PLANTATION, Florida – There was no way William “JR” Moreland was taking AP Language and Composition as a junior, or so he thought. He heard it was hard, harder than Honors English, which he aced.

“The difference between honors (classes) and AP is completely night and day,” JR said. “You think it’s one step up. No. it’s completely night and day. There was no way I was going to do well in that class.”

But the teachers at Westminster Academy, a private PK-12 school in Fort Lauderdale, can be very persuasive. Despite his pleas to not take the course and, yes, he admitted, some begging, JR was told, “You’re absolutely doing it.”

And he absolutely did.

He aced it.

“That’s my greatest accomplishment in school,” he said.

JR, 17, graduated this spring in the top 10 of his class from Westminster, which he attended since sixth grade on a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship made possible by donations to Step Up For Students. Before that, JR attended Gateway Christian Academy in Fort Lauderdale on the FTC scholarship.

“I do understand that without the scholarship I wouldn’t be where I am,” JR said, “so I don’t take that for granted.”

JR, who lives with his family in Plantation, is headed to the University of Central Florida, where he will major in computer science. After that, he plans to enter the United States Army.

The Army recently resurrected its “Be All You Can Be” slogan. JR said the teachers and administrators at Westminster expect the same from the students.

“Even when you don’t see the potential in yourself, they see the potential in you. It just elevates you to want to do better,” JR said.

To continue reading, go here.

 

Editor's note: This commentary by Nicole Stelle Garnett, senior fellow at The Manhattan Institute, and Michael McShane, director of national research at EdChoice and guest blogger at reimaginED, appeared Thursday on the74million.org. 

For school choice advocates, 2023 has been a year of dizzying highs. Never before have so many states enacted so many far-reaching parental choice programs. Arkansas, Florida, Iowa and Utah join Arizona and West Virginia as states with universal or near-universal education savings account programs, which allow parents to spend a portion of the public resources allocated for their children’s education for private school tuition and other qualified educational expenses. South Carolina adopted a generous-means tested ESA, Indiana expanded its voucher program to near-universal eligibility and Oklahoma enacted a universal refundable tuition tax credit. Other states seem poised to join the parental choice roster in the near future.

But the work of policy reform is just beginning. And, as we argue in a new Manhattan Institute report, there is a tremendous amount of work to do, especially with respect to ESA programs.

The history of education reform is littered with programs that were announced with great fanfare, only to fall apart because of a failure to attend to the crucially important challenge of implementation. Legislation is simply words on a page. It is the administration of these programs, and tens of thousands of private decisions by would-be participants — families, schools, other providers — that determine whether they succeed or fail.

Our report highlights four areas that those implementing ESA programs must attend to.

First, resist the temptation to declare victory when a program is passed. ESAs are wonderful in theory, but they are not a panacea. Difficulties in implementation have arguably hamstrung the effectiveness of private school choice programs in the past, and ESAs are even more complex. Attending to these issues is critical to ensuring that they will work in the lives of real families. Our report discusses several categories of implementation challenges.

To continue reading, go here.

Editor's note: This commentary by Mark LeBlond, policy director of EdChoice, was originally published in the Washington Examiner.

Ashley Elliott was one of the “hard cases.”

Born addicted to drugs and raised by her single grandmother, life was hard for Ashley. She struggled in school — until 10th grade. After years of fighting, bullying, and poor grades, Ashley found refuge in Lakeland, Florida , when a private Christian school admitted her on a tax credit scholarship. There she found teachers who cared about her, who believed in her.

In turn, Ashley began to believe in herself. Ashley thrived, graduating high school, then college, and embarking upon adulthood as an education advocate.

A thousand miles to the north, Pennsylvania policymakers are grappling with a related policy problem. How can the government guarantee a thorough and efficient education to all students, regardless of their background, socio-economic status, or zip code?

In a case dating back to 2014, William Penn School District v. Pennsylvania Department of Education, the plaintiffs argued the state fell short of its constitutional guarantee, and further, that an overhaul of the school funding system is the only solution. After years of wrangling over the role of money in Pennsylvania public education, the courts finally ruled earlier this year.

