School Choice Could Ease the Fertility Crisis
Several years ago, the Kashanis found themselves in an all-too-familiar spot for many young families. They wanted to find an alternative to the local public school for their two young children, but they couldn’t afford a private school in the city or a house in a good suburban school district. The Kashanis felt stuck.
A relative suggested they move to South Florida and enroll their children in the Jewish day school Mrs. Kashani’s nieces and nephews attended.
Florida’s K-12 scholarship programs allow parents to direct their children’s education funds to the school of their choice. Thanks to such policies, private-school and home-school families in Florida don’t have to pay twice for education—in the form of tuition for their kids and taxes for others’ kids—the way New York families do.
Moreover, Florida’s school choice policies mean that families enjoy wider residential options, because they don’t have to limit their home search to areas with good schools. “As educational opportunities keep expanding, I believe we’ll continue to see buyer demand spread across more neighborhoods,” Florida realtor Michael Buttacavoli observes, “not because the best schools are becoming less desirable, but because families simply have more options than they did a decade ago.”
The Kashanis settled in a middle-class neighborhood in Broward County near the private school their children now attend using state-funded scholarships. Spared the added expenses for housing and schooling that many young families face elsewhere, the Kashanis then did something that would have seemed impossible back in New York: They had a third child.
