The Story Of Education In Florida Is Much Bigger Than An AP Controversy

If you read headlines atop most media outlet reports and editorials, you’d be forgiven for assuming Florida’s Republican governor and potential presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis is limiting learning for students in the Sunshine State. But media outrage over Florida’s AP choices isn’t the whole story—at least not the life-changing stories parents care about most.

Parents consistently demand better for their kids, and the people’s representatives in Tallahassee actually do something about it. Legislators there passed a public charter school bill in 1996 and instituted no fewer than four private scholarship programs in the years following enrolling more than 150,000 kids. In fact, more than half of Florida students exercise some sort of “school choice” whether it be a scholarship program, a magnet school, dual enrollment, online, or anything else besides their government-assigned school. The results are life-changing.

SailFuture Academy in St. Petersburg is one such place where lives are changed. Students there know why the school lives up to its name right away—a boat is one of their classrooms. Most of them are in foster care, 80 percent of whom have an immediate family member that has been or is currently in the clink.

The school’s founder, Mike Long knows what a second chance can do. He spent more than a year in and out of Florida’s juvenile justice system and was placed in a multitude of intervention programs—too numerous to count. His passion to inspire and empower young people who are caught in a broken system stems from his own journey through ineffective and oppressive approaches to behavior reform. His innovative school model defines transformative learning by designing a learning environment where students within foster care, in trouble, or “at risk” can pursue their education and at the same time access employment through paid apprenticeships. “On a boat,” Mike said, “you cannot run away from life. It pushes our students to have those tough conversations with one another.” Mike’s tuition-free entrepreneurship high school leverages project-based learning and paid apprenticeships to prepare students for successful careers by focusing on the maritime business in addition to culinary and construction experiences. Their full project-based curriculum allows students to drive their own education solving real-world problems. Students are empowered to think like entrepreneurs, and it makes a difference for students. “It’s the first time I have not dreaded coming to school,” one told us. “I love how we are learning real life skills.”

Students also experience a six to eight week-long international sailing expedition that proves to be life-changing. “We want them to be ready for what the real world is going to hit them with when they walk into it, Mike told us. “We want them to fail forward every day to become the best professional they can be.”

And it seems to be working for students. More than 88 percent of them graduate on-time. Consider that alongside the sorry statistic of less than 50 percent of foster kids graduate high school. But that’s still not the point. “It’s not about churning out however many students you can churn out,” Mike reminded all of us. “It’s about whether they lead meaningful lives at the end of the day. When you start there, it leads us to do everything differently.”

The government’s foster and education systems could take note. Consider that Florida taxpayers spend about $10,000 per student, per year. That’s just for education. SailFuture costs $21,000 per year, which includes foster care costs, whereas one student costs the Florida taxpayers upwards of $300,000 per year to support them, but SailFuture, which has its own foster home, sees little of that. Talk about doing more with less. They shouldn’t have to do so but, until enlightened policy makers have the vision to see that all the funding allocated for children’s needs should flow to the provider supporting them, innovators will have to make do.

SailFuture wasn’t the only stop on the first Yass team ‘STOP for Education’ Road Show, dedicated to watching some of the nation’s best education innovators in action. Along the way we met Patria and her son, Anthony. He learns differently but none of the five middle schools he tried ever worked for him. A friend told him about Colossal Academy, a micro-middle school in Fort Lauderdale and a 2022 quarterfinalist for the Yass Prize. The Academy approaches learning by placing the student at the center of their learning whereby teachers teach to the student and not the test utilizing a personalized model and project based learning as the core to its emerging curriculum.

It was music to Patria’s and Anthony’s ears. Patria drives more than two hours from the Florida Keys to get Anthony to school where he explores questions like “How do you feed a growing population without destroying the environment?” and “How do you keep zoo animals entertained?” Anthony went from hating school, avoiding it at all costs, to now feeling completely accepted and known by the teachers and peers at Colossal Academy. He has an individual learning plan, and is willing to travel 2.5 hours to have this better education. Patria tearfully beamed over the progress Anthony has made and how happy he is with his new school.

These are just a few examples in Florida of what happens when government gets out of the way and instead empowers education entrepreneurs, teachers, parents, and students alike. If more leaders across the country followed suit, we’d all begin to watch America’s students rise back to where they belong: the top of the world.