Florida Scholarship Programs Are a Smart Investment | RealClearPolicy
My friend Andrea recently brought her daughter Sofia over for a visit. A precocious and ebullient little kindergartner, Sofia wanted to show me her new school uniform a peter-pan collared shirt overlaid with a plaid jumper. On the chest of the jumper was a golden cross and the initials of Saints Peter and Paul. This means my school belongs to God, Sofia took great pains to explain to me. We pray every day to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and everyone is so happy there!
Andrea looked on, teary-eyed, and I must confess my eyes watered too. She told me she never dreamed her daughter would be able to attend a Catholic school here in the United States. Sofia can thanks to Florida s new universal school choice program.
I ve known Andrea since she arrived in Miami at the age of ten. Her parents brought her over the border from Mexico and she later qualified as a Dreamer, graduating from Coral Gables High School in Miami. She worked in the hotel industry and was rising to a position of responsibility at a local hotel when the Covid lockdowns derailed her career. She and her husband work hard but make ends meet only with the help of family. They pay $50 a month toward Sofia s tuition. Her choice scholarship pays the rest of the $8652 per-year tuition.
Sofia s story is one repeated by the hundreds of thousands in schools across our state. Last March, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB1 into law, making 3.4 million K-12 students in Florida eligible for a choice scholarship. Florida is investing heavily in the idea that school choice enhances the education of all students, private, charter and public, because it fosters healthy competition and growth. The expectation is that all Florida schools will be working harder every day to offer parents what they want for their children: orderly and pleasant learning environments, academic excellence, and special attractions like classical curricula and innovative programming.
Even when supplied with a wide range of options, Catholic schools like Sts. Peter and Paul are successfully capturing the interest of parents. Before the expansion of Florida choice programs there were many families who didn t qualify for a needs-based scholarship but also couldn t afford the relatively modest price of a parochial education. This barrier has been demolished. Now Catholic schools here are full; new ones are opening up and existing schools are growing. The steady expansion of state scholarship programs helps explain why.
Constitutionally a little bit dubious, one could argue, but nothing compared to outlawing guns or going after trans-skeptical parents as terrorists.
Not expecting anything like this in
California, however.