Florida’s Expanded School Choice Defies Doomsday Predictions as Tens of Thousands of Students Enroll

When Florida Republicans moved to drastically expand the state’s school-choice programs earlier this year, progressives predicted nothing less than the destruction of the state’s public-education system.

By lifting income requirements and taking other steps to ensure Floridians had more control over the education of their children, Republicans would cannibalize public-education funding and destroy the futures of impoverished Floridians, progressive activists and lawmakers allied to the teachers’ unions argued.

Just a couple of months into the new school year, proponents of the expanded choice programs say reality bears little resemblance to those ominous predictions.

More than 90,000 additional Florida students are enrolled in private schools and innovative education programs using state scholarships than at this time last year, thanks to the universal school-choice bill passed during this year’s legislative session.