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  The Florida School Choice Fund (FSCF) works to solve the education crisis in Florida by creating, sustaining and expanding parental choice programs that provide educational options for Florida’s K-12 students. Giving parents the ability to choose the public or private school that best meets their child’s needs help to ensure that all children have access to a high-quality education. In doing so, FSCF hopes to improve the educational system for all of Florida's children.
FSCF has developed strong competencies in the areas of grassroots organization; legislative education and outreach; minority and community outreach; media and public relations; research; scholarship administration; and fundraising. To ensure educational opportunities for all, FSCF conducts the following activities:
- It works with the Legislature to create and refine programs.
- It works with the media to explain the need for parental choice and show who benefits.
- It works with low-income parents to educate them on school choice options and train them to become strong educational advocates for their children.
- It manages state scholarship programs.
- It has a grassroots army of dedicated parents, teachers, students and other education advocates throughout the state who actively participate in the above activities.
FSCF works with two existing scholarship programs – The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program, also known as Step Up For Students, and the McKay Scholarship Program. FSCF also works to create, sustain and expand other educational choice programs including charter, virtual learning and magnet schools and career academies. As a result, FSCF serves a large variety of K-12 students and their families.
Parental choice programs motivate improvement in student achievement, public school performance and parental involvement. These programs create healthy competition in the K-12 education system that facilitates the improvement of public schools. Additionally, by enabling parents to choose the K-12 school that can help their children achieve, educational option programs fuel the growth of a well-educated workforce and a strong economy.
 According to the January 2008 report “Graduation Rates for Choice and Public School Students in Milwaukee” by John Robert Warren, Ph.D., high school students in choice programs are more likely to graduate than students in the public high school. The study, which was conducted over a four-year period, compared the graduation rates of students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) who attend a private high school with students who attend a public high school. Over the four years, MPCP students had graduation rates higher (with one exception) than the public school students, generally by 10 percentage points.
An added benefit of school choice programs is the money it is saving the state. In 2002, the highly respected think tank, The Collins Center for Public Policy, concluded that one of the programs initiated by the FSCF, the Step Up For Students Tax Credit Scholarship Program, would result in a $600-million increase in statewide net revenue available for education over the ensuing 10 years. In February 2007, the Collins Center released an updated report showing that the scholarship program had already saved the state of Florida nearly $140-million during fiscal years 2002-04. The report also determined that General Fund Revenue for K-12 public education did not decrease as a result of the scholarship program, but actually increased by $2.1-billion during this same period. In another report, in 2003, Florida TaxWatch concluded that the state could save as much as $1-billion over the next decade as a result of the Tax Credit program. In December 2008, the state Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability added its own research, concluding that the Tax Credit program saved taxpayers $39-million in 2007-08.
The public policy gains for school choice made in Florida since 1999 have been substantial. Florida now serves more children through more parental choice initiatives than any other state in the nation. This year Florida will spend $250-million on taxpayer funded school choice for these children. The successes enjoyed here have encouraged and expanded educational choice policy measures in other states, given greater impetus and credibility to the national school choice movement, and provided hope and opportunity to thousands of low-income families.
To read the studies mentioned in this section and other studies, click here
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- Educational option programs enable parents to choose the K-12 school (public or private) that can help their children achieve academic success, fueling the growth of a well-educated workforce and a strong economy.
- Studies have demonstrated that parental choice programs create a competitive education system that facilitates the improvement of public schools.
- Programs like the Step Up For Students Tax Credit Scholarship Program actually save the state money. In fact, two highly respected research groups – The Collins Center for Public Policy and Florida TaxWatch – have projected that the program will save the state millions of dollars.
- The average household income of families on the Step Up For Students Tax Credit Scholarship Program is $24,489 for a family of four. More than 60 percent of the children on the program are from single-parent households.
- Throughout the state of Florida, more than 23,000 economically disadvantaged children currently benefit from the Step Up For Students program, and more than 20,000 special needs children are receiving McKay Scholarships.
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