School choice tsunami continues in Miami-Dade

While Miami-Dade County is home to more charter schools than most U.S. states and more than one in four students receiving Florida tax credit scholarships, it’s also home to some of the most vibrant district-run school choice systems in the country, which is expected to grow even larger in the coming school year.

This week the district touted its plans to add 53 new choice programs, including new magnets at 12 schools, an Italian Language academy, and a career academy focused on cybersecurity. That will bring the total number of choice options to more than 500.

“This is by far the far the most dramatic, robust expansion of educational programs in the history of our school system,” Miami-Dade schools superintendent Alberto Carvalho said in a video report by local NBC affiliate WPLG.

StateImpact Florida reports the district plans to beef up its transportation network to support its school choice programs, which enroll more than half its students.

Students will also have an easier time getting to those programs with new bus hubs. Students will have to get to the “flex stops” on their own, but once there they can catch a ride to magnet programs across the county.

As a result, say school leaders, the flex stops will give more students a chance to enroll in magnet programs.

Last year, as reported by the Miami Herald, Carvalho memorably said: “Rather than complain about the incoming tsunami of choice, we’re going to ride it.” It looks like the ride will continue.

The tax credit scholarship program mentioned above is administered by Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog and employs the author of this post.


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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.