A Heritage Foundation report out this week finds Florida leading the nation in educational freedom — a significant rating given constant scrutiny from members of the establishment media and left-wing activists over the last year.
According to the Heritage Foundation’s inaugural report card, Florida ranks number one in educational freedom across the nation, and Arizona, Idaho, and Indiana join the Sunshine State’s ranks when it comes to this particular topic.
The report walks through the frustrations parents have faced over the past year — from lingering lockdowns to mandates to attempts at injecting woke gender ideology into children’s classrooms. In other words, parents are seeking more choice, which would create greater competition and naturally weed out issues plaguing the school systems.
If anything, the recent local elections in Florida give a small glimpse of the shift across the nation as all eyes fall to school boards, many of which have been able to implement their woke agenda virtually unnoticed for far too long.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) opted to use his position as the state’s top official by getting involved in local school board races, endorsing dozens of conservative pro-parent and pro-student candidates and school board members.
“Parents can rest easy knowing that these candidates will fully support their right as parents to ensure their children reach their full potential in Florida’s K-12 education system,” he said at the time.
The Heritage report takes several aspects into consideration, including school choice programs and what the Wall Street Journal describes as the overall “return on educational investment, so that parents can make informed decisions.” Ultimately, Florida came away as the overall winner of all 50 states, followed by Arizona and Idaho:
The top-ranked state across the board in our 2022 Education Freedom Report Card is Florida. The Sunshine State embraces education freedom across the board. Florida does exceptionally well in allowing parents to choose among private, charter, and district schools, is home to a strong ESA program, and ranks third overall for education choice. Florida ranks first among states for academic transparency. Among other protections, state lawmakers set a high standard for academic transparency, and reject critical race theory’s pernicious ideas.
The Sunshine State ranks second in regulatory freedom, making it one of the freest states for teachers and students to pursue education largely devoid of red tape. Although there is room for improvement, Florida ranks a respectable seventh overall in ROI for education spending. Families looking for a state that embraces education freedom, respects parents’ rights, and provides a decent ROI for taxpayers should look no further than Florida.
“These leftist politicians, corporate media outlets, some of these activist groups, they actually have read the bill, and they’re sloganeering because they don’t want to admit that they support a lot of the things we’re providing protections against,” DeSantis said in March in response to the dishonest critics.
“For example, they support sexualizing kids in kindergarten,” he continued. “They support injecting woke gender ideology into second grade classrooms. They support enabling schools to ‘transition students’ to a ‘different gender’ without the knowledge of the parent, much less with the parent’s consent.”