Editor's note: This story was originally published by The Florida Trib.

Byron and Erika Donalds are a Florida power couple if ever there was one.

Long before the Republican congressman from Naples became a rising star in the GOP and a go-to cable news surrogate for President Donald Trump, he and his wife both made their political names opening the door to Florida’s explosive school choice industry.

An education freedom evangelist and entrepreneur, Erika has built a national platform in her own right, climbing her way into the highest levels of conservative education policy circles — and building her school choice businesses as her then-state lawmaker husband pushed legislation to create a regulatory environment where they could thrive.

Underpinning it all, the Donaldses say, is the guiding principle that parents, not the government, should be directing their children’s education — and the belief that they as Christians are called to “be active and influential across all of public life.”

“Faith is the foundation of everything my husband and I do,” Erika said in a statement to The Florida Trib.

Now, the couple is poised to ascend to their greatest positions of authority yet, with Byron the Republican frontrunner to become the state’s next governor, and Erika at the culmination of a yearslong mission to “break the public school monopoly.” It’s a campaign backed by some of the richest people on the planet.

Drowned out by the cacophony of insults and attack ads between Donalds and chief rivals, investor James Fishback, Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner, is that the clear favorite stands to fundamentally change the state’s public education system as we know it, further fracturing a choice-driven school environment that critics argue is unequal and unconstitutional.

Agents of ‘godly change’

On Valentine’s Day in 2021, the Donaldses decided to share the special evening not simply cloistered away in a romantic restaurant, but surrounded by other worshipers at New Hope Ministries in their hometown of Naples, where the faithful had gathered to learn how they as Christians could reform the nation according to their vision of God’s will.

The event was hosted by Colorado-based televangelist Andrew Wommack, who through his Truth & Liberty Foundation preaches what is known as the Seven Mountains Mandate, which calls on Christians to take dominion over seven key spheres of society: religion, family, education, government, media, arts, and business.

Reporting by ProPublica has found that some of the wealthiest Christian conservative political donors in the country have been spending millions to quietly advance the Seven Mountains theology, reflecting the influence of Christian nationalism in American politics. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, a core tenet of Christian nationalism is the belief that God has called Christians to “exercise dominion over all areas of American society.”

At the Valentine’s Day event in Naples, faith leaders called on their followers to act as agents of “godly change” in their communities.

“In our sphere of influence, we have dominion and authority. Do you believe that or is that just a quote that we read?” said Paul Lodato of the Christian Television Network, revving up the crowd. “We got to quit singing, ‘Kumbaya, My Lord’ and start doing something about it. I think Byron said it: Faith without works is dead.”

Speakers exhorted attendees on the importance of Christians being “in control of our schools” and stepping up to run for city council, and coached parents on how their kids can qualify for a private school scholarship paid for by taxpayer funds, a precursor to the state’s now-universal voucher program, created by a bill that Donalds shepherded when he was a state legislator.

“All they have to do is say, ‘I’m getting bullied’ and guess what? They can go to a good Christian school, amen? And get a biblical worldview education. That’s what we need,” Lodato said.

When Congressman Donalds and his wife took the stage, Erika spoke first.

“We will use that freedom that we have in Christ to not just pray for our president and those in authority,” said Donalds, a former school board member herself, “not just pray for them, but rise up as the most powerful voting bloc and political force in the entire world as Christians.”

Five years later, the couple is preparing to scale the highest levels of Florida government, with Byron enjoying a massive lead in the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a state where there are now 1.5 million more registered Republicans than Democrats. A slate of polls shows Donalds outpacing the other Republican candidates by about 40 points on average, and holding an edge of five points over David Jolly, the former Republican congressman-turned-Democrat considered the frontrunner for his new party’s nomination.

Should that advantage bear out on Election Day, the Donaldses’ vision for education may well become Florida’s future.

Breaking the ‘public school monopoly’

While it’s Byron who went on to become a next-generation face of the GOP, it was Erika who was first elected to public office, as the couple playfully reminds listeners in joint interviews.

Erika won a seat on the Collier County School Board back in 2014, two years before her husband was elected to the state Legislature, following his failed bid for Congress in 2012.

The couple says they were first swept into politics by the rising tide of the Tea Party — and an awakening that came when they said their local public school told them the solution for their middle son’s academic struggles was to put him on medication.

