The teachers unions told you school choice would destroy public education in America.
Now Florida just released the numbers that prove them dead wrong.
Three quarters of Florida's public schools earned an A or B this year – and the state isn't done raising the bar.
The Numbers the Left Does Not Want You to See
Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas announced Wednesday that 76% of Florida's public schools – 2,614 institutions – earned an A or B grade for the 2025-2026 school year.
That's up from 71% just one year ago.
It gets better.
The number of schools earning a D or F collapsed from 70 in 2025 to just 31 in 2026.
That's more than a 55% reduction in failing schools in a single year.
Five school districts moved from a B to an A.
Two more moved from a C to a B.
https://twitter.com/StasiKamoutsas/status/2072430627207397555?s=20
Sixty percent of all graded schools either improved their performance tier or held an A from the previous year.
These are not talking points.
These are the results of a real-world experiment that every blue-state governor is pretending doesn't exist.
What Competition Actually Does to a School System
Florida's charter schools earned A or B grades at a 78% clip this year.
Among those 607 evaluated charter schools, 61% earned a straight A.
Traditional public schools hit 48% – a 13-point gap.
Commissioner Kamoutsas put it plainly: "Competition is creating a better product for our traditional public school students."
He's right.
And the research backs him up.
Studies of Florida's tax credit scholarship program found that doubling voucher program enrollment increased test scores for students remaining in traditional public schools by 3 to 7 percent of a standard deviation – and cut behavioral problems by 6 to 9 percent.
https://twitter.com/StasiKamoutsas/status/2072299452673511618?s=20
A meta-analysis of 21 empirical studies – cited by the Cato Institute – found that 20 out of 21 showed competitive pressure from school choice raises test scores for students who stay in traditional public schools.
Twenty out of twenty-one.
This is the part they never teach in education school.
When schools have to compete for students, they get better.
When they have a guaranteed monopoly, they don't.
DeSantis Built the Model the Rest of the Country Needs
Florida didn't stumble into these results.
Governor Ron DeSantis spent years building the policy architecture that produced them.
The Heritage Foundation ranked Florida number one in Education Freedom for the fourth consecutive year.
The Center for Education Reform ranked Florida number one on the Parent Power Index for the fourth year running.
About 1.4 million Florida students are now enrolled in school choice options – private, charter, virtual, or homeschool.
That's more kids than most states enroll in K-12 altogether.
DeSantis also just signed legislation to hold partisan teacher unions accountable – requiring at least 50% participation in union certification elections and fast-tracking teacher pay raises that unions had been blocking.
That's what putting students ahead of systems actually looks like.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2070577775157916125?s=20
The unions spent decades telling Florida parents they needed to trust the system.
Florida's parents stopped trusting the system.
And the system got better because of it.
Kamoutsas said it as plainly as it can be said: "Florida continues to prioritize students, not systems – and the results speak for themselves."
Every parent in California, Illinois, and New York watching their kids fall further behind needs to understand what Florida figured out.
The monopoly is the problem.
Break the monopoly and the schools improve.
DeSantis proved it.
The numbers are sitting right there for anyone willing to look.
Sources:
- Michelle Vecerina, "Florida school grades rise as 76% of public schools earn 'A' or 'B' ratings, education commissioner announces," FL Voice News, July 1, 2026.
- Florida Department of Education, "Florida Leads the Nation as #1 for Education Freedom for the Fourth Consecutive Year," FLDOE Newsroom, September 9, 2025.
- Florida Governor's Office, "Governor DeSantis Signs Landmark Reforms to Support Education and Hold School Unions Accountable," May 1, 2026.
- Florida Governor's Office, "Governor Ron DeSantis Announces Florida Opts in to Federal Education Freedom Tax Credit," 2026.
- Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, "When public schools face competition from school choice programs, their students do better," January 25, 2022.
- Cato Institute, "What Leads to Successful School Choice Programs? A Review of the Theories and Evidence," February 8, 2018.