The Commonwealth Court ruled that Pennsylvania’s present education funding model is broken, yet stopped short of prescribing a fix, instead leaving solutions to the legislature and governor. In her opinion, Judge Renee Jubelirer emphasized that reform does not have “to be entirely financial ... The options for reform are virtually limitless. The only requirement, that imposed by the Constitution, is that every student receives a meaningful opportunity to succeed academically, socially, and civically, which requires that all students have access to a comprehensive, effective, and contemporary system of public education.”

To continue reading, go here.

If you take the Nation’s Report Card data back as far as it will go to capture all 50 states (2003) and up until the most recent exams (2022), the trends for students with disabilities look like the chart above. For the United States across four exams you get a net 1-point increase. Let’s call that the midpoint between “spinning your wheels” and “playing in your food” spectrum. Meanwhile Florida made a net 63 points of progress, a grade level or more on each of the exams. A suite of reforms seems to have helped drive this progress.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s reforms started in 1999 and included the creation of the nation’s first private choice program for students with disabilities. You can examine Figure 1 above and ponder whether the continual predictions of doom made by choice opponents seem the

least bit credible. Florida lawmakers created a separate education savings accounts, or ESA program, for students with unique abilities before consolidating the programs. Florida’s students with disabilities have had more choice access for a longer period of time than students in any other state.

Florida’s policies with a plausible connection to academic progress for students with unique abilities don’t end with choice. Florida pioneered the grading of schools A-F. Crucially, the Florida formula double weights the academic gains of the bottom 25% of students on the previous year’s state standardized exams.

 

 

Since it closed in 2009, a victim of the Great Recession that wrecked family finances across the United States, the campus on the grounds of St. Malachy Catholic Church in Tamarac, Florida, has housed secular charter schools.

However, despite the focus those learning institutions placed solely on academics, one sacred element remained: the statue of the Virgin Mary. She stands in a courtyard atop a stone pedestal, in front of three children who kneel in reverence. The statue is a replica of Our Lady of Fatima, which, according to the Catholic church, the Virgin Mary appeared six times to three Portuguese shepherd children starting in 1917 and shared visions and messages. The church declared the visions of Fatima as “worthy of belief” in 1930.

As St. Malachy Catholic Church prepares to reopen its parish school after a 14-year hiatus, the statue is a powerful symbol of what a community’s faith and teamwork can accomplish.

“They never removed the statue of Our Lady,” said Zoraida Perez, the school’s registrar and first employee hired for the reopening. She said the fact that the statue remained feels like a miracle to her. “I did work in another parish where a charter school took over, and the first thing they did was remove all the images.”

Perez, who was not working for St. Malachy in 2008 but who lived in the area, recalled the strong emotions people felt when the economy forced the school, along with seven other area Catholic schools, to close due to low enrollment.

“Many of those families were so sad, and they had to decide between providing a home and food for their children or a private, parochial education,” said Perez, whose three children attended Catholic schools. Many of them had to make the decision to school and go to public school.”

Those who were able to continue in Catholic schools were offered seats at other area schools.

The transition to new schools was tough for some families, who missed the sense of community that a smaller school like St. Malachy, which first opened in 1984, provided. The school and the church are named for St. Malachy, an Irish Saint who lived during the 1100s.

The church leased the campus to a charter school, which closed in 2018. Another followed but closed in 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic.

When leaders announced in March that the parish would reopen the school, a woman whose two children had to transfer to another Catholic school when St. Malachy closed showed up immediately with donations of backpacks and school supplies.

“She said her kids felt lonely because they were the new people at the school,” Perez said. “She said what they had at Saint Malachy was a family.”

Parish and school leaders said they based the decision to reopen on a population boom that included many young families moving to the area. Tamarac boasted a population of nearly 72,000 in 2020, according to the latest U.S. Census figures. That’s an increase of more than 10,000 from 2010, when the census showed a population of 60,427.

“The decision to reopen St. Malachy followed a feasibility study in which we looked at local demographic trends, educational options and other factors. Through this study, we determined that a viable Catholic school could reopen at St. Malachy without operating to the detriment of nearby Catholic schools,” said Jim Rigg, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Miami.

