School choice 2015: Trends to watch in Florida

crystal ballConflict, collaboration and growth. Florida’s parental choice movement saw its share of all three in 2014, as political tensions rose, new legal battles emerged, and more students chose among more educational options than ever.

It’s impossible to know for sure how those issues will play out in 2015. But last year’s events point to some likely developments on the horizon, and some story lines worth watching in the coming year.

Blurred lines between virtual and brick-and-mortar schools

In 2013, a change in the state funding formula prompted school districts to grow their digital course offerings. In 2014, Florida Virtual School announced it was launching a new physical campus.

This blurring of boundaries is only going to accelerate.

Some school superintendents are already talking about needing more flexibility to accommodate the realities of digital instruction. State law now requires them to spend a greater share of their textbook funding on digital materials. A new course access system is expected to launch next school year, and it will become increasingly common for students to pick and choose different courses from the state’s online catalog.

Soon we might have to stop using terms like blended learning and digital instruction, because they’ll simply describe the norm in most schools. Laws and policies that rely on concepts like “seat time” will have to be updated. That shift will take time, but key lawmakers say they already hear supportive rumblings among forward-thinking school officials.

Charters police their own

In the eyes of some of Florida’s charter school advocates, their movement has been harmed by schools that suddenly shut down, sending students scrambling and leaving taxpayers in the lurch. There’s also a fear that school failures  which come despite signs of improvement in the charter sector as a whole  could invite greater regulation, or dampen support in Tallahassee for charter-friendly policies like facilities funding or standard contracts.

As a result, look for Florida’s charter school backers to support some efforts to keep bad operators from opening new charter schools.

New efforts to recruit proven charters

Florida’s district-charter collaboration grants revealed an area where school districts and charters can potentially work together: Recruiting high-impact charter schools to high-needs areas. One idea some key lawmakers are discussing would create a high-needs designation  similar to the high-performing label already on the books  for schools looking to operate in areas with large numbers of disadvantaged students.

District ‘self-preservation’ comes to a head

The clarion call for charter schools to focus on quality within their own ranks stems, at least in part, from a fear that districts competing for student enrollment and scarce construction funding may try to slow the rapid growth of Florida’s charter sector.

This fight for self-preservation could play out in ways that benefit charter schools (by, for example, fueling a push to provide them with dedicated facilities funding), or in ways that are hostile to them. See, for example, the Palm Beach school board’s assertion that new charters must be “innovative” – which seems to be code for schools that do not replicate existing charters, or that fill niches that don’t encroach on the district’s turf.

Districts ride the ‘tsunami of choice

Watch the headlines coming out of school districts around the state, and a divide begins to emerge between leaders who bristle at the prospect of greater parental choice, and those who embrace new options. Look for districts in the latter group to continue working with proven charter school networks, seeking greater flexibility for personalized learning initiatives and expanding their own choice offerings.

Private school choice in court

This year saw three separate legal challenges to Florida’s private school choice programs. Perhaps the most closely-watched of those is a constitutional challenge of Florida’s tax credit scholarship program. It’s scheduled to come before a Tallahassee judge in February, for arguments on whether the statewide teachers union and other plaintiffs have standing to challenge the 13-year-old program.

What will become of the the Dem Divide?

The fight over the tax credit scholarship program, the country’s largest private school choice program, has rallied prominent clergy members and other bedrock Democratic constituencies to its defense. This fall’s elections saw some of the most vocal school choice opponents ousted from the Florida Legislature, and likely expanded the map for school choice supporters around the country. Keep an eye on how Florida Democrats react, and whether some rejoin the bipartisan coalition in favor of parental choice.

More Personal Learning Scholarship Accounts

Nearly 1,400 parents have already signed up for personal learning scholarship accounts for special-needs students. Expect that number to rise next year, as word spreads, the system improves, and lawmakers consider ways to accommodate more special needs students. One potential area for expansion: Allowing more students with autism and conditions on the autistic spectrum to qualify.

No double-F closures for charter schools

Last year, new grading rules meant an unprecedented number of charter schools received A-F school grades for the first time. Most of those schools were either relatively small or relatively new, and nearly 30 received F’s. In a normal year, those schools would face automatic closure this year if their grades didn’t improve. But they will have a respite thanks to a suspension of grading consequences for all schools, a move intended to ease the state’s transition to new standards and tests.

Making school choice work for more families

Finally, some issues that hopefully will start to get the attention they deserve. The Center on Reinventing Public Education has been a voice in the wilderness on the barriers to parental choice, which still need to be overcome in school systems all over the country.

Some issues to consider:

  • Can parents get transportation to the schools they choose for their kids? Who’s charged with providing that transportation? And can students be accommodated without imposing mandates on individual schools?
  • Can parents get meaningful information about their schools? The Foundation for Excellence in Education waded into this issue with a design challenge aimed at improving the school performance is reported to the public. Design may be one shortcoming, but there are others. A recent CRPE survey of parents suggested they sometimes had a hard time researching school options even in districts that had invested in their information systems – meaning there’s work left to be done.
  • Which organizations should be tasked with helping parents navigate the growing array of options for their children?

Disclosure: Florida’s tax credit scholarships and Personal Learning Scholarship Accounts are administered by Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog. The author of this post works for Step Up.


Avatar photo

BY Travis Pillow

Travis Pillow is Director of Thought Leadership at Step Up For Students and editor of NextSteps. He lives in Sanford, Fla. with his wife and two children. A former Tallahassee statehouse reporter, he most recently worked at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research organization at Arizona State University, where he studied community-led learning innovation and school systems' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. He can be reached at tpillow (at) sufs.org.