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1 month ago | 
readlion.com | Jillian Schneider |Ron Matus |Lisa Buie |Christian schools
Recent data from the Nation’s Report Card shows Catholic school students consistently outperform those in public schools in the United States. The National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) calls the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) the “gold standard of testing,” boasting of Catholic education’s longstanding excellence.
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Dec 18, 2024 | 
nextstepsblog.org | Ron Matus
DAVENPORT, Fla. – Valeria Oquendo didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur. “Ms. V,” as her students call her, had wanted to be a teacher since she was a teenager. On her way to an elementary education degree, she interned at a public school and, initially, those dreams became even clearer. “Still in my brain I was thinking, ‘I’m going to graduate, I’m going to have my perfect classroom, I’m going to be a first grade teacher,’ “she said. But then, in education-choice-rich Florida, a funny thing happened.
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Dec 3, 2024 | 
readlion.com | Joy Stockbauer |Ron Matus |Lisa Buie
A charter school and school choice conference hosted by the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) set a new attendance record, welcoming 1,300 attendees and exhibitors. The Florida Charter School Conference and School Choice Summit has been held annually since the first charter schools opened in the state in 1996.
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Nov 14, 2024 | 
nextstepsblog.org | Ron Matus
McALPIN, Fla. – Maybe it stands to reason that in a remote community surrounded by hay fields and pine plantation, students at a new, K-5 microschool would bring baby horses for show-and-tell, and the teacher would secure donations from Tractor Supply to start a garden. But don’t let stereotypes — or tired myths about school choice in rural areas — limit your imagination about the possibilities here.
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Oct 29, 2024 | 
nextstepsblog.org | Ron Matus
SARASOTA, Fla. – After 18 years as an educator in public and private schools, Justine Wilson decided to make a change. She was excellent at her job. In fact, she had just been offered a top administrative position at a top private school. But she didn’t believe mainstream approaches to teaching and learning were the best ones for many students, or for herself. “I was saying things and doing things that weren’t who I actually was as an educator.
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Sep 10, 2024 | 
nextstepsblog.org | Ron Matus
VERO BEACH, Fla. – For eight years, Danielle McLean couldn’t believe her luck. Through all of pre-school and elementary school, her twin boys Jackson and Lincoln, both on the autism spectrum, had only three teachers. Two were Teacher of the Year finalists in their east Central Florida school district, and all of them, McLean believed, were exceptional. So, when it came time for middle school, McLean was distraught. She was not hearing good things about where her boys were headed.
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Sep 9, 2024 | 
nextstepsblog.org | Ron Matus
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Thirteen years ago, Katy Horowitz and her family moved from London to Miami, where she promptly secured a job at a charter school. But when the charter school abruptly decided to move an hour away, Horowitz decided to give her own school a shot: An unassuming little day care. Horowitz said she never had plans for anything big. But “it snowballed.”The day care began with five students in her home. Soon, it became a day care in a synagogue.
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Aug 26, 2024 | 
nextstepsblog.org | Ron Matus
The number of Jewish schools in Florida nearly doubled over the past 15 years, boosted by parents using state school choice scholarships and the migration of families from New York, according to a new report from Teach Coalition and Step Up For Students. Student enrollment between 2007-08 and 2022-23 rose 58 percent, from 8,492 to 13,379, while the number of Jewish day schools and yeshivas grew from 40 to 74, the report shows.
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Jul 25, 2024 | 
nextstepsblog.org | Ron Matus
Editor’s note: This story is one of five spotlights included in our latest special report, “A Taste of À La Carte Learning.” Florida has long had a critical shortage of public school science teachers. But growing numbers of students in South Florida’s booming alternative education networks are learning science from a real-life scientist. Dr. Neymi Layne Mignocchi has two master’s degrees in biology and experimental psychology and a Ph.D. in neuroscience.
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Jul 21, 2024 | 
thehill.com | Ron Matus
After years of frustration with traditional schools, Joelle Smith, a former public school teacher, decided to do her own thing. But she didn’t start a school. Instead, she created an operation that customizes field trips for students with special needs. Parents loved it. And between word of mouth and the expanding availability of Florida’s state-supported education savings accounts, Smith’s little start-up is on the move, growing from five students the first year to 25 the next.
