School choice, accountability can — and should — coexist

School choice and accountability can — and should — coexist.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. In fact, responsible school choice should require both parental freedom and institutional integrity.

The current lawsuit against Florida’s school choice expansion assumes that supporting school choice means supporting a lack of standards or oversight. That is simply not true. And frankly, it oversimplifies a much more important conversation.

I absolutely believe that any school receiving taxpayer dollars — public, charter or private — should meet clear standards of ethical and operational accountability. Transparency matters. Financial stewardship matters. Student safety matters. Educational integrity matters.

Schools accepting public funds should be held to high standards of conduct and responsibility. But accountability does not have to mean sameness.

That is where I believe many critics miss the mark.

A specialized school serving students with autism, behavioral challenges, dyslexia, anxiety, social communication differences or other unique learning needs should not be forced into a one-size-fits-all educational model simply to satisfy a traditional system. Different learners often require different environments, teaching methods, pacing and measures of success.

The purpose of school choice is not to dismantle public education. It is to acknowledge a reality many families know firsthand: No single educational setting works for every child. Families are not leaving traditional schools because they oppose public education. Many are leaving because their child’s needs were not fully met there.

That distinction matters.

As the co-founder and Board Chair of LiFT, a school serving neurodiverse students, I have seen firsthand what happens when students who struggled elsewhere finally find an environment designed around how they learn best. I have also seen the extraordinary level of responsibility that comes with accepting public trust and public funding.

At LiFT, accountability is taken seriously. We operate with rigorous standards, ethical responsibility, compliance measures, individualized educational planning and an unwavering commitment to stewardship because we understand that accepting public funding comes with public trust.

But what makes schools like ours effective is not that we mirror a traditional educational system. What makes them effective is that they were intentionally designed differently.

The real conversation should not be whether school choice should exist. The better question is this: How do we ensure that all schools receiving public funds operate with integrity while preserving the flexibility that enables innovative and specialized programs to succeed?

Innovation in education rarely comes from forcing every school to look identical. Protecting educational diversity is not a threat to public education; it is an acknowledgment that children themselves are diverse, too.

Not every child learns the same way. Not every child thrives in the same environment. And not every family’s path should be determined by a single system that was never designed to meet every need.

Accountability and flexibility are not opposing ideas. In the best educational models, they work together. We should absolutely demand integrity, transparency and responsible stewardship from every school entrusted with public dollars. But we should also have the wisdom to recognize that educational excellence does not always look the same for every child.

True educational progress is not about forcing uniformity. It is about creating a system strong enough, ethical enough and compassionate enough to make space for different kinds of learners to succeed.

Because the goal should never be protecting systems for the sake of systems.

The goal should always be serving children.

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Keli Mondello is co-founder and Board Chair of LiFT Florida.