Florida gets first new school voucher funding organization in a decade
Tampa Bay Times | Jeffrey S. Solochek | February 23, 2026
The big story: Families that participate in Florida’s growing school voucher program have a new scholarship funding organization option.
The State Board of Education on Friday approved Sunshine State Kids Foundation as a third choice to manage students’ education savings accounts and vouchers. The Hollywood, Fla., based group is the first new entry to the system in more than a decade.
It joins the market at a time when increased scrutiny has fallen on the funding model that was the subject of a scathing state audit, which found that thousands of students and millions of dollars could not be accounted for.
Some advocacy groups have long called for additional players in the voucher field, calling Step Up For Students, which manages more than 95% of the accounts, a monopoly. Step Up and the much smaller AAA Scholarship Foundation, which nearly lost its contract last year, each have come under fire at times from parents and schools for lengthy reimbursement delays and poor customer service.
The State Board renewed both Step Up and AAA along with Sunshine State last week, after hearing reports from their leaders that they had improved their technology and significantly reduced reimbursement waiting times even as participation increased.
State Board member Daniel Foganholi Sr. asked Sunshine State CEO Yosef Rosengarten if his firm is ready to handle an influx of applicants. Rosengarten said his group aims to serve about 5,000 students in the coming year, but has the systems in place to deal with as many as 11,000.
He did not anticipate that large amount, though, given that the the other two organizations reported record numbers since the application window opened Feb. 1. “There aren’t a lot left,” he said.
Sunshine State Kids is a spinoff from an organization that supports Jewish day schools in south Florida. Rosengarten said its leaders found if they wanted to thrive, it would be beneficial to help students manage their scholarships and vouchers too.
Foganholi asked if the service was intended to be limited to Jewish school students only, raising concerns about possible discrimination.
“If we create a great product and people come asking for it, we’ll open it to everybody,” Rosengarten said.
