A shift in Florida is being covered, but I'm not sure many folks really understand what's happening. Politico reported that Florida school choice programs have been "wildly successful,"and both of those words are doing a megacrane's worth of lifting. More to the point, they are accepting the DeSantis definition of success, which is the replacement of a public school system with a privatized one.
So the Politico article takes on face value Diaz’s comments that dropping enrollment in Broward and Miami-Dade county is because of school choice, but those counties are also experiencing the highest outflows of people in Florida. Plenty of other counties are building new schools.
Although there’s room to argue about the exact numbers & causes, the outflows are real in many areas. I suspect that it’s not so much due to the absolute quality of the alternatives, rather the deliberate “enshitification” of the public schools by the state. Basic services previously taken for granted, like buses or counselors or even staffed classrooms, have deteriorated. The combination of culture warriors & “reformers” have driven the most competent people out of the system. Reduced competency reduces the ability to solve problems & increases the likelihood that schools, administrators & board members are perceived as dumb.
Parents acquire the perception, sometimes justified, that most of the attention, effort and $ are being focused on the “low” end of the bell curve & kids on the other end are neglected. At that point, their search for alternatives is easy to understand - especially when the GOP is waving $ at them to encourage that perception.
Obviously we shouldn’t mistake anecdote for data, but the general perception of the public schools in the Florida county where I live is higher than it’s been in over 10 years.
I certainly agree that anecdotes are not data. At the same time, data alone rarely tells the whole story. Anecdotes, especially when first-hand, are a type observational data that can guide more detailed inquiry.
As you pointed out, Diaz is making a common error (or deliberately misusing) by extrapolating conclusions from data collected to measure something else.
“we'd need to imagine a country in which car dealers and bus companies could refuse to sell to you because you don't go to the right church or love the right people or because they just don't want to.”
I think it's very telling that these same types of people will attempt to defeat initiatives to create public alternatives to compete with shitty private industry options. For example, the attempt to create a publicly owned utility provider in Maine, but that is just one of many examples.
But creating grifty private alternatives to deliberately undermined public systems, that's just fine. Ed reformers are hypocrites.
So the Politico article takes on face value Diaz’s comments that dropping enrollment in Broward and Miami-Dade county is because of school choice, but those counties are also experiencing the highest outflows of people in Florida. Plenty of other counties are building new schools.
Source of migration data: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/billy.townsend4617/viz/2023NetDomesticMigrationbyCounty/Sheet2
Although there’s room to argue about the exact numbers & causes, the outflows are real in many areas. I suspect that it’s not so much due to the absolute quality of the alternatives, rather the deliberate “enshitification” of the public schools by the state. Basic services previously taken for granted, like buses or counselors or even staffed classrooms, have deteriorated. The combination of culture warriors & “reformers” have driven the most competent people out of the system. Reduced competency reduces the ability to solve problems & increases the likelihood that schools, administrators & board members are perceived as dumb.
Parents acquire the perception, sometimes justified, that most of the attention, effort and $ are being focused on the “low” end of the bell curve & kids on the other end are neglected. At that point, their search for alternatives is easy to understand - especially when the GOP is waving $ at them to encourage that perception.
Obviously we shouldn’t mistake anecdote for data, but the general perception of the public schools in the Florida county where I live is higher than it’s been in over 10 years.
I certainly agree that anecdotes are not data. At the same time, data alone rarely tells the whole story. Anecdotes, especially when first-hand, are a type observational data that can guide more detailed inquiry.
As you pointed out, Diaz is making a common error (or deliberately misusing) by extrapolating conclusions from data collected to measure something else.
“we'd need to imagine a country in which car dealers and bus companies could refuse to sell to you because you don't go to the right church or love the right people or because they just don't want to.”
I rather think that this is, in fact, the goal.
I think it's very telling that these same types of people will attempt to defeat initiatives to create public alternatives to compete with shitty private industry options. For example, the attempt to create a publicly owned utility provider in Maine, but that is just one of many examples.
But creating grifty private alternatives to deliberately undermined public systems, that's just fine. Ed reformers are hypocrites.