The Move from School Choice to Education Choice in Florida

Welcome to the Future of Education. And now here's your host, Michael Horn. Welcome to the Future of Education. I am Michael Horne. Delighted you are all joining us at the show where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. And to help us think through how we get there. I am delighted that Ron Mattis, the director of research and special projects at Step up for Students, which was founded as a nonprofit org to administer scholarships for Florida school children to the school that most made sense for them. I'm delighted that Ron is joining us today. Ron, first, good to see you. You've been a longtime friend and follower on both sides of the equation in this space. So how are you? Good to see you.

Good to see you. I'm great. I am amazed and grateful and honored to be on your show. I feel like I'm in a dream. So thank you so much for. For inviting me on.

As always, you guys will learn as you listen. Ron is nothing but flattering and. And over. Over with the praise of others. But I. Why don't you start before we get into the some of the reasons that I want to talk to you, which is getting a. A view of the landscape in Florida specifically. But first, g give us a, you know, sort of an overview br of your own background, how you came to the world of education and perhaps how, you know, Step up for Students, how it intersects with that story and how Step up for Students has actually evolved over time into its current set of operations.

Sure, sure. Well, I guess the most boring part would be my story, but I am a longtime former newspaper reporter. That's what I did my really, my entire adult life until I joined Step up back in 2012. I was at the Tampa Bay Times, which is the biggest and most influential newspaper in Florida. And back when newspapers had a little more juice, I mean, they were pound for pound, one of the best newspapers in America. I was there for 10 years, and for eight years, I was the state education reporter. And so there's a direct connection between what I learned as a reporter and what inspired me to move over to Step Up. You know, over that time, writing a lot about issues with public education, seeing how choice was making a difference. And I started covering education during Governor Bush's second term. Of course, he did a ton to accelerate choice in Florida. So I was there in the early days as choice was ramping up, and I came to see how absolutely vital it was to an education system that I thought made sense. And at Some point back around 2012, I got a chance to move over to Step Up. One of my former colleagues, a really remarkable guy named John east, who was a longtime editorial page writer at the Times, had moved over to Step Up. And a few years down the road, he reached out and said, hey, if you. If you want to actually make a difference, instead of writing about problems, you want to help solve them, you might want to consider Step up and. Best decision I ever made. I'm so. I'm not one of those reporters who left the profession because things were crumbling around me, and I had to go, you know, reinvent myself as a PR flack or something. I left because I. I realized that choice was going to be the new normal, and I had a chance to shape that a little bit, and I had a chance to watch it unfold from just an incredible perch, which is Step Up. So the second thing, you know, that you were asking about how Step up has changed, I mean, I think Step up has changed remarkably over the time that I've been here, and in some ways, that change is representative of the change as a whole in the public education system in Florida. So when I got to Step up, there were, like, 20 or 25 employees. We have 20 times that now. We have more than.

For real.

For real. We have more than 400 employees now. Wow. When I got to Step up, we were serving about 50,000 students on scholarship. Today, you probably heard this big announcement from Governor DeSantis last week. We've now reached the 500,000 threshold in terms of scholarship students. So the number of students we're serving has increased tenfold. And then, as you know, because you pay such close attention to this stuff, we're not just serving students on school choice scholarships anymore, which was the way it was when I got here, which is relatively simple. I don't want. You know, my colleagues do a lot of incredible work. So I don't want to say was simple, but relatively. Yeah, yeah. Compared to what it is now. You know, these scholarships are technically now all ESAs. And so the volume of transactions that we have to process, it's gone through the roof. And so we have been right there the whole time as Florida has moved from a system of district schools to school choice, and now from a system of school choice to education choice. And. And that's where we are now. And that next phase of going from school choice to education choice is exciting, and we're right in the middle of it.

