William Mattox: Florida could lose its #1 ranking in education freedom

Yellow school bus fleet on parking. Back to school

Florida public officials love to bask in the glory of national championships and #1 rankings. Just last week, the Florida Senate honored the University of Florida’s 2025 national championship in college basketball at the Capitol.

And several blocks away, the entrance to the state education building contains a bevy of banners highlighting Florida’s #1 position in various education rankings.

Sadly, Florida soon may have to remove its #1 banners for education freedom. And the reason isn’t because the state of Texas just passed a landmark education choice bill authorizing the largest launch of a K-12 scholarship program in American history.

No, the reason Florida’s #1 ranking is in jeopardy is because a bill recently passed by the Florida House contains a provision that could cause our overall scores to drop.

Put another way, Florida’s #1 ranking in education freedom is in jeopardy not because other states are suddenly leap-frogging over the Sunshine State. Our #1 ranking is in jeopardy because the Florida House recently committed the legislative equivalent of an unforced error in tennis or an own goal in soccer.

The provision in question sets aside a pot of money for K-12 scholarships based on estimates of student enrollment. But it provides no backup funding plan if applications for scholarships exceed these estimates. The net effect is a de facto “cap” on K-12 scholarships – and second-class treatment of scholarship applicants as compared to public school students (whose funding is guaranteed).

Now, in response to this, Florida House members will say, “Don’t worry. We’ll estimate well. We’re not trying to hurt scholarship applicants.”  And, frankly, their intentions should be trusted. I mean, Florida didn’t get to be #1 in education freedom without strong leadership from our state legislators.

Still, good intentions don’t always lead to good policy. And the problem with the House plan is that it puts families desiring scholarships on shaky ground. It injects uncertainty into families’ schooling decisions – which could also adversely affect other decisions. For example, does the scholarship-desiring family that wants to downsize to a more affordable neighborhood make the move if they think their child could be denied a scholarship and get stuck in an inferior district school?

It is this year-to-year uncertainty – and the second-class treatment of scholarship applicants – that help to explain why education freedom rankings (from organizations such as EdChoice and The Heritage Foundation) now consider whether “universal” school choice programs are truly universal.  That is, do “universal” programs guarantee scholarship funding for all – or merely scholarship application eligibility to all?

Thankfully, there are still two ways the Florida Legislature can overcome the House’s unforced error. The Legislature could adopt the Senate’s version of the scholarship bill (which contains no cap). Or it could adopt no scholarship bill at all.

Interestingly, House Speaker Danny Perez should have a keen interest in seeing the scholarship cap go away: One of Florida’s #1 rankings now in jeopardy comes from the American Legislative Exchange Council (an organization to which Perez has strong ties, as its most recent national Chair).

Hopefully, the Florida Legislature will soon kill the cap on Florida K-12 scholarships – and ensure that the Sunshine State remains #1 in education freedom. After all, the last thing Florida legislators should be doing right now is giving those tall-Ish Texans reason to think that they could ever overtake our state in K-12 national rankings.

Florida forever!

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William Mattox is the senior director of the Marshall Center for Education Freedom at The James Madison Institute.