Earlier this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that Florida has surpassed the 500,000 mark in the number of students participating in the state’s Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES) program.
The Desantis announcement was welcomed by school choice movements who praised state legislators for their commitment to ensuring that all Florida families have access to the best education for their children.
Florida is still making progress in providing education. School choice advocates point to many families, especially those who may not have the financial means to pay tuition fees for private schools, and other options that prevent children from attending school in person for a variety of reasons. These reasons include mental or physical health issues, bullying, or specific learning needs.
Since Florida’s virtual school first opened as a high school in 1997, Florida’s full-time online public schools have been a lifeline for hundreds of Florida families.
Thanks to these efforts, Florida now has a robust, state-sponsored virtual school, several multi-district options, and many district programs.
All of this is surprising, but the new national rankings of national online learning policies reveal that improvements are needed to support state online learning options.
Parents of School Options (PSO), a national parent advocacy organization that promotes school selection policies across the country, have released a report card examining online learning policies in all 50 states. The report card found that Florida received an A in Virtual School Registration but earned funding and B in Remote Protected Test, an important issue for virtual families.
A list of PSOs that need improvement:
1. Leave your completed funds
Currently, virtual learning programs only receive funding if students complete a course or program they are enrolled in. The program was to ensure that students were fully educated, but not considered if students were able to enter mid-year. Many students enroll in full-time online learning to overcome tough situations like physical or mental health challenges, preventing them from learning face to face. Some of these students have gotten better and will return to in-person learning in the middle of the school year. If this happens, the school will not receive payment for the education it provides to its students. The costs may be added up, especially if special services are provided to students, such as special education or counseling. For this reason, some programs decided to limit enrollment to only higher-performing students and limit family options. There are only a few multi-district programs that accept all students.
Of the 37 states that have some statewide online learning, 24 of them are funded with the same basic state funding as their brick and mortar counterparts. This is true even in the deepest blue states like California.
2. Expand remote protected tests
Remote Protected Testing enables full-time online students to perform nationally mandatory tests in an online setting with robust security, privacy and cheating anti-cheat detection.
Remote Protected testing reduces the burden on families by removing the need for holidays, childcare or long trips to test centres, especially in rural areas where the nearest testing site is just hours away.
In Florida, students allow students to grade 3-8 maths and 3-10 English, but science 5-8, course end tests, and PM3 are not grades. To move from B to A grade, you will need to expand the scope of currently allowed tests.
3. Notable omission of online learning from FES programs
Although not mentioned in the report card, another important issue facing Florida is the exclusion of online learning from the Florida Empowerment Scholarship (FES) program. I have worked on this topic before, but Congress has not yet taken action. In this session, Florida lawmakers are considering Senate Bill 1462, which allows for full-time online private school options and hybrid charter schools. This change will be a major benefit for Florida families. Because it expands educational choices to include options available in other states. Now, Florida is the only state with an Educational Savings Account (ESA) program that explicitly prohibits online schools from accepting funds. Hybrid schools are a popular option among families looking for more flexibility as they allow for personalized learning while providing some structure through traditional schooling. This model also allows families to spend more time for extracurricular activities and family involvement.