Yeah, I. I think that phrase, from school choice to education choice is a really Good way to frame it, of course, because, you know, ESAs are not just. And one of my biggest pet peeves is when people call them vouchers. And I'm like, it's not just, it's, it's very different in a lot of, in a lot of respects. And I love how you introduced yourself the same way you introduced yourself to me over, you know, probably, I think it was right before you maybe you formally joined Step up for Students is the first time we connected and you said, I'm just a journalist trying to figure this out. So here you are, having learned quite a bit and, and figured out quite a bit. And I guess the intersection where I want to go in is about a year ago, maybe a little over, I wrote a piece suggesting that as education choice grows, meaning not just school choice, but we should start to expect more unbundling of what we think of as schools. Right? Students weren't just going to go to one school. They'll have tutors, they'll have a variety of options. But I didn't expect to see a great unbundling en masse. And, and I based that Frank on two things. One, our theories at the Christensen Institute around how innovations tend to start as, as, as very bundled over time before they modularize and unbundled. But I also based it, frankly on data from Florida that you all had published about how individuals were in fact using ESAs. But then fast forward and you all came out with this report, a taste of a la carte learning. And it seems that things on the ground are changing quite a bit. So in that report, what did you learn? What is the data showing in terms of how people are using education savings accounts and how perhaps the nature of choice and schooling and learning is evolving?

I think it's changing pretty rapidly. So when you say, you know, you expected there to be an unbundling, but not a great unbundling, I guess it depends on, you know, what your definition of rate is.

Sure, I, I, I, I got some latitude in the headline writing, right?

So, I mean, I, I think there's a lot going on and things have changed very quickly. Your analysis was absolutely correct in that the vast majority of money at this point is still being used for private school tuition, even though technically these are ESAs. The vast majority of families are still using the ESAs. Like the old school. I say old school even though most of the country hasn't even gotten these yet.

But I was going to say you're, you're well ahead of the curve there.

We are ahead of the curve. And so, but, but most families are using it like a voucher in that they're using it to access the private schools that they want. And for what it's worth, those private schools are also changing pretty dramatically. I mean, I think there are a lot of dynamic things going on in the private school choice space too, and I don't want to diminish that. At the same time, though, even though most of the money is still being used for private school tuition, we do have growing numbers of families who are doing completely customized, personalized, a la carte unbundled learning. And it's not, it's happening pretty quickly, but it's happening maybe a little less quickly than people realize because the first ESA is 10 years old. I mean, we got our first ESA program 10 years ago that was for students with special needs. But very quickly, thousands of parents were using that ESA to pick and choose from multiple providers and programs. They were the pioneers, the early adopters, you know, whatever you want to call it. And they really started showing the rest of us what was possible. So, so there were pioneers and there have been for 10 years. And then you fast forward to 2023 when we got this new scholarship program called the Personalized Education Program Scholarship, which is an ESA for a broader group of families who are not enrolled in public school. They're essentially homeschool families, although there are some legal distinctions there. But Michael, we went from thousands of families doing a la carte learning to tens of thousands in a snap between those two programs, between, you know, the, the ESA for students with special needs and those in that program who are unbundling doing a la carte. And this new program at this point, we have probably about 80,000 families doing a la carte learning this fall. I am, I would bet a decent amount of money that we would be in excess of 100,000, because the cap on the, on the PEP program alone is 100,000 plus. We are seeing more and more of those, the scholarships called the Family Empowerment Scholarship, Free families with unique abilities, students with unique abilities. But that program has a bunch of a la carte. That program has a bunch of a la carte families too. So between those two programs, we'll be beyond a hundred thousand this fall. So when you say grade unbundling, I mean that's a pretty big number that's materialized in a short amount of time.

That's a huge number. I just put it in context in, in two ways. One, overall K12 student population in Florida, and then two is just so we Have a percentage sense. And then when you say like they're a la carte, like, you know, what are their days or, or sort of spend look like what, you know, what's the range of categories you see that they're, that they're cobbling together.

So overall in Florida we have about 3.3 to 3.4 million kids. So, you know, 80,000 or a hundred thousand do an a la carte. That's still a relatively small number in that bigger mix. And I don't know what the ceiling is. You know, I, I, if I ever had a crystal ball, it was shattered into a gazillion pieces five years ago. Things have changed so rapidly. I never would have foreseen what we're experiencing now. So it's still a small percentage, but it's growing rapidly. And then in terms of what those families are doing, it's remarkable. I mean, they so quickly have figured out how to maximize the use of the ESAs to cobble together these programs from multiple providers. So to give you just, I mean, just one example, this one mom who I wrote about in conjunction with the a la carte paper, she's probably picking and choosing from a dozen different providers. So she's going to outschool for a writing tutor. She's going to two different micro schools to get a la car classes, in one case for science and engineering classes, in the other case for art and drama classes. She's using the ESA to do lacrosse for her kids at a recreational league. She's using it for a chess club, Lego robotics competitive team. Oh my gosh. What else is she using it for? Oh, her, her kids are dyslexic, so she's got a dyslexia tutor which she accesses online because the tutor is in Iowa where they were originally. So she can continue to use the same tutor and then on and on. And then, then she supplements all of that with a variety of homeschool materials. So she's got like 20 different things that she's juggling to put together for her two boys. And that is not unusual in the least. There are families all over the place doing that.

