A.G. Gancarski
Gov. Ron DeSantis returned to Jacksonville’s Trinity Christian Academy to talk about education policy and school choice, and argued that Florida’s school choice model should be a national template in the new Congress and presidential administration of Donald Trump.
“The Congress has an opportunity to make a difference,” DeSantis said.
“We hope that they will consider looking at Florida’s model for education choice and applying that nationally, which can be done. And you don’t need the Department of Education for this. You can do it through a tax credit program, through the tax code and through the Treasury Department and can even pass it with budget reconciliation in the U.S. Senate.”
A national approach would sidestep unions that are powerful in some places, the Governor said, unions that Florida “beat” but that reign supreme in more Democratic jurisdictions.
“If you look at some of these places like Chicago, you look at some of these places like LA, the reality is the school unions control education in those areas and they own the schools and the politicians lock, stock and barrel. So you are never going to see any type of choice through local or state legislation in those areas because they basically control the political process,” DeSantis explained.
“We beat the unions when we passed our family empowerment scholarship in 2019. We beat the unions in 2020 when we passed the universal choice. And we’ve now empowered teachers with paycheck protection, so there’s no automatic deduction of school union dues allowed in the state of Florida. You want to join, you can write a check and send it, but we’re not going to have the government facilitating joining organizations which have a partisan left agenda and put their interests ahead of the interests of students. But that’s not true in many parts of this country.”
The Governor believes “the debate about school choice” is “over.”
“Clearly, you’re better offering choice than not offering choice. And if you look at some of these places like Chicago, could you do any worse than what they’re doing? I mean, why the hell not try something (different), right?”
One bragging point he mentioned: Florida’s 89.7% graduation rate, which shows “the proof is in the pudding.”
DeSantis noted that more than 500,000 students are in scholarship programs, a new high.
And the programs work, he argued, with more charter students testing at grade level than those in traditional public schools, with “disproportionately low-income” and minority students achieving to the level of “one of the top 10 performing states in the United States of America.”
He also mentioned 155,000 homeschool students in the state, adding up to 1.5 million students in “various choice programs.” This more than triples the level of students in choice programs when he took office, DeSantis noted.
Will national leaders take Florida’s cue? That’s the open question.
13 comments
JD
January 10, 2025 at 11:00 am
NO NO NO!
THIS IS GRIFT OF THE HIGHEST ORDER!
The Charter schools in my area were broke so they had to beg money from the school districts. The Voucher schools are owned by Republicans with little oversight or vetting of content and quality.
IT IS GRIFT under the guise of parental choice.
You worried about welfare queens? Well here they are, they just have decent salaries and are still looking for handouts. F@cking vote no on this.
La Verdad es La Verdad
January 10, 2025 at 12:51 pm
Not sure what happened to my post, maybe it didn’t meet the tint of the narrative. Here’s the report which shows Charter Schools out perform traditional Public Schools, for less money per student.
Only reason your area has “broke” charter schools is because your corrupt school board is starving them.
La Verdad es La Verdad
January 10, 2025 at 12:56 pm
Seems that links in any form aren’t allowed, but here’s one of the many studies analyzing schooling cost vs performance. It’s even more skewed away from public schools when you look at private religious schools – search for money crashers private vs public school cost comparison , if you want facts.
JD
January 10, 2025 at 1:20 pm
You don’t have any facts. Nice try on saying “system won’t let me post links”.
And I can find just as many studies for the other way if you normalize for dollars per student spent on public vs private.
And it doesn’t work that way with the “charter schools” being starved. They get the same allocation as the public schools as well as use of shared resources (busing, webhosting, etc). They were mismanaged.
TruthBTold
January 10, 2025 at 11:46 am
Yes, choice will get our Nation’s education system back on track. Public schools have failed our students, communities and Nation for far too long!
Make America Like Florida!
JD
January 10, 2025 at 11:50 am
No it won’t and you know it, and you have nothing to back that up. Paid shill. You’re nothing but fake news.
TruthBTold
January 10, 2025 at 12:14 pm
Hah, I just read the reply to your previous post, which has all of the facts needed to debunk your Teachers’ Union lies. I ditto that reply.
JD
January 10, 2025 at 12:46 pm
You’re a paid shill. It won’t let me post my comment. AG and Peter going for SEO indexing.
KathrynA
January 10, 2025 at 12:11 pm
School choice has destroyed education in our schools. Most of the parents who are getting vouchers have no idea how to teach and know many use that money for vacations and to take children to Disney weekly (fun, but not too much there educationally). Many of the private schools are start ups with no accountability–some do a good job, but many do not. We will have such a “dumbed down” electorate, which is the purpose of Florida’s Republican party.
GeeWoo
January 10, 2025 at 12:46 pm
Wow, how self righteous and condescending of you.
My wife and I home schooled our kids K-12, and they were testing at the 12th grade level by their freshman year. All of our home school counterparts achieved similar results.
Stop advocating for the “dumbed down” electorate your public school system created, your words, not mine, and go pack sand.
Vicki
January 10, 2025 at 12:35 pm
How about the finances of this change? How much has been taken from public schools which will be taking on those rejected from private schools while they collected the voucher. How are the public schools reimbursed for those who got rejected by the private schools? What about the qualifications of the private school teachers? Why are wealthy getting voucher funds? Private schools are becoming money makers with the lack of quality education evaluation. Public schools are evaluated at a different standard.
Tax payer dollars use must have better accountability!
GeeWoo
January 10, 2025 at 1:01 pm
Why should public schools be reimbursed for failing our kids? That makes no sense! And, no, the schools take the same standardized tests, like my home schooled kids did. And they, as well as their home schooled counterparts, all scored 2-4 grades above their actual grade level.
So what
January 10, 2025 at 1:06 pm
Cash must be coming from the Florida lottery..free vouchers for private educations..that belonged to the financially capable that had structural values..
Now belonging to us incompetent parents that can’t even hold on to a job
, but can’t teach our children thanks Ron.