Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: Opportunity Scholarships, ‘big, hairy audacious goals’

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush remains a staunch advocate of education choice in his home state of Florida and across the nation.

On this week’s episode of Students Over Systems, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush joins host Ginny Gentles to discuss the history of the Sunshine State’s flourishing education options.

Among the topics:

  • Bush explains how he overcame opposition to education freedom early in his governorship and remained focused on improving K-12 education in Florida
  • Bush and Gentles address the state of education in Florida before the state created school choice opportunities and the improvement in Florida’s education system in the years since Bush introduced his A+ plan for education in 1999
  • Bush looks ahead at the future of education choice throughout this legislative season and beyond

Here is a snippet of the conversation.

“And Florida’s a really good example of consistent reform policies … So, our system has yielded improvements across the board. And now there’s a pretty big constituency because we started this journey and then successive legislators have added choice provisions, to their credit, and governors have embraced the idea.

So now Arizona, I guess, and Florida and a handful of other states have close to majority of their kids; their parents choose where their kids go to school, whether it’s a traditional public school, a charter school, homeschool, ESA, customized school environment, or private school.”

You can listen to the podcast here.


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BY Special to NextSteps