One of the saddest consequences of the merger of education with partisan politics is that we now no longer can trust pronouncements from many of our state and local departments of education. Instead of accurate data, we are apt to get spin, hype, distortion, and outright lies, all in the service of someone’s political agenda.
One of the worst offenders is the Florida Department of Education. For years, under Jeb Bush and now Rick Scott, the department has been incapable of impartial analysis or self-criticism. Instead, its goal is to parrot the party line of testing, accountability, charters, vouchers, and online learning.
The latest embarrassing public relations stunt from the state DOE is a “study” claiming that charter schools in Florida outperform public schools. This is intended to help the privatization movement–for-profit and nonprofit–get a bigger market share.
The latest “study” was not conducted by independent reputable scholars but by the Department itself. That explains a lot.
Consider that only four months earlier, an independent study concluded the opposite: that public schools perform the same or better than charter schools.
The key finding in that study was:
“The average charter school is doing about the same as the non-charter school when no adjustments are made for poverty and minority statuses. When the adjusted scores are considered, the average charter school performs significantly worse than the average non-charter school.”
An investigation by the Miami Herald determined that most charters do not accept severely disabled students.
Half of the F-rated schools in the state are charters.
Charters were seven times more likely to be rated F than were public schools.
Reputable studies have reached the same conclusions: Charters in Florida perform about the same or worse than public schools.
One study concluded that their achievement growth is lower than that of regular public schools, but that after five years, charters produce similar gains.
The Credo analysis found that Florida charter schools performed significantly less well than their public school peers.
Ah yes, Diane. Thank you once again. I spent much of my day yesterday looking through the annual reports of Jeb Bush’s “nonprofit.” Although there were a few bones thrown out to teachers and students via awards (7 day cruises for high test scores) most of the money went to a conference and creating “studies” like these. If we could simply redirect all the billiions people are putting into these “research” teams and policy platforms we could truly have an impact in our poorest schools. Guess it’s better to form committees to talk about why we should create charters instead. Crazy.
From a local fighting the good fight… The first is a list of the 226 charter schools that have failed in Florida. I believe in that regard they are beating public schools 226-0
http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/03/want-to-see-list-floridas-226-failed.html
http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/03/is-fldoe-charter-school-study-to-be.html
I believe the Orlando Sentinel did a good job reporting this story.
This is a short link to the story.
http://thesent.nl/13VrTgn
But the for-profit charter schools ARE cheaper, their shareholders DO make bigger campaign contributions, and they DO run like a business, which everyone knows is far superior to those democratically operated public schools.
I also believe many charter schools in Orlando are for kids who are failing in public schools or who have gone through the justice system. They are also called alternative schools but do absolutely nothing for those disadvantaged kids. The physical appearance of those schools is depressing and void of all the extras that facilitate learning.
Unfortunately, Diane, power trumps fact. Who has the power?
Ron, power wins short-term. Long-term, truth wins. If I didn’t believe that, I’d give up. I am not giving up. Truth is a good cause.
They’ll use this so-called “data” to get the Parent Trigger bill passed through the House where Gov. Scott has already said he’ll sign it. The only way to make a difference is to get the message out.
Diane: I looked at the supporting document to your posting and they are at least 4 months old and seem to predate this most recent report. While I’ve printed out the supporting documents to develop rebuttal comments to the statements I will most assuredly receive from Washington state Republicans, I’m hoping you will be able to find some more recent commentaries that relate more directly to the data in the most recent report.
The Board of Education in Florida, for years, has been steadily stocked with multiple Jeb Bush former chiefs of staff. Two are sitting there now—Sally Bradshaw and Kathleen Shanahan. Bradshaw took over in 2011 for Mark Kaplan, another former Bush chief of staff. With harshly ideological, non-educators like these people continuously running things, we will not make much progress to restore our public school system here, sadly.
Topping it all off is Tony Bennett as our new Education Commissioner. We predicted that Bennett would pop up here after being ousted from Indiana. The clue was when he ‘threw his hat into the ring’ for the ‘Board’ to consider. Natch, it was a lock.
And the huge upgrade in his salary was an additional slap in the face, as the Florida position was advertised for as much as $275,000, as noted in the following link.)
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/education/former-indiana-school-chief-tony-bennett-tapped-for-floridas-top-education-job
Also related to Jeb Bush’s charter school/parent trigger/voucher crusade here in Florida:
When I ran across this article from last October, it made much more sense as to where so much money that is streaming into the charter push in Florida is coming from:
Chinese funding Florida charter schools
http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/121004/story1.shtml
A quote from the piece:
——–
Investment money is pouring into Florida from wealthy Chinese who find that Florida has exactly what they are looking for — and what they need to secure US green cards.
Chinese investors are taking advantage of the EB-5 investment visa program, the so-called “green card via red carpet,” by putting millions into Florida’s charter schools and an aquaculture farm in Central Florida.
Under the EB-5 program, through investments of at least $1 million — or $500,000 for “targeted employment areas” — foreign nationals are able to obtain legal residency in the US so long as the money they invest will help secure or create at least 10 full-time jobs.
A group of Chinese investors have put $30 million into the state’s charter school program to date and are looking to invest three times that amount in the next year, Ilona Vega Jaramillo, director of international business development for Enterprise Florida, the state’s economic development arm, said in a US-China roundtable discussion last week.
………
————-
(Ten full-time jobs??)
In January, 2012, Jeb Bush went to China to meet with Vice President Xi Jinping. We noted it at the time and wondered whether Bush was hustling for money for his charter school push. Doesn’t seem improbable.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/seafan/5177
Currently, the 2013 state legislative session is underway, so it’s Katie bar the door for the rehash for the parent trigger.
What Jeb Bush has orchestrated to starve public education since 1999, is so very wrong for our children’s future. Rick Scott and the gaggle of legislative operatives/former aides/’Chiefs for Change’/ Bush Foundations who are attacking teachers and public education, all get their marching orders from Bush.
In my opinion, some harsh and unrelenting scrutiny must be directed toward Jeb Bush’s activities, to slow down this assault.
But, hey, who needs something so sillyas facts?
[…] some of the study’s vagueness. Like Chris, I’ve been hesitant to criticize the report. Diane Ravitch has no such reservations. She […]