It occurs to me, one, the lack of parochialism is admirable in the state that you would allow dollars to be spent for a tutor in Iowa.

Right?

I can imagine other states putting in education savings accounts and being like, but it has to be spent within, you know, so that, that strikes me, but, but a second thing strikes me about the special ed origins, which I for some reason had not put that Together, the opportunity, I think, for ESAs like, of course, Special ed families should be on the front lines of a la carte unbundled, because their needs are probably the clearest to those parents and the need to source it from lots of different places rather than assume a one size fits all, like they've been crushed under the weight of that for a long time. But B, it also could bring some real exciting, like from a, you know, not just from a service delivery of getting the right services, but also from a cost perspective. I would think the current incentives in special education across the country are to like, ramp up dollars as evidence of serving. Here's actually a way to make it more efficient, I would think, because the parents are thinking about what's the right mix and value across. Across a budget, in effect, which I think is pretty. The other thing that your report did, and again, the name of it, A Taste of a la carte Learning, came out in June. You all talked about how this was also really happening in certain regions within Florida. I think South Florida was one of them that you fingered, if memory serves. What's the context? So, like, if part of the story is special ed, what's the context of South Florida? Why do you think it's perhaps happening there more?

Well, it's definitely, like happening in a huge way down there. I mean, there are folks down there who have just created an alternative, alternative universe for education in a short amount of time. It's really remarkable to behold. Sherene Ratigan, who you just had on your show recently, who I just find to be completely inspiring, she's right in the middle of that. But there's like a hundred of hers down there doing these amazing things. I think. I think there are several things happening that make sense as to why South Florida is a particular hotspot. So number one, you know, there's. There's the density down there. It's. There's a lot of people. I mean, there's 6 or 7 million people between three counties, you know, Miami Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. And, you know, when you have that many people, even a small percentage who want to do something different can be a lot. And I think that's what we're seeing down there. There's a small percentage who want to do something different than traditional education, but they've got. They've got numbers because there's so many people down there. The second thing I think is it's incredibly diverse down there. I mean, Florida would be one of the most diverse states in the country, right in South Florida is even more diverse than the rest of Florida. So you just have this incredibly dynamic mix of people. Many folks down there would be first in generation immigrants. So you have that, like, immigrant drive. I think you have very much a ton of people with an entrepreneurial mindset down there who want to do something different, who want to, you know, shape their own destinies. And if they got the opportunity, they're going to do it. And then, last but not least, and I hope I'm not, like, going to sound disparaging here, I do think that these folks, particularly in Broward county, which is the heart of this, are particularly driven because of the situation with the school districts down there. It's kind of interesting that you have, side by side, one of the most dynamic school districts, a district that has made a name for itself, embracing change and embracing choice. And then right next door, which is Miami Dade.

I was gonna say that must be Miami Dade.

Yeah, Miami Dade, certainly under Albert Alberto Carvalho, who's now the superintendent in Los Angeles, they did remarkable things. And that has continued under the new superintendent. But then right next door is Broward, which is, you know, kind of more like your traditional big city school district, fairly or not. It has, you know, a disproportionate share of negative headlines about board politics and, you know, financial issues with projects and cost overruns. And that's been kind of the Broward story for a long, long time. So there were many frustrated families down there. Not to say that it's still not serving a lot of families well, because I don't want to take that away from them, because they are. But I think there was more frustration down there because it's kind of a stereotypical big city district. And then the last thing I'll say, and then I'll quit rambling. Parkland also happened down there in 2018, and I don't want to. I don't think we should diminish, like, the psychological impact that had on a ton of families. So between the frustration with, like, a typical big city district and then the horror of Parkland, people wanted something different. And it's not a surprise to me that the biggest growth, both in raw numbers and percentage in homeschooling in any big district in Florida was in Broward. And so it's also no surprise to me that parents there and educators there took the opportunities they got with ESAs and ran with it. And that's what you see happening is.