In 2014, they helped open Mason Classical Academy in Naples, a charter school affiliated with Hillsdale College – a private Christian college that has become a braintrust for the conservative remaking of public education.

Erika, frustrated by what she said was her inability to make change as a school board member, opted not to run for re-election. Instead, she devoted herself to school choice, going on to launch a nonprofit foundation that advocates for public funding of privatized education and advises school entrepreneurs, and two for-profit charter school management companies, OptimaEd and Optima Management Solutions.

For years, the Donaldses have railed against the failures of a public school system that leaves nearly half of American teens unable to meet national benchmarks for reading. Instead, the couple has spread the gospel of what they call education freedom, urging conservative leaders across the country to untether taxpayer funds from public schools, to be used as parents see fit. Byron himself is a product of private religious schools.

As her then-state representative husband worked to pass legislation to create new charter schools and new public funding streams for school choice options, Erika, a former investment firm executive, was poised to reap the benefits. Her companies have taken in millions of dollars of management contracts from taxpayer-funded charter schools, according to an analysis by the Florida Bulldog.

In the process, Erika has “hacked the government funding as much as possible” to deliver services to students. Her professional work has raised questions about conflicts of interest around how Byron’s family may be profiting from the policies he shaped as a lawmaker. In a statement, Erika said she doesn’t do business with the state of Florida and never has, adding that she’s built her career on “ethics, accountability, and transparency.”

Other controversies have emerged as well — parents in Fort Myers were left scrambling after a planned Optima school enrolled hundreds of students but failed to open. The couple has also faced lawsuits filed by a founder of Mason Classical Academy related to disputes over their involvement in the school’s launch.

As Byron’s star has risen, so has Erika’s — becoming a cable news commentator, an advisor to Moms for Liberty and the chair of education opportunity at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute. She was even floated to be Trump’s secretary of education. When the U.S. Supreme Court heard a major case on whether taxpayer funds can go to religious charter schools, Erika was there to support what she called the “free market of education.”

And as the couple’s political power has grown, so has Florida’s school choice program. In a state long heralded as a conservative laboratory for reinventing education, state lawmakers and DeSantis in 2023 ushered in a seismic change years in the making: creating a universal voucher program that allows any Florida child to receive a taxpayer-funded scholarship equivalent to the state’s per-pupil allocation – regardless of family income and no matter if the student was already enrolled in private school.

As a result, taxpayer-funded school choice has exploded into a $4.5 billion a year enterprise, with more than 500,000 students enrolling to receive a voucher worth about $8,000 annually. Most of Florida’s voucher students attend Christian private schools, the Orlando Sentinel found, though the funds can be spent on an array of expenses, from home schooling curriculum and speech therapy to surfboards and tickets to Disney, as detailed in the scholarship purchasing guide.

In May, the Florida Education Association, a public school union that represents 120,000 educators across the state, filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s choice-driven education system as unequal and unconstitutional, with vastly different requirements for public schools and private ones. Neighborhood schools across the state are facing closures due to a post-pandemic enrollment crisis that’s been supercharged by universal school vouchers. In June, the FEA endorsed Jolly, the Democrat.

“This election is our chance to end profiteering by out-of-state, billionaire-backed special interests and elect a governor who puts Florida’s children, families, and workers first,” said FEA President Andrew Spar.

With Byron angling to take the state’s top political post, and Erika planning to continue working professionally if he is elected, the question becomes: Where do they want to take Florida’s multibillion-dollar school choice industry next?

A pair of billionaires and a meeting at a state college conference room shed some light.

The billionaire school choice backers behind Donalds

Throughout his gubernatorial campaign, Donalds has been a prodigious fundraiser, pulling in more than $100 million. But his single-largest donors are not Tallahassee powerbrokers or Washington lobbyists, but two of the world’s wealthiest men — who have spent a considerable chunk of their vast fortunes promoting school choice.

Ken Griffin, a hedge fund manager who in recent years relocated to Miami from Chicago, has now given the PAC supporting Donalds’ candidacy an eye-popping $10 million, while Jeff Yass, a bespectacled TikTok investor from suburban Pennsylvania, has dropped $7.5 million. Yass is currently ranked #28 on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people while Griffin clocks in at #35.

