When I think about the state of public education in Florida, I recall a song from “The Wiz,” the 1978 film reimagining of “The Wizard of Oz,” where Diana Ross sang, “Can’t you feel a brand new day?”
It’s a brand new day in our state’s educational history. Parents are in the driver’s seat deciding where and how their children are educated, and because the money follows the student, every school and educational institution must compete for the opportunity to serve them.
Public schools are rising to meet that challenge.
For the past year, helping them has been my full-time job.
Today, 27 of Florida’s 67 school districts have contracted with Step Up For Students to provide classes and services to scholarship students, and another 10 have applied to do so.
That’s up from a single school district and one lone charter school this time a year ago.
This represents a seismic shift in public education.
For decades, a student’s ZIP code determined which district school he or she attended, limiting options for most families. For decades, Florida slowly chipped away at those boundaries, giving families options beyond their assigned schools.
Then, in 2023, House Bill 1 supercharged the transformation. That legislation made every K-12 student in Florida eligible for a scholarship. It gave parents more flexibility in how they can use their child’s scholarship. It also created the Personalized Education Program (PEP), designed specifically for students not enrolled in school full time.
This year, more than 80,000 PEP students are joining approximately 39,000 Unique Abilities students who are registered homeschoolers. That means nearly 120,000 scholarship students whose families are fully mixing and matching their education.
Families are sending the clear message that they want choices, flexibility, and an education that reflects the unique needs and interests of their children.
Districts have heard that message.
Parents may not want a full-time program at their neighborhood school, but they still want access to the districts’ diverse menu of resources, including AP classes, robotics labs, career education courses, and state assessments. Families can pay for those services directly with their scholarship funds, giving districts a new revenue stream while ensuring students get exactly what they need.
In my conversations with district leaders across the state, they see demand for more flexible options in their communities, and they’re figuring out how to meet it.
For instance, take a family whose child is enthusiastic about robotics. In the past, their choices would have been all-or-nothing. If they chose to use a scholarship, they would gain the ability to customize their child’s education but lose access to the popular robotics course at their local public school. Now, that family can enroll their child in a district robotics course, pay for it with their scholarship, and give their child firsthand technology experience to round out the tutoring, curriculum, online courses and other educational services the family uses their scholarship to access.
Families can log in to their account in Step Up’s EMA system, find providers under marketplace and select their local school district offerings under “contracted public school services.” School districts will get a notification when a scholarship student signs up for one of their classes. From large, urban districts like Miami-Dade to small, rural ones like Lafayette, superintendents are excited to see scholarship students walk through their doors to engage in the “cool stuff” public schools can offer. Whether it’s dual enrollment, performing arts, or career and technical education, districts are learning that when they open their arms to families with choice, those families respond with enthusiasm.
Parents are no longer passive consumers of whatever system they happen to live in. They are empowered, informed, and determined to customize their child’s learning journey.
This is the promise of a brand new day in Florida education. For too long, choice has been framed as a zero-sum game where if a student left the public system, or never even attended in the first place, the district lost. That us-versus-them mentality is quickly going the way of the Wicked Witch of the West. What we are witnessing now is something far more hopeful: a recognition that districts and families can be partners, not adversaries, in building customized learning pathways.
The future of education in Florida is not about one system defeating another. It is about ensuring families have access to as many options as needed, regardless of who delivers them.
As Diana Ross once sang, “Hello world! It’s like a different way of living now.” It has my heart singing so joyfully.