Rigg, who as superintendent oversees 63 Catholic schools, doesn’t need statistics to show him what he has observed.

“People are moving here from all over the world, from the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean,” Rigg said. “We’re in growth mode.”

Figures from the 20222-23 school year confirm Rigg’s statement.

Total enrollment came in at 33,577, the highest in more than five years.

In Key West, the Basilica School of St. Mary Star of the Sea is expanding to offer high school in August. It will be the first time since 1986, when Mary Immaculate High School closed, that the county has had a Catholic high school. Also, Cristo Rey Miami High School, an independent Catholic school, opened in 2022.

Across the Sunshine State, Catholic school enrollment rose 6.3 percent in 2021-22, the biggest jump of any of the 10 states with the biggest Catholic enrollments and outpacing the 3.8 percent hike nationally, according to state-by-state figures from the National Catholic Educational Association.

Leaders attribute Florida’s trend-defying figures over the past several years to its robust education choice laws, which offer families access to scholarships to attend private schools.

“Catholic schools in states that have school-choice programs…had greater enrollment stability over the past two years than Catholic schools in states with no private-school choice,” according to a study by the Manhattan Institute. “That is, Catholic schools in states with multiple choice programs (two or more) lost far fewer students in the first year of the pandemic (–4.9%) than states with no private-school-choice programs (–7.6%), but both the robust choice and the nonchoice states rebounded in 2021–22 by the same percentage (+4%).

The six states with education savings accounts, which give families the ability to use funds to customize their students’ education, also saw enrollment increases that were twice as large as states that had no ESAs. This year, the Florida Legislature expanded education choice by granting automatic eligibility to all students regardless of income.

Even so, Archdiocese of Miami leaders are starting small at St. Malachy, with seats only for 4-year-old kindergarten and voluntary pre-kindergarten students as well as kindergarten. They expect to have about 45 students the first year. The next year, they plan to begin adding other grades, eventually capping out at eighth grade. (To learn about registration and careers, go here.)

 

Perez said the community response has been overwhelming since word got out about the reopening plans. The Knights of Columbus St. Malachy Council 13355 have been doing handywork to help get the school ready to open in August. Nearby St. Bonaventure School reached out with guidance and local companies have donated and installed technology as well as offered free uniforms in the school’s blue and gold colors for incoming students.

In the areas of the school that will be occupied this fall, community members have installed new flooring, provided new furniture, moved the administrative offices to the front of the building and built a new canopy for the playground to provide shade. A parliament of owls found living in one part of the building provided inspiration for the school mascot: the owl.

“It takes a village to raise a child,” Perez said, quoting the African proverb. “This is where you find it.”

 

MIAMI – Nery Perez-Valdes wanted to become a doctor, but life got in the way.

She fled Cuba for Miami with her mom when she was 11 and found herself working at 14 to help pay the bills. Nery would become a single mom and for a long stretch worked two jobs to keep the lights on and food on the table.

Nery always wanted a private school education for her daughter, Ilen, and a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship made possible by corporate donations to Step Up For Students allowed that to happen.

“I was a single mom since I was three months pregnant, and when I’m saying, ‘single mom,’ I’m telling you ‘single mom.’ No child support. No help. No nothing. Period. The end,” Nery said. “Thanks to Step Up For Students, Ilen was able to get the education I wanted for her.”

Ilen has made the most of that opportunity – and then some.

She graduated this spring near the top of her class at Immaculate-LaSalle High School, a prestigious Catholic school in Miami. She has a scholarship to the University of Miami and plans to major in neuroscience and double minor in business administration management and Spanish. Her goal is to attend medical school and become a pediatric oncologist.

“My mother never received a college education. She was barely able to graduate high school. All she has done since she got (to the United States) is work, work, work,” Ilen said. “She came here looking for the American dream. I feel like if I succeed, she can live out her American dream through me.”

Ilen has received a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship since kindergarten. She said she’s grateful for the opportunity to receive a quality education – first at Saint Agatha Catholic School, and then at Immaculata-LaSalle.

“It was really difficult to make ends meet when I was younger, so I wouldn’t have been able to attend a private school where I received such an excellent education,” she said.

