for lower-income families.

This year, Florida is providing scholarships to about 140,000 lower-income families via the Florida Tax Credit (FTC) and Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES) programs. Currently, these scholarships can only be used to pay private school tuition and fees, or transportation costs to attend an out-of-district public school. The scholarship amount cannot exceed the annual cost of tuition and fees at a student’s chosen private school. If a student is eligible for a $7,000 scholarship but the tuition and fees at her private school are $6,000, then that student’s scholarship will be only $6,000.

This year, 17% of our FTC/FES scholarship recipients received scholarships that were, on average, $641 less than a full scholarship. That means 23,800 students, who researchers say are the state’s lowest-income and lowest-performing students when they receive a scholarship, did not get $15,255,800 in scholarship funds they were financially eligible to receive.

If the Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis agree to turn these scholarships into ESAs, then every scholarship student will receive the full scholarship amount, and any funds not spent on tuition and fees may be spent on additional education services and products such as tutoring, books, summer school, and software.

Some private and charter schools already are planning to create afterschool tutoring and summer enrichment programs to serve families with excess ESA funds. Families also may use ESA funds to purchase services from their neighborhood district schools and certified teachers who create their own afterschool and summer programs. More small business development, especially in lower-income urban communities, is a benefit of the enhanced spending flexibility families have via ESAs.

An important feature of ESAs is that unspent funds roll over so parents may spend them in future years. Some elementary and middle school families, for instance, probably will roll over unused ESA funds to help pay for high school expenses, which are often unaffordable for scholarship families.

Sen. Diaz’s bill is a long way from becoming law. But Florida’s legislative leaders, in collaboration with our governors over the last 25 years, have made steady progress toward providing our state’s most disadvantaged students with more effective and efficient learning options.

I am confident that the education choice bills that become law this summer will continue this trend.

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.

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.

“History will show that this is the downfall of public education.” 

That was Florida Sen. Perry Thurston (D-Fort Lauderdale) last week, responding to legislation that would expand opportunities and provide flexibility for low-income families. Many opponents of school choice share his sentiments. It’s a misconception of choice used to deny equity in education to the country’s most disenfranchised populations – low-income and Black families. 

In recognition of Black History Month, we must take a historical approach to analyze the long and hard struggle for equity and equality in public education for Blacks. 

The first recorded notion of a free public school was in the 17^th century, and it was later proposed to use taxpayer dollars for education long before our country was founded. This was also during a time when the first enslaved Africans were shipped to Virginia in 1619 and threatened with death if they even attempted to become literate. As a Black man, I feel compelled to highlight that this injustice, coupled with over three centuries of systemic oppression, should have been deemed the downfall of public education. 

Too often, opponents of education choice deny or ignore the fact that a government-funded public education system was established to exclude enslaved Africans, women and low-income families. In fact, public education originally was established to teach Puritan values and reading the Bible to sons of white, elite families. 

This newly created system of public education required an additional 350 years to ensure Blacks could even attend school with their white counterparts, with a government content with “separate but equal.” There was no choice. There were no options for an equitable school experience. Blacks were forced to learn in schools with insufficient financial support and negligible resources. This gave birth to the opportunity gaps we see today. 

As a result, Blacks had to use ingenuity and scarce resources to establish schools, including historically Black colleges and universities to address the growing need for knowledge in agriculture. They were created out of necessity, not choice. Prominent Black leaders from these institutions, such as W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington, had to advocate for equity and equality rights in a public education system that should have been afforded to them.   

This is not entirely different from the education choice advocacy we see today. Black and low-income families are advocating to lawmakers for an equal opportunity in education.

The government has had more than 400 years to address the funding equity for predominantly Black and low-income neighborhoods, and the quality of the education has suffered. Conversely, government funding combined with education choice has yielded positive results. A 2019 Urban Institute study found that tax-credit scholarship students are up to 43% more likely than their public-school peers to enroll in four-year colleges, and up to 20% more likely to earn bachelor’s degrees.

In addition, a 2020 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research of the impact of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship found positive impacts even on public schools – that as the program for students in private schools expanded, students who remained in public schools also benefited: “In particular, higher levels of private school choice exposure are associated with lower rates of suspensions and absences, and with higher standardized test scores in reading and math.”