Griffin’s Citadel Enterprise Americas has already helped lay the groundwork to transform the state’s public school landscape. Working alongside a major charter network in New York City, Griffin’s firm successfully pushed to expand a law, first co-sponsored by Donalds, allowing charter schools to “co-locate” inside traditional public schools, a measure that state legislators slipped into a budget package on the 105th and final day of what was supposed to be a 60-day session.

The expanded “schools of hope” program allows publicly funded but privately run charter schools to set up shop within the walls of public schools – which are compelled to provide them a host of services from transportation to school security to classroom space, all rent-free.

Opponents have called the policy “parasitic” — and one they fear will create a glidepath for profit-seeking charter school management companies to wrest control of the vast real estate portfolios of public school districts, which are among the largest property owners in communities like Griffin’s adopted hometown of Miami.

Yass, a one-time professional poker player and early adopter of computer-assisted financial trades, has his own vision for the future of education. For years, he has been shelling out millions of dollars in bets on candidates committed to school choice — including Democrats.

For a decade, Yass has been making a radical pitch to fundamentally restructure public education: Take 100% of per-pupil taxpayer funding out of the government’s control and give it directly to parents, allowing them to spend it on tuition at a private school or elsewhere — and to invest it in a dedicated savings account that he estimates could net students a six-figure payout by the time they graduate high school.

At a recent awards banquet put on by the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute, Yass made the pitch again, this time aimed at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who Yass says owes his political ascendency to decades of effort by the teachers union to “indoctrinate children” against capitalism.

“Give $300,000 to a graduate who can do math and read and write and, ‘Adios, affordability crisis.’ No more need for $30 million government grocery stores, free buses or rent control,” Yass said.

“That’s it,” Yass said, after detailing the numbers in an interview with The Washington Post. “Every single nickel I’ve ever given is based on that.”

Asked about his contributions to Donalds, a representative for Yass said simply: “Donalds is a school choice warrior.”

‘Profit is not going to be a bad word’

This March, Byron and Erika Donalds gathered with state lawmakers, school board members, charter school executives and parents at Miami Dade College’s Doral campus to lay out their collective vision for the future of education in Florida – one where parents are in control.

“One guiding principle that’s always been in our hearts and in our minds is that we want parents to be at the head of the table when it comes to making decisions for the future of their children,” Byron said.

Under their leadership, Erika said, Florida will become “even more the model state for school choice,” laying out the red carpet for private enterprise and making today’s education landscape look as outdated as a 1980s-era cell phone the size of a brick.

“We cannot imagine, when we unleash the capitalism, free-market competition in education,” she said.

The couple painted a picture of an education system fueled by artificial intelligence and other ed-tech advancements, and talked up an overhaul of Florida’s system of yearly standardized tests and the A-through-F rubric that grades public schools. They shared plans to shake up the state’s teaching standards in grades 6-12, making education modular and customizable, with all students getting individualized education plans that today are typically reserved for students with special needs.

In their vision of Florida’s education future, parents are customers and schools are competitors in a marketplace where families decide “how and when and by whom and with what materials their children are educated” and public funding follows students wherever they go.

“We want an economy of education where parents have the purchasing power and the ability to find the academic environment that best suits their child,” Byron said.

Erika put it plainly: In their education economy, there’s money to be made.

“Profit is not going to be a bad word when it comes to the education industry,” Erika told the crowd.

In response to questions from The Florida Trib about the role the billionaire donors may have played in Byron’s school choice policies, he said his long record on the issue speaks for itself.

“Donors do not set my agenda — the people of Florida do,” Donalds said in a statement.

“No donor has asked me to pursue school choice as governor because they don’t have to,” Donalds added. “I’ve been in this fight my whole career.”

Three days after that speech in Doral, Jeff Yass inked his latest check for $2.5 million, raising his total support to $7.5 million, upping the ante on what the longtime poker player has called the surest bet he’s ever made — school freedom.

Kate Payne is The Florida Trib’s state government reporter. She can be reached at kate.payne@floridatrib.org. The Tributary is a nonprofit newsroom producing high-impact government accountability and investigative journalism in the public interest. Based in Jacksonville, the Florida Trib's mission is to shine a light on systemic problems and solutions, hold those in power accountable, and focus on under covered topics through collaboration with other news organizations and the community.