Your sense that the folks who have taken ESAs and gone into homeschooling are most of them in micro schools at this point? How many micro schools are in the state of Florida?

You know, nobody has a good number, but it's easily hundreds. Okay. There is a group called, you know, the Florida Micro Schools, which has a couple hundred members and I don't think they've catch captured them all. I mean, Michael, they crop up all the time. I mean, it's amazing. But nobody has a good number on them. Some of them you can track because they are technically officially state registered private schools.

Okay.

As you know, the definition is kind of fuzzy. So there's a bunch of schools that aren't registered private schools, but are still like these little micro environments, essentially micro schools, either hybrid homeschools or kind of their own little homeschool setup. So nobody has a good number, but I would say easily hundreds.

Super interesting. Okay, so let me ask you this question because you brought up the districts and where they are more effective, perhaps you see less folks looking outside the district and where they are perhaps less effective, you see some more pent up demand for other options. You know, you talked about the special education history in Florida also. The other history, of course, is the Florida Virtual School, which goes back almost, you know, 30 years ago. I think at this point I. And Florida Virtual School is interesting because it's literally a la carte online courses for the most part. And it was also sort of like in this interesting way, like a tool of districts to provide bespoke options. So I'm just sort of curious, like in your view, has that made school districts perhaps more able than maybe we'll see in other states to be able to respond and offer, you know, unbundled education options themselves or sort of be the quarterbacks, if you will, for these, for families, you know, taking a little bit here, taking a little bit there, you got the Tim Tebow law. You like, you have sort of, it seems, ingredients that would make districts more nibble nimble. But I don't know if that's true.

I think it very much is true. And I'm so glad you, you brought up Florida Virtual school, because as amazing as they have been for 30 years, I don't think they've ever gotten fully the credit they deserve for being just the pioneers, of course, choice. Right. Like you're right, they were, they're like the original a la carte provider.

Yeah.

And they've been here in our backyard. And I think what they did was show people a model and they also kind of prime the pump because, you know, for, I don't know, at least a decade now, maybe, maybe 15 years now, it has been a graduation requirement that kids take at least one virtual school class. And so hundreds of thousands of families have had a little taste of a la carte learning because they've had to, like, take a single class from a different provider. So everybody's experienced that. I think what we're seeing now is families can still go to Florida Virtual School to access a la carte classes. But we're also seeing, and this is a super amazing development to keep track of going forward. We're also seeing districts now offering unbundling of their own apart from virtual classes. And so there are six districts. I think that's correct. There may be even more now. There are six districts that I know of who are now official providers in the system who can get paid with ESA funds. And they're doing that so families can access one or two or three classes, whatever they want to supplement the rest of the programming they're putting together for their kids. There are at least a half dozen other districts who are in the pipeline. So there are districts who are seeing the times have changed. Some families don't want our whole package deal. They just want some of the pieces. Why don't we offer that to them? And so Florida Virtual School primed the pump for that. But we're seeing districts on their own offer in person, a la Clark classes too, and that's a trend I expect to continue.

That's fascinating. I mean, I think it's really cool also, because it also gives lie to this sort of storyline that I think is lazy from people that say, oh, ESAs are just a way to undercut districts. No, like districts, come on in, innovate, compete, you know, do better things for students. You got evidence that maybe they're doing it?

Well, they're doing it. And it's also not unexpected to me anyways. And I, I want to give everybody credit who deserves credit. And I don't think this is an either or thing. It's not us versus them. And even though people don't recognize this enough, the fact is, districts in Florida, most of them, not all of them, but most of them did respond to the first wave of choice. They did respond to school choice. All those charters and all those private schools that, you know, parents were accessing with their vouchers or tax credit scholarships, that did inspire districts to rev up their own choice options in a huge way. And I, I don't know what the exact latest numbers are, but I would say they are either the biggest engines for school choice now in Florida, or among them, because all those magnet schools and career academies and IB programs and everything else they created made them leaders in choice, too. And so I am not entirely surprised that now that we're moving from school choice to education choice, and they see families wanting that, that they will find some way to adapt. And I think we should give them credit for the extent to which they are adapting to the new environment.

