Step Up’s Plan B: Redirect Title I, Privatize Public Education

In the 2023–24 school year (FY2024), Florida’s public schools—both district-managed and charter—received approximately $1.1 billion in federal Title I education funding. Title I supports schools with high percentages of low-income students, aiming to ensure all children have access to quality education. Funding per district ranged from over $100 million in the state’s largest districts to less than $1 million in the smallest.

Title I dollars are allocated based on the number of low-income students and may be used for:

• Hiring additional staff to reduce class sizes
• Providing professional development
• Purchasing instructional materials

Every single school district in Florida receives and depends on this critical federal support to meet the needs of their most vulnerable students.

But now, Florida’s voucher advocates appear eager to get their hands on it.

Last week, Step Up For Students—the politically connected nonprofit that manages the state’s $5 billion-per-year voucher programs—published a report titled “Going With Plan B.” The report revealed that more than 40,000 Florida students who were awarded school choice scholarships for the 2024–25 school year never used them. Of those families, 2,739 participated in a survey aimed at understanding why.

The results were not surprising:

• Many families could not access or afford the private schools they hoped for.
• Private schools can select or reject applicants, and 28% of Florida’s private schools still don’t accept vouchers.
• Even though voucher amounts often match public school per-pupil funding, tuition and additional fees at private schools remain unaffordable for many families.
• Transportation was also cited as a major barrier.

The report’s authors followed up with an op-ed in The 74, emphasizing issues of availability and affordability on the supply side. Notably, many families who didn’t use their scholarship simply said they were already satisfied with their child’s previous school.

Step Up concluded with a set of policy recommendations, presented as “Meaningful Measures Policymakers Can Take to Further Invigorate Supply” of private education options:

• Allow private schools to set up shop anywhere, even within your local public school building.
  • Update zoning and building codes to help private schools build new facilities. (Florida’s charter schools have been granted these flexibilities.)
  • Provide assistance with navigating zoning and building regulations.
  • Repurpose Public Facilities –
    • Offer incentives to repurpose unused or underused public school buildings to support choice programs. (A bill allowing charter schools to co-locate in under-utilized portions of public schools was slipped into the 2025 budget conforming bill just before its passage.)
    • In the past year, 12 Florida districts have registered to participate in the state’s Education Savings Account (ESA)/voucher online marketplace, selling a la carte services, like afterschool tutoring or individual classes (virtual or in-person), to homeschooling ESA families. Step Up hopes that that similar partnerships – like sharing facilities with private schools – will also be possible.
• Publicly Fund Transportation for Private School Students
  • Create a state-funded grant program to support alternative transportation options for choice families. (Currently, Florida underfunds Student Transportation at public schools by more than 60% – we can’t afford bus transportation for our public school kids, how will we afford this?)
  • Expand the existing $750 transportation stipend (currently available to K–8 students choosing to attend a public school other than the one they are zoned for) to include families choosing private schools in need of transportation assistance.
• Fund Vouchers For Low-Income Families At Higher Amounts
  • Raise scholarship values based on income level to help low-income families access private schools.

Let’s focus on: “Increase scholarship values for certain income levels to make private education more accessible.” Step Up believes raising scholarship/voucher amounts for low income students will give them “more power to access the schools they want” and, they believe, more schools will (magically?) emerge to serve them. The report states:

A prime opportunity might arise if, as many expect, federal officials convert Title I funds into block grants that would give states more flexibility in how best to help low-income students.

Page 17, Going with Plan B

That’s the real goal: Title I money for private school vouchers.

And they might get it—if the federal government continues to follows the Project 2025 playbook.

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s infamous “2025 Presidential Transition Project,” recommended moving Title I to the Department of Health and Human Services. Funding would, then, be disbursed as no‑strings‑attached formula block grants to states, abandoning federal accountability requirements. Initially, states would have broad discretion over how to spend the funds but, under the plan, Title I funding would be gradually phased out completely within a decade, shifting full financial responsibility to state governments—many of which, like Florida, currently underfund public education, especially in high-poverty districts.

Worse yet, the Project 2025 plan allows families to use Title I money for private learning options, like tutoring or curriculum outside public schools—essentially, rerouting federal funds directly to voucher programs.

Step Up is poised to benefit.

Public education advocates oppose converting Title I into block grants because:

• Block grants remove targeting for high-need students, risking dilution or redirection of funds.
• They weaken transparency and accountability, making it harder to track spending and ensure funds supplement rather than replace state/local education funding.
• Equity safeguards vanish, while lawmakers can more easily cut or freeze the funding.
• The current system’s visibility as a distinct, protected program helps ensure continued support for vulnerable student populations.

The Bottom Line:

The real takeaway from Step Up’s “Plan B” report isn’t that 40,000 students didn’t use their vouchers—it’s that Step Up is positioning itself to tap into federal Title I funds, which are currently reserved for public schools serving the most at-risk students.

Redirecting those funds into Florida’s private voucher system would undermine the very public schools that educate the vast majority of the state’s low-income children—replacing them with an unregulated, unaccountable patchwork of private providers.

If Project 2025 moves forward—and all signs suggest it might—Title I may shift from a tool for educational equity to a pipeline for privatization.

That’s not school choice.
That’s a direct attack on public education.