Florida just handed over a million kids the power to escape a failing school.
Now a Democrat who calls that "broken" is running to take it back.
Ron DeSantis made a move this week that will make that a lot harder.
Trump's Labor Department Sent Its Best Back to Florida
Henry Mack spent four years inside Florida's Department of Education building the workforce pipeline that made DeSantis's school choice revolution actually work.
He wasn't just an administrator.
He ran the Florida College System, career education, vocational rehabilitation, blind services, and the entire Office of Workforce Education and Economic Alignment.
Then Trump called.
The Senate confirmed Mack as Assistant Secretary of Labor, and for the last year and a half he's done the same work at the federal level – dismantling the bureaucratic separation between education and employment, expanding registered apprenticeships, and cleaning up a billion-dollar unemployment insurance system riddled with fraud.
https://twitter.com/EducationFL/status/2079944381386105013?s=20
Trump's administration brought nearly 300,000 new apprentices into registered programs in 2025 alone.
Mack built the model.
The DeSantis Education Record Is the Envy of Every Conservative Governor in America
Every single year since the Heritage Foundation launched its Education Freedom index, Florida has finished first.
The Center for Education Reform ranked Florida number one on the Parent Power Index four years running as well.
1.4 million Florida students now learn in a school choice setting – private, charter, virtual, or homeschool.
That's more kids exercising school choice than some states enroll in K-12 altogether.
DeSantis didn't stumble into this.
He signed universal school choice into law in 2023, ripped gender ideology out of classrooms, put parents back in charge of what their kids are taught, and kept schools open when Democrat governors were locking children out of their classrooms and calling it science.
https://twitter.com/SuptDotres/status/2079952511562047618?s=20
Now he has six months left – and he's making sure the next commissioner shares every one of those convictions.
The Man Who Wants to Undo All of It Is Already Running
David Jolly – a former Republican who fled to the Democrat Party, became an MSNBC regular, and has made a career of attacking Donald Trump – is the Democrats' candidate for Florida governor.
His education platform: end universal school vouchers.
Right now any Florida family can use a voucher to send their child to a private school of their choosing, regardless of income.
Jolly wants to take that away from families he decides earn too much.
The teachers union loves him for it.
The Florida Education Association – the same union that fought school choice every step of the way – just endorsed Jolly for governor.
That's who is waiting in January.
DeSantis knows it.
Mack – a philosophy and theology graduate of The Catholic University of America, a two-decade Florida classroom teacher, and a doctorate in education administration from the University of Miami – is not a placeholder.
https://twitter.com/StasiKamoutsas/status/2079951097087627739?s=20
He's a fortress.
His job is to hold six months of ground that took eight years to build.
The State Board of Education votes Wednesday, and with a board appointed by DeSantis, Mack gets confirmed.
And the left will spend the next four months telling Florida parents that the school their kid loves, the education they chose, the future they planned – is "unaccountable" and needs to be taken back.
DeSantis just made sure someone is standing at the door when they try.
Sources:
- Governor Ron DeSantis, "Governor Ron DeSantis Recommends Dr. Henry Mack for Education Commissioner," Executive Office of the Governor, July 17, 2026.
- Staff, "DeSantis Recommends Henry Mack as Florida Education Commissioner," The Capitolist, July 17, 2026.
- Staff, "Florida Ranks #1 in Education Freedom for the Fourth Consecutive Year," Executive Office of the Governor, September 9, 2025.
- Staff, "Governor Ron DeSantis Announces Florida Opts in to Federal Education Freedom Tax Credit Supporting School Choice," Executive Office of the Governor, 2026.
- Staff, "2025 DOL Accomplishments," U.S. Department of Labor, 2025.
- Staff, "Florida Education Association Backs David Jolly for Governor," Florida Politics, June 2026.