But opponents ignore this because it demonstrates that when parents have a sense of empowerment, they are more engaged, and their kids have more positive experiences and success in school. Choice provides parents the opportunity to find schools that best match their children’s learning needs.

Florida school districts provide public education to the students within their assigned zones. It’s a right established by the state constitution. But the assumption that traditional public education customizes – or has ever customized – the learning experience for every child it serves is misguided.

In his eloquent response to Sen. Thurston at the Feb. 3 Senate Education Committee hearing, Jon Arguello, a member of the Osceola County School Board, argued that not every public school can meet the unique needs of every child in the district – just as the senator cannot satisfy the needs of every voter in his district. Some students need options and flexibility in their learning experience.

Unfortunately, education choice opponents will have you believe that only traditional public education can ensure that all students are adequately served with resources that are equitably distributed. The unfortunate reality is that the areas where these families reside are not equal, and neither are the resources.

That’s a big reason why 1.5 million students in Florida are exercising some form of choice. Families have explored charter schools, magnet schools, and voucher programs that have provided more options for students.

Our society has such a sordid history of discriminatory practices and systemic racism in education that it’s absurd to decry parental choice as the “downfall of public education.” For many low-income and Black Americans, the system has never had anywhere to go but up. The populations that historically have benefited from public education will continue to be successful, because they already have the means to exercise choice. 

We must level the playing field so that every child will have the opportunity to succeed regardless of socio-economic status.   

Editor’s note: Last year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a new slate of trustees to the board of the Florida Virtual School. Vice chairperson Linda Reiter is one of those appointees and the first in redefinED’s occasional series of profiles of leaders and advocates in the education choice movement.  

Linda Reiter has spent more than three decades teaching thousands of students. Though the names, faces and teaching methods change, her motivation has remained the same.

“Anything I do in education is in honor of my sister,” said Reiter, who at 67 continues to work with hearing-impaired students at Miami-Dade charter schools after retiring as one of the school district’s first itinerant teachers.

When Reiter was invited last year to become a member of the Florida Virtual School’s board of trustees, she considered it yet another way to pay tribute to her late sister, Shira, who was born deaf and who found the best educational fit because of school choice.

Reiter’s parents wanted Shira to be able to fully function in a hearing world. In their view, that meant learning to communicate orally. They sent her to a school that did not allow sign language. After the school’s methods proved too harsh, they tried a district school in their hometown of Philadelphia. That lasted six months. Finally, they sent her the Model Secondary School at Gallaudet University, the world's only university in which all programs and services are specifically designed to accommodate deaf and hard of hearing students.

“She came home in three weeks a full signer, because everybody in that school was a signer,” recalled Reiter, who took a sign language class when she was 16 so she could communicate with her sister. In teaching and mentoring Shira, she found the passion that ultimately became her life’s work.

It is mainly because of her sister’s experience that Reiter supports customized education, including the virtual education provided by the Florida Virtual School, a statewide public school district offering more than 190 courses for students in kindergarten through 12^th grade.

“I’m hoping my expertise in special education is a good mix for this board,” Reiter said.

Not that FLVS has ever been lacking in its ability to serve hearing-impaired students.

“They’ve got a lot in place; they have worked with the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine for many years,” she said. “They make accommodations for every student. They have two interpreters on their staff, exceptional student education managers and teachers.”

Since July, 611 students with hearing impairments have taken classes through FLVS, she said.

However, accommodating other special needs can be challenging for online education providers. While FLVS accepts students on individualized education plans and 504 service plans, it tells families whose students are taking classes through its part-time flex program to access services it can’t provide through their school districts.

Reiter said she thinks FLVS, which expanded its capacity during the pandemic, will continue to be a popular option even after the threat of COVID has passed, just like other innovative forms of education such as learning pods and hybrids, which sprang up as grass-roots pandemic solutions.

“Everything changed from the way it was last year, and it’s not going to go back to the way it was” she said. “Parents have never seen this before en masse, and some of them like it very much. This is the future.”

One high school senior Reiter works with loves virtual learning and wants to finish his high school career that way, while another can’t wait to get back to brick-and-mortar school. Both should be allowed to do what works best for them, Reiter said, just like her sister was able to do so many years ago.

“That’s the problem with big district decisions. They don’t always work, and you’re stuck in a little box you can’t get out of,” Reiter said.

She thinks her sister would agree.

