M-DCPS RANKS IN TOP 10 IN NATION IN SCHOOL CHOICE

Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ (M-DCPS) Department of School Choice and Parental Options was recently ranked number 10 by The Brookings Institution. The school district was recognized for providing a significant number of its own options through its magnet programs and career academies.

The Institution used its “Education Choice and Competition Index” to score more than 100 school districts across the country. The formula for scoring was based on 13 categories. It took into consideration whether alternatives were available such as magnet schools, virtual courses, tax credit scholarships, affordable private schools, vouchers and charter schools.

For more than 50 years, M-DCPS has been at the forefront of the choice movement in education, having established Henry S. West Laboratory School in 1954, as an experimental school of choice associated with the School of Education at the University of Miami. Magnet programs began in Miami-Dade County Public Schools in 1973 with the opening of a center for the Expressive Arts in the heart of the inner city. Since then, M-DCPS has implemented a broad variety of choice programs including the first corporate–based Satellite Learning Center in 1987; the first controlled open-enrollment schools in 1995; the State’s first charter school in 1996; and, most recently, the federally funded Voluntary Public School Choice Program in 2002.

As of this school year, approximately 41 percent of Pre-K through 12 students in M-DCPS have made an active choice in school or program in which they are enrolled.

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