To continue reading, click here.

On this episode, reimaginED senior writer Lisa Buie talks with Sue Luther of Largo, Florida, a former private school teacher and single parent of two military-dependent sons. Both boys have received state K-12 scholarships over the years.

Her older son, Alexander, 15, was diagnosed at age 2 with severe autism spectrum disorder and currently receives the Family Empowerment Scholarship for students with Unique Abilities. His younger brother, Miles, 13, attends a charter school. The different uses of education choice earn Luther and her kids the title “multiple choice family.”

Luther discusses how she felt after Alexander, at the time a third grader, qualified for what was then the Gardiner Scholarship and how it helped her design a customized plan at home for him and later allowed her to send him to a private school for students with autism.

As a sibling, Miles qualified for what was then an income-based scholarship. Luther used it to pay private school tuition until Miles began attending a charter school, which, though privately run, is publicly funded. Florida law classifies charter schools as public schools.

Luther loved what the private specialty school offered Alexander, but as a single parent, she will not be able to cover the difference between tuition and what the scholarship pays next year. So, she plans to use scholarship for a customized home-based program.

“It helps you have accessibility to so many resources, and it covers so many of the expenses that it takes to homeschool your kid. With technology nowadays, you have to have laptops and computers and cell phones, or tablets of some kind to help them. And it really helps to cover those things so that you feel like you're still giving your child the best opportunity to learn, just like their peers.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

• How Luther has used previous scholarship funds to design a learning plan for Alexander
• How this military family’s frequent moves affected their children’s education over the years
• How the MyScholarShopProgram allowed Luther to easily make pre-approved online purchases necessary for her son’s education
• How a charter school was a better fit than a private school for her younger son

When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1 into law, he praised it as “the largest expansion of education choice not only in this state but in the history of these United States.” During committee hearings, lawmakers called it “transformational.”

The sweeping legislation extended eligibility for the Sunshine State’s 20-year-old school choice program to every student regardless of income. It also gave parents more control over their children’s education by converting traditional scholarships to education savings accounts.

The accounts, called ESAs, allow funds to be spent on pre-approved uses such as curriculum, digital materials, and tutoring programs in addition to private school tuition and fees.

But despite the greater opportunities for customization, one thing was not included: religious virtual schools. Under the new law, students may use funds to attend non-sectarian virtual schools, such as Florida Virtual School, and traditional in-person religious schools, but not a combination of the two.

That language means that schools such as Archdiocese of Miami Virtual Catholic School and Families of Faith Christian Academy International, which offers a private virtual school option, are excluded from participating in the state’s K-12 education choice scholarship programs. However, families who are using personalized education plans under HB 1 are allowed to use ESA funds to buy curriculum from ADOM Virtual Catholic School, even though they can't use the money to enroll at the school.

The Lakeland-based school is working on passing inspections for a campus on property owned by Epic Church, according to its website. Students who attend the in-person campus full time will be able to use scholarships. Before the pandemic, the school offered a blend of traditional and home-based instruction for homeschool families.

However, when Covid-19 made online education more popular, the school focused more on its virtual offerings.

Jim Lawson, the administrator at Families of Faith, hopes that closing the loophole will be on the lawmakers’ list when the 2024 session begins.

“With all the good that is included in HB 1, which we support, the Florida Legislature has continued to limit a wide range of high-quality educational options,” said Lawson, administrator for Families of Faith, who co-founded the school in 1994 with several other homeschool families.

“Parents can choose a high-quality campus-based program that aligns with the academic needs of their students while not conflicting with their faith. But they are not given the same choice to choose a high-quality accredited virtual program for a faith-based private school. The foundational principle of school choice is to have the same menu of options that families who choose the public school system, which includes FLVS, available to them from the private sector.”

Jim Rigg, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Miami, which has a virtual Catholic school that offers full- and part-time programs, has a similar perspective.

“We favor efforts that maximize the ability of families to choose the school that best fits their child’s needs,” Rigg said. “This would include faith-based virtual schools, such as the ADOM Virtual School used by hundreds of students throughout Florida and across the world.”