Editor’s note: This piece from William Mattox, director of the J. Stanley Marshall Center for Educational Options at the James Madison Institute, appeared Monday on Florida Politics.

A funny thing happened last fall while many governors were yielding to teacher union demands to keep schools closed: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis not only found that it was safe to open schools, but that education policy could be a magnet for attracting new residents to the Sunshine State.

In recent months, DeSantis has often recounted stories of meeting families who moved to Florida because our schools are open.  And while some may think this migration will end once schools are open everywhere, the truth is Florida could easily become our nation’s unrivaled “education destination” (to borrow House Education Committee Chairman Chris Latvala’s fabulous phrase).

Here’s why: in the “new normal,” the number of “digital nomads” (who work remotely and can move anywhere) is going to rise. COVID-19 has taught many companies that they can achieve greater efficiencies by facilitating remote work.

Accordingly, Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President Julio Fuentes believes state and local business leaders ought to give new emphasis to recruiting remote workers – not just corporations – to relocate here. And Fuentes believes Florida’s school choice policies could be the key to luring education-minded parents (and their talented offspring) to our state.

Two bits of data strongly support this idea.  First, research by real estate professor Bart Danielsen of North Carolina State University shows that the single greatest factor driving families’ relocation decisions is access to good education options. Second, polling data from EdChoice suggests there is considerable “pent-up demand” for wider schooling options throughout the country.  In fact, roughly half of all parents say that if cost were not a factor, they would homeschool, send their child to a private school, or take advantage of some other creative arrangement (like pod learning).

To read more, and to better understand the importance of new legislation that would streamline Florida’s choice scholarship programs, click here.

The rainbow coalition that is the education choice movement would like to welcome its newest member: Randi Weingarten!

Yes, that Randi Weingarten. President of the American Federation for Teachers.

In a fresh interview with The New York Times, Weingarten sounded like Betsy DeVos. She noted she has friends and family who have, according to the Times’s paraphrasing, “pulled their own children out of public schools because remote learning was not working for them.”

“They have a right,” she said in a direct quote, “to look out for their individual children.”

Yes, they do!

And don’t they all?

Choice enthusiasts of all stripes have been saying that for a half century. They’ve also been working to ensure all parents, particularly those whose children are disadvantaged by poverty or disability, have the power to do what Ms. Weingarten’s friends and family just did. That is, to choose the learning options they know are best for their children, instead of being stuck with what the state assigns. Like Ms. Weingarten’s friends and family, they need those options now more than ever.

Teachers unions, of course, have been the big roadblock on the drive to equity. But in her moment of candor, Ms. Weingarten got sucked into the zeitgeist. Poll after poll shows the pandemic has boosted school choice support to new heights, in part because of teachers union resistance to re-opening schools. That growing support includes white, left-leaning, suburban parents who, in terms of choice opposition, are one of the few dominos left to fall.

I appreciate Ms. Weingarten’s timing. Lawmakers in at least 14 states are considering bills to start or expand vouchers, tax credit scholarships and/or education savings accounts. Florida is among them.

SB 48 would simplify the Sunshine State’s patchwork of choice scholarships, merging five into two, and converting four into education savings accounts. (The fifth, the Gardiner Scholarship for students with special needs, is already an ESA. And full disclosure: four of those programs are administered by Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that hosts this blog.) The bottom line is even more parents would have the flexibility they need “to look out for their individual children.”

I never thought I’d see the day when Randi Weingarten would be on the same page, even rhetorically, with choice folks. But truth be told, the choice movement has always had a big tent. I suspect that politically, she’d feel at home with many of the hundreds of thousands of parents, most of them black and Hispanic, whose children use the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship. Or the 1,400+ among them who are school district employees, including teachers like this one.

For what it’s worth, Ms. Weingarten wouldn’t be the first labor leader to embrace choice, either. Cesar Chavez, the legendary founder of the American Farm Workers, was a strong supporter of a Chicano freedom school that bloomed in the California desert in the 1970s – and, more broadly, for alternatives to district schools. Dozens of local union leaders in New York backed a school choice scholarship proposal in that state just a few years ago.

Closer to home, our president here at Step Up, Doug Tuthill, is a liberal Democrat and former president of two local teachers unions. Ms. Weingarten, if you’d ever like to chat about choice and equity and the future of teachers unions, I’m sure Doug would be game. ????

In the meantime, thanks for what you told The New York Times. It’s spot on.

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.