The education choice revolution is about more than schools 

Joelle Smith, a former public school teacher, has created an operation that customizes field trips for students with special needs, and her start-up is growing rapidly due to the expanding availability of Florida's state-supported education savings accounts.

After years of frustration with traditional schools, Joelle Smith, a former public school teacher, decided to do her own thing. But she didn’t start a school.   

Instead, she created an operation that customizes field trips for students with special needs. 

Parents loved it. And between word of mouth and the expanding availability of Florida’s state-supported education savings accounts, Smith’s little start-up is on the move, growing from five students the first year to 25 the next. “I guess I knew the potential, but I didn’t expect it would happen,” Smith told me. “It’s a little crazy.” 

“A la carte” education providers like Smith are popping up all over South Florida. Dozens of them are already serving thousands of students. The region is home to a nationally recognized cluster of microschools, but it’s not just new schools that are gaining traction. As I note in a new report, the rise of these other, more niche providers offers America a glimpse of what’s possible as more states embrace not just school choice, but education choice. 

These providers are not schools. They’re smaller and more specialized. They can be assembled with other providers however parents want, including pairing them with individual classes at public or private schools. 

In South Florida, one of these providers is a former environmental consultant who offers marine biology lessons at nature parks along the Atlantic. Another was started by a homeschool couple with engineering backgrounds; they teach science through surfing and skating. Yet another is a former chef and home economics teacher who leads cooking lessons that are as much about culture, trade and sustainable agriculture as making the tastiest zucchini boats. 

The potential variations for these a la carte providers are endless. So are the combinations. All it takes for more of them to emerge are more parents with the power to mix and match. 

In Florida, that’s what’s happening with the latest iteration of choice. 

Florida has been leading the country in school choice for 25 years, ever since former Gov. Jeb Bush signed the state’s first private school choice program into law in 1999. That program never grew beyond a few hundred students, but it helped open the door to a more diverse and dynamic education system, redefining what “public education” means.

Today, 400,000 students in Florida are using choice scholarships; 1 million are enrolled in non-district options, whether private, charter or home school; and half the state’s students are enrolled in something other than their zoned neighborhood schools. The transformation of Florida’s education landscape has been remarkable – and, not coincidentally, the state’s academic outcomes have improved as well. 

At the same time, the term “school choice” has obscured some profound twists. 

Ten years ago, Florida created its first Education Success Account (ESA), this one for students with special needs. Unlike the traditional school choice scholarship, the ESA could be used for not just tuition, but tutors, therapists, curriculum and instructional materials, and a long list of other educational uses. 

Quietly, thousands of parents began creating sophisticated personalized programs for their children, with those in rural areas proving to be especially resourceful. Even before Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1 last year, making every student in the state eligible for an ESA, the families of more than 9,000 students were using ESAs to access at least two programs and providers other than private schools. As I note in the paper, that’s more than triple the number of “independent customizers” from five years prior. 

Now, thanks to Florida’s latest choice initiatives, tens of thousands of additional students are poised to join those pioneers every year. Last year, 20,000 came on board, part of a new ESA program for students not enrolled in public or private schools. This year, the cap on that program grows to 60,000 – and judging by the applications still pouring in, demand is strong. 

Parents who want the full package of a school will continue to see their options grow. Over the past decade, Florida saw a net gain of more than 800 new private schools and charter schools. Districts responded with hundreds of magnet schools, career academies and other options of their own. 

But if families want to go a la carte, they can – and the menu is potentially limitless. 

Nobody knows exactly where these new possibilities will take us, but the early returns suggest growing numbers of families and educators love the freedom they’re finding on education’s next frontier. 

Ron Matus is director of research and special projects at Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that administers Florida’s education choice scholarship programs, and a former state education reporter for the Tampa Bay Times.