Pinellas County Schools is Florida’s top school choice district according to a new report from the Brookings Institution.
The 2015 Education Choice and Competition Index ranks more than 100 large urban school districts A-F based on thirteen factors such as the availability and popularity of alternatives to neighborhood schools, fairness in school assignments, clear performance data, transportation and the quality of schools.
The index is intended to shine a light on “the ease with which parents can exercise the choices afforded to them, and the degree to which the choice system results in greater access to quality schools for students who would otherwise be assigned to a low-performing public school based on their family’s place of residence.”
The index reflects the Brookings Institution’s ideal school choice system, which would include variety of high-quality options, no default student assignments, a common application, valid information on school performance, a weighted student funding formula that follows students to their school of choice and subsidies to help poor families with things like transportation.
Pinellas County School District ranked 7th on the index. The district comes out on top, in part, due to the popularity of options such as magnet schools, fundamental schools, charter and private schools as well as enrollment in virtual education.
Even in a high-ranking district like Pinellas, barriers remain. In addition to its Failure Factories series highlighting academic turmoil in South St. Petersburg, the Tampa Bay Times recently highlighted the long odds low-income parents face enrolling in popular options like Fundamental Schools.
Once again, no school district in Florida is awarded points for providing transportation to alternative schools. Districts receive zero points for failing to provide transportation to schools of choice, or for not making it clear to parents that transportation is available.
Of the large districts included in the survey, Volusia County was the lowest-ranked in Florida, placing 54th out of 111 districts.
Grover Whitehurst, the author of the report, said that the districts could do a better job supporting school choice through open enrollment. Whitehurst said that Lee County provides the most open enrollment options among large Florida districts, but parents’ choices there are still constrained by through choice zones and subzones within the district.
New Orleans’ Recovery School District, which is smaller than other districts in the survey but unique in its all-choice design, sits atop the national rankings. Denver Public Schools climbed to the second spot, due to a strong centralized single application process, growth in schools of choice and the elimination of default school assignments for half of the city. The district also allows parents to exercise choice 365 days a year. The state’s teacher union sought to overturn these reforms late last year, but failed to capture three school board seats from pro-reform candidates.
The Florida House this week passed a bill that would expand public school choice in every district in the state, and give students more freedom to cross district lines. But districts like Denver offer other lessons about how to lower the barriers to true school choice for students.
