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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a plan in early September 2025 that he intends to\u00a0make Florida the first state<\/a>\u00a0to end vaccine mandates across all schools and in other state-run institutions such as nursing homes.<\/p>\n His proposal would dismantle\u00a0Florida Statute 1003.22<\/a>, which requires that all schools, including public and private schools, collect proof of students\u2019 immunization for a range of communicable diseases when they enroll.<\/p>\n In 2025, approximately 88.7% of\u00a0Florida kindergartners<\/a>\u00a0are vaccinated, which is almost 5% lower than the national average. Florida\u2019s rate of vaccination for kindergarten students has steadily declined over the\u00a0past eight years<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 and dropped from 93.5% in 2020 to\u00a089.9% in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n If Florida state legislators approve DeSantis\u2019 plan when they convene in January 2026, the state would sweepingly eliminate long-standing obligations for schools and other places to require a standard set of immunizations for enrollment. Florida nursing homes currently assess whether residents should receive pneumococcal and\u00a0flu vaccines<\/a>.<\/p>\n As\u00a0a sociologist<\/a>, I study how education policy shapes democracy, social cohesion and inequality. I am also a\u00a0professor of educational policy studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n DeSantis\u2019 plan is indicative of Florida\u2019s general approach to approve education policy that is aligned with\u00a0conservative priorities<\/a>\u00a0on \u201cwoke politics\u201d and culture war issues,\u00a0such as book bans<\/a>.<\/p>\n Well before DeSantis, Florida has tried to be a national leader of educational reform and has tightened state control over schools by reshaping standards on testing, school curricula and guidance on what can and cannot be taught in public schools.<\/p>\n Florida\u2019s former Gov.\u00a0Jeb Bush, who served from 1999 through 2007<\/a>, helped lead this educational reform work. He was steadfast in increasing top-down accountability for educators, closely monitoring their performance by increasing high-stakes testing and tying\u00a0teachers\u2019 compensation<\/a>\u00a0to test results.<\/p>\n Bush also widely promoted policies to\u00a0expand school choice<\/a>\u00a0for parents or policies that often allow any parent \u2013 regardless of income \u2013 to apply for state grants that use public money to pay for their children\u2019s private school education.<\/p>\n Public school enrollment has\u00a0steadily declined<\/a>\u00a0in Florida over the past two decades. While 86% of Florida students attended a traditional public school in 2001-2002, just 51% of Florida children went to a\u00a0public school in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2022, Arizona\u00a0became the first state<\/a>\u00a0to adopt a universal voucher system.<\/p>\n Florida then\u00a0expanded its school voucher program<\/a>\u00a0in 2023 \u2013 allowing all parents, regardless of income, to use state taxpayer-funded scholarships to help pay for their children\u2019s private school or home school experience. More than\u00a0500,000 Florida students<\/a>\u00a0received these vouchers in 2025.<\/p>\n Since 2024,\u00a010 states<\/a>\u00a0plus Washington D.C. have adopted voucher programs.<\/p>\n Since taking office in 2018, DeSantis has also set his sights squarely upon other hot-button issues, including\u00a0by banning critical race theory<\/a>\u00a0from public schools in 2021.<\/p>\n Critical race theory, or CRT, is an academic framework that looks at how different forms of marginalization, such as gender or race, overlap, as well as how racism is embedded within American institutional and legal structures. DeSantis has said that\u00a0CRT amounts to<\/a>\u00a0\u201cstate-sanctioned racism\u201d that teaches \u201ckids to hate our country or to hate each other.\u201d<\/p>\n I and other experts<\/a>\u00a0on education considered this ban on CRT largely symbolic. The likelihood that K-12 educators are trained in CRT to then teach it to students seemed remote.<\/p>\n That same year, Florida rejected\u00a054 math textbooks<\/a>\u00a0that officials felt contained CRT-related subject matter.<\/p>\n In 2023, DeSantis also cited CRT when he blocked Florida from offering the nonprofit College Board\u2019s newly developed\u00a0AP African American Studies<\/a>\u00a0course from public schools.