Three years after Florida lawmakers established a new education savings account program that empowered parents to customize their children’s education, the number of a la carte learning options has exploded.
What once was available only to students with unique abilities became an option for all families who didn’t want to send their children to a school full time, and a la carte learning has gone mainstream.
A panel of education choice advocates that included John F. Kirtley, founder of Step Up For Students, the nation’s largest scholarship funding organization; Ron Matus, director of research and special projects at Step Up; and a la carte provider Marissa Hess shared the Sunshine State’s success with attendees at the annual American Legislative Exchange Council meeting in Orlando, Florida.
The panel highlighted the following:
In response to questions from panel moderator William Mattox of James Madison Institute about the upside of a la carte learning, Matus, who has co-authored a special report on the topic, said the programs are giving families the flexibility they want. And it was spawning innovation.
According to Matus, the success can be seen in the numbers: Last year, more than 150,000 students used the state’s Personalized Education Program and the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities’ homeschool option, compared with about 12,000 five years ago.
He offered several examples of successful a la carte providers, including Surf Skate Science and The Living School in South Florida, as well as Wagyumama Ranch Schoolhouse in the Panhandle. One of the benefits of Florida’s scholarship programs is that students receive equal scholarship funding regardless of whether they use it for traditional private school or a la carte programs. The founders of Wagyumama, he said, were asked to set up a similar operation across the Alabama line but were unable to because scholarship amounts for homeschool families were significantly less than those given to private school families.
Matus also noted the competitive effects of education choice on public schools, which responded by offering more innovative programs to attract and retain students.
Matus said among the biggest challenges is publicizing the benefits of education choice after years of dominant negative and false narratives perpetuated by choice opponents.
Kirtley, who founded Step Up 25 years ago and serves as the nonprofit organization’s chairman, outlined the history of education choice in Florida, which dates to 1996 when then-Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, signed the state’s charter school bill into law. His successor, Gov. Jeb Bush, then established a limited private school scholarship program in 1999. Lawmakers followed that in 2001 with the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program. Gov. Ron DeSantis established and expanded additional scholarships, including universal eligibility and education savings accounts in 2023.
With ESAs comes the tough task of implementation, and Kirtley discussed the need to view expenditures through clear eyes and with a fair mind. Controversies erupted over scholarship students’ visits to theme parks such as the Florida Aquarium, which Kirtley said public schools do routinely to enhance learning.
Kirtley said his advice to lawmakers in other states considering ESA programs like Florida’s is not to be swayed by misinformation. A good yardstick for appropriate ESA expenditures, he said, is to look at what public schools are allowed to provide for their students. He also emphasized school districts’ response to choice, and how they have become huge players in its expansion by becoming ESA and a la carte providers. Today, 53 of the state’s 67 school districts are either approved a la carte providers or taking steps to become providers on Step Up For Students’ online platform so they can begin offering unbundled courses and services that have become so popular with Florida families.