Florida Has an Answer to K-12 Education Dissatisfaction – Inside Sources

As Americans’ satisfaction with K-12 education sinks to a record low, Florida is betting that schools can rebuild confidence by giving students a clearer path from the classroom to the workplace.

Gallup’s latest survey found that only one-third of Americans are satisfied with the quality of K-12 education, the lowest level in the poll’s 27-year trend and down 11 percentage points in two years. Dissatisfaction has climbed to a record 67 percent, reinforcing the public’s concern that the nation’s schools are falling short.

They are especially falling short in preparing students for the workforce. Last year, Gallup found that just one in five people rated schools excellent or good at preparing students for today’s jobs, while one in three respondents rated schools excellent or good at preparing children for college.

Florida is taking action to turn that around, with a powerful focus on better aligning K-12 education with the needs of the state’s workforce. So much so that Gov. Ron DeSantis claims the state is now No. 1 in the nation for workforce education.

Florida’s experience shows how politicians, business leaders and school districts are joining to address educational failings by better tethering K-12 to the state’s economic needs.

One example is the state’s Career and Technical Education programs, once known in bygone times as vocational education. The programs are designed to prepare students for occupations central to Florida’s economic development. The programs are developed with input from business, industry and trade associations across 17 career clusters.

Alongside the core academic curriculum, middle and high school students can take career-focused courses in fields such as finance, agriculture, information technology and engineering. In many of these fields, math is essential, so the courses can help students connect classroom concepts with real occupations and workplace applications.

In another, Florida requires that school districts ensure every high school student has access to at least one work-based learning opportunity. That requirement matters because it moves the state from simply encouraging career readiness to better institutionalizing it through internships, apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships, and other workplace-tied experiences.

The state also incentivizes school districts in ways that better connect education to the needs of the economy. For example, it provides supplemental funding to districts and institutions for every student who passes an approved, industry-recognized certification.

At the same time, the state’s business leaders are working to reverse the math skills proficiency crisis among high school students, a situation replicated across the country as demonstrated by low test scores. A report last year by the Florida Chamber Foundation summarizing the situation found that more than 128,600 Florida students in high school tested “not proficient” in math.

The foundation released a report that lets educators, parents and policymakers explore, region by region, the well-paying jobs driving Florida’s economy and the math skills that underpin them. The idea is to strengthen the talent pipeline locally by better showing the demand for math skills in the real world and aligning local education with those workforce needs.

Taken together, the state has scored  some impressive wins:

—For the 2024-25 academic year, Florida had record-breaking Career and Technical Education enrollment, serving more than 818,000 K-12 CTE students and nearly 512,000 postsecondary CTE students, a 30 percent increase since the 2018-19 academic year.

—In February, the governor announced that the state’s apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs hit a milestone, supporting a record 25,000 participants statewide, an 11 percent increase compared to the previous year.

—The state has experienced a 14 percent increase in newly registered apprenticeship programs, underscoring the interest from business leaders in getting involved.

“Bipartisan voices are calling for better alignment between K-12 education and workforce needs,” a commentary in an educational journal concluded.

Florida is taking that push for alignment to heart and is pointing the way for other states eager to address both labor force and educational deficits.