School choice in Florida

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School choice in the U.S. state of Florida is a suite of state programs that allow families to use public resources to receive education outside of their neighborhood public school. Florida's Tax Credit Scholarship (FTC) program is the largest of its kind in the U.S., with more students than all but the state's largest school districts. [1]

Contents

Florida's public school options include magnet schools, academies, charter schools and other programs. Private schools provide additional options. [1]

Private school scholarships are funded by Step Up For Students and AAA Scholarship Foundation. [1]

Choice programs

History

In 2006 the Florida Supreme Court ruled the Opportunity Scholarship Program violated the Florida Constitution because the private schools it supported were not part of the "uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools" that the Constitution required. Thereafter private schools were dropped from the program. Enrollment declined from a peak of 4,424 (2011) to 3,074 (2017). [1] African-American and Hispanic students made up the vast majority of enrollees. [4]

The McKay scholarship program began in 2000. During the 2017–18 academic year 31,044 students enrolled in 1,482 schools. [1]

The Gardiner scholarship program began in 2016 and had grown to serve 10,000 by the end of 2018. [1]

The Hope scholarship program began in October, 2018. In 2017–18, nearly two thirds of the recipients were on the autism spectrum and used the money to attend a private school. [1] In 2019, 271 students participated. [2]

Home schooling had 89,817 enrollees in 2017–18, increasing about 2,400 from the prior year. The option is most popular in Duval, Hillsborough and Orange counties. [1]

In 2016 the state made it easier for students to attend schools across district boundaries. [1]

In 2017–18, private school support reached $641 million, aiding 108,098 children in 1,818 schools. [1] In 2019 it reached nearly 4% of the K-12 population of nearly 2.78 million students. [5]

The number of charter schools in Florida reached over 658 in 2018–19, serving 313,000 students. [6]

Family Empowerment scholarships were created in 2019. The program was capped at 18,000 students. It eliminated a waiting list of 13,000 families seeking a FTC. [7] Vouchers run between $6,775 and $7,250. 87% of recipients have household incomes below 185% of the federal poverty level. The limit is 300%. Most are Black or Hispanic. In 2020 the cap was increased to 28,000. If demand is insufficient, the income limit will be increased by 25%. Teachers unions opposed the program. [8]

School choice

As of 2019, 25 states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico operated voucher or scholarship programs. Many of these programs targeted specific populations such as disabled or low-income students. [5]

A controversy surrounds the impact of these programs on public schools that lose students. Among the hypotheses that have been advanced are that those schools are forced to improve to compete for students, that the loss of resources from lower enrollment hurts them or that choice-induced changes to their student bodies disadvantages those who remained. Another question surrounds the time path of the impacts, whether they come suddenly or grow as the school choice program evolves. [5]

In the US various studies showed small but positive short-term effects of the introduction of private school voucher programs on public school students’ test scores. Longer-term studies of Milwaukee and North Carolina students showed modestly positive effects. In NC, competition increased over two years, totaling roughly 25%. [5]

A study of scale up of Massachusetts charter programs reported small positive effects on test scores. [5]

Results

A 2020 study of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program reviewed child-level data that matched birth records to school records, employing student fixed effects to analyze cognitive and behavioral outcomes and heterogeneity. It used five separate measures of voucher competition over time including educational (test scores) and behavioral (absenteeism and suspensions) metrics. [5]

The study reported that students in public schools more exposed to private school choice experienced increasing benefits with program scale. These included lower rates of suspensions and absences and higher standardized test scores in reading and in math. These results were not uniform: the students most positively affected were those with lower family incomes and lower maternal education levels. Statistically significant but smaller gains came for higher-SES students. The results were robust changes in public school student composition and resources. [5]

A 2019 study of the impact of choice programs on college enrollment reported that 57% of FTC students compared with 51 percent of non-FTC students enrolled and were more likely to attend college full time. FTC students were somewhat more likely to earn bachelor's degrees, but no more like to earn an Associate's degree. The program’s impact on both measures increased with the number of years of FTC participation. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

A school voucher, also called an education voucher in a voucher system, is a certificate of government funding for students at schools chosen by themselves or their parents. Funding is usually for a particular year, term, or semester. In some countries, states, or local jurisdictions, the voucher can be used to cover or reimburse home schooling expenses. In some countries, vouchers only exist for tuition at private schools.

School choice is a term for education options that allow students and families to select alternatives to public schools. It is the subject of fierce debate in various state legislatures across the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charter schools in the United States</span> Taxation-funded privately-run schools

Charter schools in the United States are primary or secondary education institutions that are public schools which are publicly funded and operate independently, rather than being overseen by local school districts. Charter schools have a contract with local school districts or other authorizing bodies that allow them to operate. These contracts, or charters, are how charter schools bear their name. They are funded with public tax dollars, though they also fundraise independently. Charter schools are subject to fewer rules than traditional state schools in exchange for greater accountability. Proponents argue that they are meant to serve underserved communities that wish to have alternatives to their neighborhood school. Charters are run as either non-profit or for-profit institutions. However, there are some for-profit management organizations that hold charters, though these are only allowed in Arizona. Only non-profit charters can receive donations from private sources, just the same as traditional public schools.

Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002), was a 5–4 decision of the United States Supreme Court that upheld an Ohio program that used school vouchers. The Court decided that the program did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as long as parents using the program were allowed to choose among a range of secular and religious schools.

