2024-01-13 13:06:12
On this Tuesday followingnoon, there are a few dozen students taking classes at the Deeper Roots school, in the suburbs of Orlando, Florida. In a rather small room, there are three different age groups, separated by simple removable walls. There is a joyous cacophony of questions from teachers and reactions from students.
In one of these small classes is teacher Angela Kennedy, who also founded the school. I started with just two students a few years ago, and today we have an average of 80 to 90 children per year, she explains proudly.
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Teacher Angela Kennedy is also the founder of the Deeper Roots School.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Frédéric Arnould
The success is such that his school, welcoming children from 3 to 14 years old, is overflowing. Outside, five mobile classes, installed in the parking lot, allow a few dozen high school students to follow their lessons.
Registration cost for each student: US$8,500 per year. But in reality, it only costs parents a few hundred dollars, thanks to the State of Florida’s scholarship and voucher program, school vouchers.
An exodus from the public to the private sector
Ron Matus, director of research and special projects at Step Up for Students, which manages the scholarship and voucher program in Florida, calculated the number of students who switched from the public to the private system: 360 000!
From now on, every family has the right to choose, he adds. There are 3.4 million school-age children in Florida, and so all of these children are eligible for education choice.
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Ron Matus, director of research and special projects at Step up for Students which manages the Florida scholarship and voucher program.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Frédéric Arnould
Today, regarding 11 percent of Florida’s students have left public education programs. Everyone leaves with their portion of public funding, which is paid to the private sector.
Ron Matus is quick to put the losses for the public system into perspective. Yes, public school has less money because it has fewer students, but it also has fewer students to teach.
What does Mr. Matus say to those who say that these scholarships drain money from public schools? In fact, the amount of per-pupil funding in public schools has increased, even accounting for inflation, over the past 25 years.
A public system in decline
Like every morning, Maria Echevarria drops off her son Eddie, 11, at St. Charles Borromeo School in Orlando. She chose private school, even though she herself came from public school. Unfortunately, the public system has always been collapsing. It is not because of the quality of the teachers, the teacher told the public.
It is the current culture and society that is causing the decline of the education system, and because of this, the safety of public schools is also declining. So I prefer that he has a safe environment.
There is in fact a security service which monitors the comings and goings of parents who participate in the daily procession of cars of all sizes which drop off students near the school.
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Maria Echevarria is happy to have been able to enroll her son in a private school thanks to her state’s education vouchers.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Frédéric Arnould
A single mother and public school teacher, she had to work two or three part-time jobs to be able to send her son to a private school. When she finally got a scholarship for her son, she was able to spend more time with him and care for his parents, who live with her in her house.
The success of education vouchers is impressive in Florida where, under Governor Ron DeSantis, we have seen exponential growth of the program in favor of the private sector. 12 years ago, only 40,000 students participated. Last year, this number jumped to 250,000 and this year, almost 3 billion US dollars were transferred from the public to the private sector.
Fierce competition
Ron Matus believes, however, that this fierce competition between the private and the public is beneficial. Thanks to vouchers, says Step Up for Students’ director of research and special projects, public education has also improved.
But this craze for more school choice has not only produced good results.
For parents like Leslie Kirschenbaum, the mother of two children with special needs (one with autism, the other with dyslexia), the voucher program was a good choice, but Step Up for Students seems overwhelmed by requests. Like others, she must therefore take out loans in order to pay her children’s school fees, while waiting for grants.
The situation is becoming a little frustrating for Ms. Kirschenbaum, because she wonders if she should send her children back to public school, which provides less support for students with special needs, because she cannot afford to pay, for the moment, private school fees.
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Leslie Kirschenbaum believes Step Up for Students is outpaced by the success of Florida’s vouchers.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Frédéric Arnould
For her part, Kelly Mawhinney, who provides tutoring to more than 150 students through the scholarship and education voucher program, is struggling to get reimbursed by Step Up for Students.
Since this year, the program is more complicated in terms of reimbursement of fees to parents, explains Ms. Mawhinney. She calls to report the problem to Step Up for Students customer service, but each time she gets a different response. She is waiting to receive the US$9,000 to US$14,000 that she bills the organization each month.
Ron Matus understands these frustrations. We had some challenges to overcome this year. There was a tsunami of requests and the funding processes were modified, he recalls. This meant we had to do things differently.
Lack of transparency
Barbara Beasley, whose two children benefit from the scholarship and voucher programs, is closely following the issue. She deplores the lack of transparency and control of Step Up for Students which, in fact, has a monopoly on the distribution of the program.
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Barbara Beasley, whose children benefit from tutoring at home, deplores the lack of transparency of the organization which manages the education scholarship and voucher program in Florida.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Frédéric Arnould
I think it’s not so much a question of too much and too rapid growth, she believes. It is a problem of the capacity of the scholarship funder and the fact that it cannot be subject to credible scrutiny until there is competition.
Indeed, at the moment, adds Barbara Beasley, if the organization Step Up for Students, for example, violates all the laws for which it is responsible, the state cannot do anything.
A snowballing success
The formula is catching on, however, since certain states, such as Arizona, have also adopted the Florida-style education voucher formula. On the other hand, in one year, the cost of the Arizona program, which seems to be exceeded by its success, will amount to almost a billion US dollars, which will lead to a budget deficit of almost 320 million next year.
Ron Matus of Step Up for Students acknowledges that changing the education system takes time and causes upheaval, but adds that some states may be trying too many things at once.
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Classes at the Deeper Roots private school are full of students aged 3 to 14.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Frédéric Arnould
At Deeper Roots School, where classes are full, Angela Kennedy hopes to find larger premises soon to cope with ever-increasing demand.
Because she firmly believes that more and more Floridians will choose private schools thanks to the education voucher system.
If the child does well, I don’t see what the problem is, notes the teacher. If the end goal is for children to succeed, does it really matter where they studied? It does not matter. You have to give them what they need to succeed, that’s my philosophy, period.
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