Some say the language puts HB 1 in conflict with the First Amendment’s free exercise clause cited in recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions Espinoza v. Montana and Carson v. Makin, which forbade Maine and other states from discriminating against religious schools in state education choice scholarship programs.

In Espinoza, the high court ruled that a state “need not subsidize private education” but that once it “decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

In Carson, the high court ruled that states could not ban faith-based schools from participating in state scholarship programs because the schools engage in religious activities. The case involved town tuition programs offered in some Northeastern states that offer students in rural areas funding to attend private schools where there are no district high schools.

“Likewise, a state need not subsidize families choosing virtual learning, but once it decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some virtual learning providers solely because they are religious,” Jason Bedrick, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, wrote in a recent analysis.

Shawn Peterson, president of Catholic Education Partners, a national organization that promotes greater access to Catholic education, agreed, saying that although he applauds the passage of HB 1 and welcomes the wealth of options it offers, he hopes to see some changes.

“We hope that lawmakers om the Sunshine State will fix the legislation to ensure that all providers to ensure that all providers can participate in the new program,” he said.

Bedrick urged lawmakers to tweak the bill by inserting language clarifying that notwithstanding any other provision in Florida statute, families using education savings accounts may choose virtual providers that offer religious or secular instruction, and that the language should specify that virtual learning counts toward regular attendance regardless of whether students are enrolled in brick-and-mortar schools.

“Florida has an opportunity to reclaim its mantle as the leading state for education freedom and choice,” Bedrick wrote. “With just a few small but important tweaks, the Sunshine State could adopt a policy on universal education choice that will be a shining example for other states to follow.

Any tweaks will have to wait until the 2024 legislative session, which begins Jan. 9.

PINELLAS PARK – David Facey remembers sitting in his Language Arts class last year hoping for salvation. Hoping someone would pull the fire alarm. Drastic, yes, but anything to bring class to an end.

The other students were nearly finished with their writing assignment. David had written only three words.

His teacher noticed. She wasn’t happy.

“David, what’s wrong with you?” she asked. “You need to concentrate.”

David wanted to scream.

It’s not a lack of focus. It’s dysgraphia, a neurological disorder that affects his ability to write. David can’t write within the lines. He can’t properly space letters. It took him nearly the entire class to write those three words. His hand cramped. He had a headache. He could no longer remember what he was writing about.

The topic was the ocean. David can talk for hours about the ocean. He just can’t write about it. That led to a confrontation with the teacher, a trip to the principal’s office, and a phone call to David’s mom.

David’s biological mother used drugs throughout the pregnancy, said Betty Facey, who along with her husband, Arlen, adopted David when he was 3. David was born addicted to those drugs. As a result, he has dysgraphia and dyscalculia, another neurological disorders where he struggles with numbers and math. He has atypical cerebral palsy, which affects his core strength and fine motor skills. He struggles with anger management.

“His are more hidden disabilities,” Betty said.

David, 14, didn’t have a problem in school until the Faceys moved from Michigan to Pinellas Park in 2021. Betty learned the teachers at his assigned school were not following his individual education plan. He couldn’t understand assignments. He couldn’t complete them. He couldn’t keep up with his classmates.

And when confronted by his teachers, he couldn’t control his anger.

“I would act all crazy and stuff,” David said.

With the help of an education choice scholarship, Betty enrolled David at Learning Independence For Tomorrow (LiFT) Academy in Seminole. LiFT is a private K-12 school that serves neurodiverse students.

“I would say if Florida didn’t have this (education choice) option, he would be stuck in (his assigned school) school,” Betty said. “He’d have to put up with the stuff they were dishing out. … He would hate school. He would probably not have a chance to graduate.

“To me, to be able to get him in a place like LiFT, which really is the perfect place for him, is sort of like a miracle.”

To continue reading, click here.

Like many worthy endeavors, it started with two determined moms.

Both Avigayil Shaffren and Shoshana Jablon had children with unique abilities. Shaffren’s son was born with cerebral palsy, which affected his left side. Jablon’s son was born with Down Syndrome and later was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Shaffren’s son attended a charter school for the first four years of his life. The program had its benefits, such as therapies and personal attention that she says he wouldn’t have received anywhere else. But when it came time to start kindergarten, she said, “it was awful.”

