Sue Legg is a leader of the League of Women Voters in Florida and a member of the board of the Network for Public Education.
She writes here about Miami, a district that is “all in” for school choice.
Miami seems to have taken the place of Denver as their favorite district, now that the choice Majority was booted out of power.
Legg writes:
Miami is the school choice capital! According to this EducationNext article, 20% of Miami’s public schools are charters. Another 20% of students are in private schools, and approximately half of those are paid for with vouchers and tax credit scholarships. It does not stop there. District-run choice programs now enroll 61% of public school children. Is this a school choice dream or a nightmare?
Dade County schools tout high academic achievement. The district receives an ‘A’ grade from the state and no failing school grades. Of course, there are only 15 schools in the state that have an ‘F’ rating, so Miami is not unique there. An ‘A’ school only has to earn 62% of the possible points based on state assessment test scores etc. Over one-half of all Florida’s schools earn an ‘A’ or ‘B’ grade.
Miami’s fourth grade students rank above the national average on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading test, but there is no statistically significant difference between Duval, Hillsborough and Dade Counties’ scores. Could it be that third grade retention pushes Florida scores up because so many fourth graders were retained?
The Dade County eighth grade NAEP scores also seem to be higher in comparison to other cities. Yet, the average Miami-Dade score is right at the national average. Miami’s high school graduation rate is just below the national average. It would seem that Miami-Dade is good at hype. The reality is quite different on the ground.
According to the report ‘Tough Choices‘, Miami is the second most segregated district in the state. Of 460 schools in Miami, 214 are considered isolated. They are more than 85% single race. Miami’s lowest performing schools are overwhelmingly black. Hispanic students also tend to be enrolled in segregated schools.
Is this what Florida is striving for? Our schools are driven by grades which are easy to manipulate. Yet, Florida, the third largest state in the nation, is just average in student achievement and children are increasingly separated by race and economic status.
Florida is ground zero for school choice, since it has been controlled by Jeb Bush and his allies since 1998. By now, it should have surpassed Massachusetts on the NAEP, but its eighth grade scores continue to be mediocre.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Ground zero”. The Florida Catholic Advocacy Network was established by Florida bishops to “connect, educate and mobilize Catholics across Florida’s 7 dioceses on public policy issues”, one of which is education. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced at their site that they have been “strong supporters of parental school choice since the beginning”.
If Ms. Legg is unaware of the Catholic church’s political machinations, she is fighting with one hand tied behind her back.
Retired teachers in Florida who are Catholic should be made aware of the adverse impact their church has on their state pensions.
YES.