School Choice
Videos
Talking Points and Basic Information
What is School Choice?
Focus on the Family
Talking Points on School Choice
Focus on the Family
Obstacles to School Choice
Focus on the Family
Comprehensive Research and Articles
Florida’s Universal Education Choice Moment
Lindsey M. Burke, PhD, The Heritage Foundation
Parents in Florida want expanded education choice options. There are high levels of satisfaction among families in the current programs, high demand for more options (as evidenced by the waitlist), and the opportunity to go bold.
How School Choice Is Lifting Thousands of Kids Across America
Lindsey M. Burke, PhD, The Heritage Foundation
Education choice improves academic outcomes, leads to more satisfaction among parents, enhances school safety, reduces criminal behavior, and can have positive impacts on later life outcomes, such as earnings.
Here Are 10 Reasons School Choice Is Winning
Jude Schwalbach and James Selvey, The Heritage Foundation
School choice is a growing movement, one that is already lifting thousands of kids across America. The results are tangible. And states are leading the way, giving parents more options in their children’s education than ever before. Here are 10 of the most promising benefits of school choice.
School Choice: An American Value
Rob Schwarzwalder, Family Research Council
What could be more American than letting moms and dads decide where their kids go to school?
School Choice is the Right Choice
Virginia Walden Ford, The Heritage Foundation
School choice programs offer children an opportunity to escape schools that are not meeting their needs — schools that are failing them and their families. It is the civil rights issue of our day.
Uncommon Benefits of Hybrid School
William R. Mattox, Jr., Heritage Foundation
Most parents want two things: (1) to protect their children from being immersed in a school culture that is at odds with their family culture or philosophical world view and (2) for their children to be sufficiently exposed to people who are different from them that they will be well prepared for success and influence in the real world. Regrettably, one-size-fits-all schools have a very difficult time facilitating this very delicate balancing act. But hybrid schooling can offer a way out of these counterproductive cul-de-sacs, allowing us to customize the learning opportunities for all children so that they can get a well-balanced social and academic upbringing tailored to their unique needs, interests, talents, learning styles, stages of development, and personalities.
Who Should Decide How Children are Educated?
Jack Klenk, Family Research Council
Who has the primary responsibility for making critical decisions about the education of school aged children? Their parents? Or government and the school system it operates? That is a fundamental question about education policy that faces the United States as it attempts to build educational institutions for the twenty-first century.
Regulations Threaten to Limit Best Schooling Options for Children
Lindsey M. Burke, PhD, The Heritage Foundation
For decades, policymakers, and education officials have attempted to bolster school “accountability” by increasing regulations on schools across the board—public, charter, and private. They have tried to do so at the federal level for half a century, with federal intervention in K-12 education hitting a high-water mark under the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind policy and the Obama administration’s attempts to pressure states into adopting Common Core…Yet ever-increasing government intervention in schooling has had little positive impact on education outcomes writ large.
Websites, Books and Media
IndoctriNation: Public Schools and the Decline of Christianity in America (Movie)
Colin Gunn, a Scotland-born homeschool father of seven, travels across the USA on a quest to understand the origins and social impact of America’s modern public education system. Featuring compelling interviews with teachers, administrators, parents, and other whistleblowers, this film is part documentary, part testimonial, and totally captivating. Ultimately, the film and book are an appeal to the millions of Christians who have a vested interest in knowing what God’s Word says about the discipleship and training of the next generation.
School Choice
Florida Department of Education
The mission of the Office of K-12 School Choice is to support quality public and private educational choice programs by providing information and assistance to promote successful outcomes for students, families, institutions and communities.
Home Education
Florida Department of Education
Home Education is a parent-directed educational option that satisfies the requirement for regular school attendance. Florida Laws protecting home education became effective in 1985. Parents have the freedom to determine their child’s educational path and the plan for reaching their goals. Students have the opportunity to explore and learn at their own pace, in any location or at any time. Home education students are able to enter institutions of higher learning and are eligible to participate in the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program. More than 84,000 students in approximately 58,000 families are in Home Education Programs throughout Florida.
Registration Form for Home Education Student to Participate in Athletics at Member Schools
Breaking Free: Public School Lessons & the Imperative of School Choice (Book)
Sol Stern
In this book, Stern contrasts his own experience with that of his two sons, both of whom recently attended some of New York’s best public schools. While spending time in these schools, he found things that should concern not only parents but all American: instruction shaped by “progressive” fads and politically correct cliches; dictatorial unions that protect inept teachers; and a sclerotic bureaucracy that puts the interests of employees ahead of the needs of students.
School Choices: What’s Best for Your Child (Book)
Jan Sheble
Without taking sides in the sometimes-heated debate, Jan Sheble offers the pros and cons of three choices: home school, Christian school and public school.
True Tolerance
A project of Focus on the Family
Concerned about controversial sexual topics being brought up in your child’s school? You’ve come to the right place. TrueTolerance.org helps you respond in a loving and fact-based way. Get tips on communicating with your school officials!