Despite her son being assigned a “shadow,” he made little progress. An evaluation turned up other diagnoses, which further complicated things. School officials gave Shaffren a choice: she could have her son repeat kindergarten or place him in a specialized school that would meet his educational needs.

The Shaffrens chose to have him repeat kindergarten, but Shaffren, who is Orthodox Jewish, was concerned about her son’s religious educational needs, especially as he got older. Shortly thereafter, she was laid off her job. Though three months of unemployment brought hardship, it also offered an opportunity.

Shaffren turned to her friend, Jablon, who is also Orthodox Jewish, and said, “That’s it; we’re done. We need to create this school, and we’re not done until we create it.”

Shaffren spent the time she would have devoted to a paying job researching Jewish special education programs, such as OROT, which is the Hebrew word for light. Based in the Philadelphia suburb of Melrose Park, OROT (pronounced OR-oh) partners with four Jewish day schools to provide an integrated education for diverse learners.

Another was SINAI Schools in New York, which is based on a similar model as well as JEWELS, or Jewish Education Where Every Learner Succeeds, a Baltimore program that incorporates therapies into the school day.

Shaffren and Jablon developed a business plan, which Shaffren felt at the time was “a house of cards that was falling apart.”

But, through hard work, determination and support from Teach Florida, they opened JEMS Academy in a building across the street from its umbrella school, Toras Chaim Toras Emes in North Miami Beach.

“It was a miracle,” Shaffren said about the process, which the women said they completed right before the new school year was about to begin.

Though Shaffren’s son was able to start first grade and continue in the umbrella school, she continued to support JEMS, which stands for Jewish Education Made Special. This past year, JEMS opened its doors with five students.

Of those, four received the Florida Family Empowerment Scholarship for students with Unique Abilities. The fifth student had applied but was on the waitlist. The founders say they expect that student to be awarded due to the additional funding and higher growth rates that state lawmakers allowed this year in HB 1.

According to Jablon and Shaffren, the students’ unique abilities vary widely. Staff members, who have advanced degrees in special education, personalize education to best fit each students’ needs. JEMS also provides onsite therapies. Jablon’s 10-year-old son, Nesanel, receives occupational and speech therapies there. The founders are seeking to add a Hebrew reading specialist and build a sensory room.

You can see a video of a typical day at JEMS here.

“It’s mushrooming, really growing,” Jablon said. “We just keep adding things as we see what the needs are.”

The program also includes a music program, which Jablon said serves as a type of therapy for students, some of whom experience anxiety or have autism. A staff member also brings a therapy dog.

“They really act as a cheering squad for one another,” she said. “If someone does something inappropriate, the whole class stops.”

She said it’s a real opportunity to develop social skills because they see how to act with one another.

But one of the biggest benefits to the arrangement has been the opportunity for students at both schools to interact and bond. On Fridays, JEMS students join the Toras Chaim Toras Emes students at an assembly to end the week.

Girls from the umbrella school also visit and engage the JEMS girls in educational games and performances. Boys from Toras Chaim Toras Emes help put on Bible studies and play games and sports with the JEMS boys. JEMS students also participate in recess at the umbrella school’s playground.

Those interactions have enriched both groups, the JEMS founders say.

Jablon said she hopes getting the word out about what JEMS offers will encourage more parents to consider enrolling their children.

“In general, with parents of students of special needs, moving kids from one school to another creates a lot of instability. So, parents keep their children in programs even if they’re not that great.”

Jablon said the Miami-Dade County School District has been helpful by issuing timely individual education plans for students seeking to go JEMS so they can qualify for the Florida Family Empowerment Scholarship for students with Unique Abilities.

JEMS already has opened a second classroom. The founders hope to expand the program at other Jewish day schools as the original students get older and need to attend single-gender classes as Orthodox Judaism requires. The founders also hope to be able to teach general life skills so the students can be as independent as possible as adults.

Says Jablon: “We want our kids to exist in the larger scheme of people and activities and potential jobs in any capacity they can muster.”