Erika Donalds: Every child, every dollar — why I believe in Florida’s parents
Education freedom begins when parents control every child’s education funding
I didn’t get into education as a politician. I got into it as a mom.
Years ago, when Common Core started changing what my son was taught and how he was taught it, I did what parents all over Florida were doing at their own kitchen tables. I started asking questions. I met with his teacher and his principal. I met with the District, then our state Representative.
When I found out how hard it was for an ordinary parent to get straight answers, I decided our families deserved better.
Everything since started there, with the stubborn love a mom has for her own children.
That love became a calling. A group of us, all volunteers, opened a classical charter school for our kids. I won a seat on the Collier County School Board. I took the fight to Tallahassee. Later, I built more schools from the ground up, places where a child’s ZIP code doesn’t decide the quality of their education. I heard from moms like me whose children were struggling in their zoned schools. From a dad who lost faith in his daughter’s school when it refused to deal with the bullying. From a student whose love of the arts went nowhere until she moved to a program built for it. I’ve watched kids who had nearly given up on school fall in love with learning again.
Florida leads the nation on education freedom, and I’ve been blessed to play a small part in a movement far bigger than any one person.
Now parents should control every dollar of their child’s education. That’s the next step.
Not bureaucrats. Not distant Committees. Not people who will never know your child’s name. When a mother can choose the classroom, the curriculum, and the values that shape her son or daughter, children flourish, and so do the communities around them.
Empowering parents isn’t a threat to public education. It’s the truest expression of it. Those dollars belong to our children and their families, and they should follow the child, wherever that child learns best.
This doesn’t stop at the schoolhouse door. It should reach the family that homeschools, the parents who pooled their money to start a microschool, and the mom whose son needs tutoring and therapy more than he needs after-school childcare. The measure of a good system isn’t how many students it holds. It’s how many children it fits.
Not everyone welcomes this kind of change, but persistence is key.
When you insist that public money be transparent and accountable, you unsettle people who were comfortable with the status quo. In 2017, I started pushing for a deeper audit of our billion-dollar School District. The pushback was enormous, which told me we were on the right track. I kept my focus on the families we serve and made the audit an issue in the next election. It took three years, but the District did the audit.
When Hurricane Ian hit in 2022, construction on one of our Southwest Florida schools was delayed as the storm upended homes and businesses across our entire region. We didn’t walk away. We finished the building, working hand in hand with parents and community partners to make arrangements for every child and family affected. That school is opening its doors this fall to hundreds of students eager for the first-ever Classical STEM program in the state.
Trust like that gets earned one family at a time. It’s how this work has grown: classical schools across Florida, a nonprofit devoted to education freedom, and an online academy reaching thousands of kids who might otherwise have been left behind.
None of this is really about buildings or budgets. It’s about ensuring that every child in Florida has the pathway to the American Dream that they deserve, whether a trade, a degree, a military career, or a business with their name on the door. Our schools should be preparing them to walk it.
I’m as hopeful about Florida’s children as I’ve ever been. When parents lead, when teachers are respected, and when every family, no matter their income or their address, can choose an education that truly fits their child, we don’t just build better schools. We build a stronger, freer, more hopeful Florida.
That’s the Florida Promise, and it’s worth every ounce of the work.
I hope you’ll join us.
