A recent New York Times piece, “Public Schools Try to Sell Themselves as More Students Use Vouchers,” highlighted the migration of thousands of families to alternative school options in Orange County, Florida. The attention Orange County is giving to its declining public school population demonstrates that the free market of education options is working in Florida, as families are learning how to take advantage of all of their education options using state scholarship dollars.
The piece reports that Orange County has contracted with a student recruitment agency, Caissa K12, to recruit families to enroll in Orange County public schools at a rate of $935 per student enrolled. Caissa’s CEO, Brian Stephens, commented: “His team had never encountered a school district that they wouldn’t push parents to, no matter how much it was struggling.” But this approach is problematic for families and the health of the market. Parents need easy access to transparent information about their school options, not an aggressive sales pitch motivated by financial gain.
Caissa’s approach ignores the decades of progress Florida’s education reform leaders have made to inform parents about their children’s schools through the objective A-F grading system. “Slicker tours, better customer service and compelling arguments,” as the article advertises, are no replacement for parents’ lived experiences in schools that are not serving their children well—both students and parents deserve better. As the education market continues to evolve and more unique options become available, parents would benefit from easy access to unbiased education advisors to help them through the school choice process by guiding them toward factual information about the schools they are considering.
As public school districts continue to lose students, it would be wise for them to determine why families are leaving and then invest in providing them with what they want, not pay to convince families to come right back to what they willingly left behind.