Q&A of the Day – Florida’s Universal School Choice Legislation
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
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Today’s Entry: @brianmuddradio Think of it in terms of Darwin's theory of evolution: Survival of the Fittest. Competition breeds excellence. In the long run, our government schools improve and prosper.
Bottom Line: I received several great questions and comments about Florida House Speaker Paul Renner’s recently announced Universal School Choice Plan, but I picked that particular tweet for today because it sums up the net of this perfectly. With increased school choice, comes increased pressure for underperforming schools to improve their game or risk becoming irrelevant. And of all of Darwin’s theories, Survival of the Fittest is at the top of the list to me. I’m going to address some of the other related questions I’ve received during the weekend, like how much money the vouchers are for, if there’s an income cap on the vouchers, if there’s preferential treatment for specific students, etc. - though, as I’m inclined to say, if the premise of anything is false, anything built on it will be as well. Hense the starting this conversation with the Survival of the Fittest concept in mind.
Since the advent of the Department of Education in 1980, public education outcomes in this country have consistently trended in one direction – down. The premise of our public education system has been a false one. Since federalizing our public education, our schools have been increasingly geared towards the lowest common denominator, or in this case, the lowest performing students. In 1980, at the time of the rollout of the Department of Education, the United States ranked 2nd on average in education outcomes. By 2018, the most recent year with which we have worldwide analyzable data to compare students between countries equitably, as measured by the Program for International Student Assessment - our students had fallen to an average of 21st in education outcomes. At the same time, high school graduation rates have risen from 72% in 1980, to 88% by 2018. So, to my original point, we have a huge decrease in knowledge learned by grade school students, with 18 countries having passed us over the past 40+ years, while we’ve simultaneously have had a big increase in high school graduation rates. It’s concrete evidence that our education establishment has consistently lowered the bar to get more students over it. And that takes us to Florida’s school choice plan. Because in Florida, we’ve been bucking the trend ever since we introduced the leading school choice program in the country.
Florida first introduced school choice in 2005. After defeating lawsuits by the teachers’ unions in court, Florida’s school choice program was able to commence. At the time Florida’s high school graduation rate was a stunningly low 59%, and for students who were attending school, students ranked an average of 25th for outcomes according to the National Assessment. Fast forward to today. Florida’s graduation rate is now over 90% and our students are now 4th in assessment outcomes. In other words, there’s a direct connection between Florida’s ever-increasing effort to expand school choice and education outcomes. That’s success to significance when runs directly counter to what’s been happening nationally, and the biggest change within our state has been steadily increasing school choice options. By providing options to those who’ve been most vulnerable beyond what lines drawn on a map have been, we’ve been able to significantly increase the likelihood they’ll graduate, while also significantly increasing what’s been learned.
The Survival of the Fittest concept should apply to the product being offered to our kids, not to the opportunity our children have based exclusively on where they live. There are 3.38 million children in Florida enrolled in grade schools – 2.9 million of which are in public schools. Only approximately 3.5% of them have had access to school choice options. Imagine the potential within this state with eventual universal school choice? To be continued... In tomorrow’s Q&A I’ll break down specifics within the plan.