In the United States, dual enrollment (DE), also called concurrent enrollment, programs allow students to be enrolled in two separate, academically related institutions. Generally, it refers to high school students taking college or university courses. Less commonly, it may refer to any individual who is participating in two related programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pre-kindergarten</span> School program for children before kindergarten

Pre-kindergarten is a voluntary classroom-based preschool program for children below the age of five in the United States, Canada, Turkey and Greece. It may be delivered through a preschool or within a reception year in elementary school. Pre-kindergartens play an important role in early childhood education. They have existed in the US since 1922, normally run by private organizations. The U.S. Head Start program, the country's first federally funded pre-kindergarten program, was founded in 1967. This attempts to prepare children to succeed in school.

The District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) is the local public school system for Washington, D.C. It is distinct from the District of Columbia Public Charter Schools (DCPCS), which governs public charter schools in the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Segregation academy</span> Segregationist private schools in the US

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milwaukee Public Schools</span>

Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) is the largest school district in Wisconsin. As of the 2015–16 school year, MPS served 75,568 students in 154 schools and had 9,636 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff positions. The Milwaukee Public Schools system is one of the largest in the United States by enrollment. A publicly elected school board, the Milwaukee Board of School Directors, provides direction and oversight, with a superintendent heading the organization's administration.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duval County Public Schools</span> Public school district in the United States

Duval County Public Schools (DCPS) is the public school district that serves the families and children residing in the urban, suburban, and rural areas of the City of Jacksonville and Duval County, Florida. As of 2015, the district had an enrollment of over 130,000 students, making it the 20th largest school district in the United States, and the 6th largest school district in Florida. The district's 196 schools are traditional neighborhood and magnet schools, charter schools, and alternative schools, all of which serve students of various needs.

Parents for Choice in Education (PCE) is an advocacy group in Utah that pushes for school choice programs including private school vouchers, and supports anti-union legislation.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program provides scholarships to low-income children in Washington D.C. for tuition and other fees at participating private schools. The program was the first Federally funded school voucher program in the United States. It was first approved in 2003 and allowed to expire for the first time in 2009 under the Obama administration. The program was reauthorized under the SOAR Act in 2011, but again defunded at the end of the second Obama presidency. The program was reinstated under President Trump.

The Florida Opportunity Scholarship Program was a school voucher program in the U.S. state of Florida. It provided students from failing public schools in Florida with school vouchers enabling them to choose a "higher performing public school or a participating private school." A failing public school was: "a school that has received two "F" grades within a four-year period."

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The State of Indiana school voucher movement known as Indiana Choice Scholarships was created in order to address the failings in the public education system. It is the largest school voucher program in the U.S.

National School Choice Week (NSCW) is a recurring awareness event, founded in 2011 through the National School Choice Awareness Foundation. It consists of a series of school choice events in the last week of January each year. It claims to “support the success of America’s children, by raising broad and equal awareness of the traditional public, public charter, public magnet, private, online, and home education options available for children and families.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Step Up For Students</span> Non-profit organization in the USA

Step Up for Students is a 501(c)3 nonprofit in Florida providing low income students, bullied students and students with special needs with scholarships to help pay tuition for private school, assistance to attend an out of district public school, or for tutoring, textbooks or therapies. Step Up For Students was created as part of a merger between Florida's two largest scholarship organizations Florida P.R.I.D.E and Children First, which was founded by Tampa Bay businessman John Kirtley. Kirtley had founded a previous scholarship organization, Children's Scholarship Fund of Tampa Bay in 1998 and received more than 15,000 applications for 750 available scholarships. The large demand led Kirtley to help push for the creation of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, which was signed into law in 2001. That scholarship program allows donors to receive dollar for dollar tax credits for contributions to nonprofits offering scholarships to low-income students in Florida. The scholarship was capped at $50 million for the 2002-03 school year and scholarships were awarded to 15,585 students.

Educational inequality has existed in the Southeast Michigan area of the United States since the birth of institutional, urban schooling in the US. Inequality between lower and higher class districts have perpetuated divisions in educational opportunities and outcomes between Michigan communities, especially areas in and around Detroit, the state's largest city. According to a report by the Kerner Commission from 1967, "spending per pupil in Detroit suburbs was 27% greater than in the city and that spending since World War II had risen more in the suburbs than in the city. ." More recently, the economic decline of Detroit culminating in the 2013 Detroit bankruptcy has aggravated the educational tensions.

The Pennsylvania school code, section 1327, policy for school choice is, “...to preserve the primary right and obligation of the parent or parents, or person or persons in loco parentis to a child, to choose the education and training for such child.”

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Solochek, Jeffrey S. (November 1, 2018). "Florida continues to expand school choice with new programs". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
  2. 1 2 "Florida – Hope Scholarship Program". EdChoice. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
  3. ↑ Solodev (2019-05-14). "Family Empowerment Scholarship". www.fldoe.org. Retrieved 2020-02-22.
  4. ↑ "How Does The Opportunity Scholarship Program Work?". StateImpact Florida. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Figlio, David N; Hart, Cassandra M.D.; Karbownik, Krzysztof (February 2020). "Effects of Scaling Up Private School Choice Programs on Public School Students". National Bureau of Economic Research .
  6. ↑ Solodev (2018-03-16). "Charter Schools". www.fldoe.org. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
  7. ↑ Fox, Geoff (2019-04-30). "House passes Family Empowerment Scholarship". redefinED. Retrieved 2020-02-22.
  8. ↑ The Editorial Board (2020-06-26). "Opinion | Florida's School Choice Blowout". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 2020-06-28.
  9. ↑ Chingos, Matthew; Monarrez, Tomas; Kuehn, Daniel (2019-02-01). "The Effects of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program on College Enrollment and Graduation". Urban Institute. Retrieved 2020-02-22.
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