Florida again earns top spot on Heritage Foundation’s Education Freedom Report Card

(The Daily Signal) – Florida has once again been ranked No. 1 among the states on The Heritage Foundation’s Education Freedom Report Card, which was released at an event Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa.

“They have universal education choice in that state. Any child who wants it can exercise school choice,” says Lindsey Burke, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“You’ll notice I say ‘education choice’ more often than ‘school choice,’ because we’re at a point now in the movement where states are adopting education savings accounts largely, although it’s great if a state adopts a voucher or a tax credit, but these education savings accounts, ESAs, are much more flexible,” Burke says, adding:

So, Florida took [its] education savings account program universal so every child now can exercise education choice. [It has] radical academic transparency to families. Families know what is taught in their public schools.

There’s some movement on teacher freedom to make it easier for professionals to enter the classroom without having to go through woke colleges of education in order to get there.

Burke also notes that Arizona was once again in the No. 2 spot, and Utah clinched the No. 3 spot.

“Arizona is actually first in the country for education choice, but overall came in second on the report card. And then rounding out our top three was Utah,” Burke says. “Utah, also, this year adopted a universal ESA style account, where pretty soon every single child will be able to exercise education choice.”

Iowa, which hosted the event at which the report card was released, was ranked “most improved.”

Burke joins today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to further discuss the Education Freedom Report Card, which three states ranked the lowest, and her advice to parents who might see the report card and want to make a change in their state.

Listen to the podcast here.