<\/p>\n These actions made Florida one of the first states to place formal policy restrictions on CRT, effectively prohibiting\u00a0discussions around race<\/a>\u00a0and inequality in public schools.<\/p>\n Since 2021, 44 other states have\u00a0introduced similar bills<\/a>. Approximately 28 states, including Texas, Idaho, Tennessee and Montana, have\u00a0adopted at least one law<\/a>\u00a0limiting educators\u2019 discussions<\/a>\u00a0of racism and sexism.<\/p>\n In 2022, Florida also became the first state to prohibit classroom instruction on sexuality or gender identity topics from kindergarten through third grade. This law \u2013 formally called the\u00a0Parental Rights in Education Act<\/a>\u00a0but often referred to as \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay<\/a>\u201d \u2013 also restricts discussion on these topics in higher grades.<\/p>\n Though the law restricts formal classroom discussion or curriculum on sexuality and gender identity, teachers are allowed to discuss these topics in\u00a0informal settings<\/a>, such as student gay and straight alliance clubs.<\/p>\n By 2024, a growing list of at least 20 states, including Alabama and Indiana, followed Florida and\u00a0introduced similar laws to<\/a>\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay.\u201d<\/p>\n A bookstore in Coral Gables, Fla., shows a list of banned books in 2022. Jeffrey Greenberg\/UCG\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n Book bans are another prominent front where DeSantis has influenced how education looks in Florida \u2013 and in other states.<\/p>\n Book bans refer to schools and libraries removing books that are deemed controversial or inappropriate for students, often flagged for content related to race, sexuality or gender.<\/p>\n In 2023, Florida\u00a0passed a law<\/a>\u00a0called HB 1069, which, among other things, banned books primarily\u00a0flagged<\/a>\u00a0by parents or education officials for discussing or mentioning sexual topics.<\/p>\n One of these banned books was \u201cArthur\u2019s Birthday<\/a>,\u201d a children\u2019s picture book based on the animated PBS children\u2019s series about an aardvark. The book was banned for including a reference to the game \u201cspin the bottle.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida\u2019s\u00a0schools banned<\/a>\u00a0approximately 4,500 books in the 2023-2024 school year, more than any other state.<\/p>\n A federal judge<\/a>\u00a0overruled a large portion of HB 1069 in August 2025, calling the categorization\u00a0overly broad<\/a>\u00a0and unconstitutional.<\/p>\n Following Florida\u2019s example,\u00a033 other states<\/a>\u00a0passed laws about book bans in the 2022-2023 school year.<\/p>\n Overall, there has been\u00a0a 200% increase<\/a>\u00a0in book bans nationwide from 2022 to 2024.<\/p>\n If Florida lifts its vaccine mandate, the decision would also affect\u00a0other groups<\/a>\u00a0in Florida, including young children in day care centers and elderly residents living in nursing homes, which would also no longer require vaccines.<\/p>\n Private schools and universities would retain the ability to impose their own stances and vaccine requirements. However, private educational institutions in Florida often\u00a0preemptively align<\/a>\u00a0themselves with state guidance.<\/p>\n Idaho loosened its vaccination rules in the summer of 2025,\u00a0prohibiting schools<\/a>\u00a0from denying admission to a person who has not received vaccines. Louisiana has also said it will stop promoting mass vaccine campaigns.<\/p>\n As recent education policy history shows, Florida\u2019s potential decision to end vaccine mandates in schools and other places would immediately have ripple effects across the nation. It is likely that if Florida strikes down its school vaccine requirements, this move will catalyze a rapid unraveling of similar public health protections across other states.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOther Republican-led states, such as\u00a0Alabama<\/a>,\u00a0Arkansas<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Iowa<\/a>, are typically quick to follow Florida\u2019s lead and implement their own versions of Florida\u2019s educational and social policies.<\/div>\nFlorida setting examples<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Critical race theory on the front line<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Anti-LGBTQ+ measures<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Book bans<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Beyond Florida<\/strong><\/h4>\n