Super interesting. And of course, it's not just choice, right? With the innovation and choice and range of things you're seeing, you know, test scores, everything else have risen in Florida. It's one of the real bright spots in the nation. I want to end our conversation on maybe the downer, but maybe you'll give us the silver lining, which is you have this section in the report around remaining challenges. And so I'll quote it, you say, to ensure the sustained growth of a la carte providers, policymakers must continue working with parents, providers, and other stakeholders to raise awareness about the possibilities, better define success and accountability, and thoughtfully strengthen processes for everything from determining eligibility to facilitating payments. Now, I don't have to tell you this touches a big nerve around accountability. And it's a flashpoint. As you know, in this space there, there are some who say public funding, therefore we need, you know, publicly determined accountability for every choice a student or family might make, whether that's school or piano lesson or equine therapy, I suppose. And the other side says, well, families choosing is in fact the accountability, because if it's not working for them, they can go elsewhere. So they're really empowered in this world of ESAs and education choice. Help me understand why you all highlighted this as a challenge in your own perspective or observations around this tension or looming question.

You know, I think we had to put it in there because it is an important question. It is a totally fair question, and, you know, nobody should dodge that. And I. And I don't think it's a downer. I think it's an opportunity for us to better explain, one, that it's not either or, but two, that, you know, accountability isn't just regulations. Accountability is on a continuum that also includes, you know, consumer choice or parent choice and that end of the accountability spectrum, and this is something I've learned a lot about over the past 10 or 15 years, is pretty exacting. You know, parents make good decisions. They do drive quality. And I think we need to help people understand that accountability isn't just regs. I think we have an opportunity to help people understand that there is evidence, including from our other scholarship programs, that when you have a light touch with the regulations and you put the bulk of the accountability on the parents to drive quality, you get good results. I mean, what we see with the other scholarship programs essentially are better outcomes at far less cost with much higher customer satisfaction, even though those systems are far less regulated than the traditional systems. I suspect that will hold true with a la carte learning as well. One other thing to mention is that, you know, going back to the not being either or so there is a regulatory accountability piece on the PEP program as well, which is, you know, the a la carte program that's blowing up. Those students do have to take a norm reference test just like their counterparts who are using the old school school choice scholarships. So at some point, not, not too far in the future, we will have data from those students and that will tell us something. And you know, maybe it'll tell us that just like with the school choice scholarship kids, that light touch on the regs is working pretty well. Maybe it'll tell us something different and we'll have to, you know, adjust. But somebody in their wisdom, I think, you know, and I know, I know testing can be controversial and I know plenty of families don't want to take any test, but I think that somebody in their wisdom decided we should at least have that piece so that we can check going forward whether this is getting, you know, the results and the outcomes that we want and taxpayers want and the state wants. So I'm rambling now, but I, I, we had to put that question in there. Accountability is a huge question. It's a fair question and I think we have an opportunity to, to better explain it to people so that they see the, the setup that we've created so far makes sense.

So sorry, lightning, last question on this one then, because I'm curious. You all Step up for Students is almost a portal that's processing ESA dollars and helping people get to the schools of choice or education programs of choice, whatever it might be. What role do you all play in sort of showcasing the data, whatever that means, whether it's test scores or consumer opinion or whatever else to help, you know, people have more information. Or are you all thinking about almost yelp, like providing more of that information?

I think that is the hope that eventually our systems will be able to have that consumer posted information so that families can get some kind of. Now I don't know where that's at. And sir, I'm going to be careful here. I don't know exactly where that's at or what it's going to look like. But that has been something that's been talked about for a long time. You know, essentially having the parents themselves, the consumers, like we do with so many things nowadays, put their two cents in as to whether this provider or that or that school was a good deal. So I suspect that that is where we're headed.

Well, these are things that we'll have to stay abreast of and you'll have to come back at some point and tell us how it's evolved over time. But just really appreciate you all, were you coming in and your team and I didn't realize 400 plus amazing growth, you know, the work that you all are doing on behalf of Florida students. Appreciate it, Ron.

Well, thank you so much. And a big shout out to, you know, all of my colleagues, all 400 of them, most of whom I have not met. I haven't met them, but they're incredible. And they're making this all happen. I mean, they're making it so families all over Florida can have exactly what they want for their kids. And it's a cool thing to be part of. So thank you so much for giving me a little bit of a spotlight and asking these great questions. I really appreciate it now.

You bet. Terrific stuff. And for all you tuning in, we'll be back. Next time on THE FUTURE OF education.