Florida House Passes Bills Expanding Educational Options

Florida House Passes Bills Expanding Educational Options

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, the Florida House of Representatives passed two bills that expand and improve the diverse educational options provided to Florida families. Florida has been a trailblazer in offering families unprecedented educational options and recognizing that supporting every single child on their educational journey matters. House Bill 1365 on Competency-Based Education, sponsored by Representative Ray Rodrigues, and House Bill 669 on Public School Choice, sponsored by Representative Chris Sprowls, continue and improve this work in Florida.

Competency-Based Education, House Bill 1365

House Bill 1365 will support competency-based education pilot programs in selected public schools in Lake, Palm Beach, Pinellas and Seminole counties and the P.K Yonge Developmental Research School at University of Florida. This new education model allows students to advance to higher levels of learning when they demonstrate mastery of concepts and skills regardless of time, place or pace.

“We know children develop and learn at different speeds determined by their own unique abilities. Yet our education system congregates them in classrooms and demands they absorb the same knowledge in the same manner and at the same pace,” said Patricia Levesque, executive director of the Foundation for Florida’s Future.

“Competency-based education can help to provide personalized learning for students, allowing them to progress through content as they demonstrate knowledge of the material. We are seeing the potential for innovation and success in programs being undertaken in Florida schools already, justifying an expansion of this student-centered reform into other areas of the state.”

Public School Choice, House Bill 669

Public school choice will empower parents with the ability to choose the best educational path for their child by allowing them to choose any public school in the state, as long as it has space available. It will also give parents the ability to request a classroom change when it is not a good fit, and increase transparency by requiring districts to inform parents annually about the amount of total funding spent on their child.

“School choice often is thought of as choosing between charters, magnet programs or private-school scholarships,” added Levesque. “But given the wealth of excellent public schools in Florida, we must expand the scope of choice to include all of them.

“School district boundaries serve as invisible barriers that can block children from schools that would better meet their needs. Universal public school choice is an idea that is long overdue and I congratulate our state leaders for moving ahead with this important legislation.”

For more information on student-centered bills, visit www.afloridapromise.org.