Remember when charter advocates said they could do a better job of educating kids with less money? You probably don’t remember, it was years ago.
The charters have forgotten it too. In Florida, the charter lobby just got $91 million from the Legislature. This is money taken from the public schools’ facilities fund. Now, instead of the facilities belonging to the public, they will belong to the private sector organizations, for-profit and nonprofit, that own the charters. The entrepreneurs keep the public money. It is theirs.
Florida is well on its way to establishing a dual school system, one public, the other charter, both paid for with public funds. Florida has some of the nation’s most aggressive for-profit charter chains, which lobby, give money to candidates, and produce poor results for kids. One of those for-profit charter chains is Mavericks, run by Frank Biden, brother of our Vice President Joe Biden. It has a spotty record. But it will now get facilities funding, thanks to adroit lobbyists and a sympathetic governor and legislature. And public schools will get less.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What a hosing. Legal robbery or as those righties always say: a redistribution of wealth? Belly on up to the feed-trough.
Even BIden is in on this?! Both parties are now completely corrupt. Makes me sick.
You are just now figuring this out?
I guess I was in denial. I’m not used to sociopaths.
I read the Biden school was unaccerdited at one time. What a scam.
Can’t imagine why that’s not considered a “gift of public funds”, which is illegal here in Washington state.
I am attending the speech. I will get you names for NEST
Sent from my iPad
This is an inter-fund transfer. This is how it works. We have known for a long time that they were after the assets. They not only want the revenue/student but the physical facilities also in their name for ownership of the property and buildings. Already, those financing charter school facilities double their money in 7 years not 12 as is usual. This is why the hedge funds are in. Look at it as just “BUSINESS.”
how much do they then donate to political candidates to perpetuate this farce?
how are the books monitored?
fishy at best
OMG! How horrid. Yes Biden is part of this and so is Obama. Both parties are corrupt to the core. We are living The Hunger Games and we have an Orwellian society fueled by fear and punishment.
Well said! And it’s a very scary thought for our future generations of kids. But, the handwriting is on the wall.
check out the Joan Veon video on you tube about PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS.
this is the mechanism that crosses borders, is unaccountable to the PUBLIC and steals all the money, it is working right NOW in your local government, county, state and federal, taking property by eminent domain, ownership going to PPP, closing schools property going to PPP, swindling taxpayers with the big PPP”s in education like the NGA, Microsoft and UNESCO, COMMON CORE have a PPP with the DOE. regionalism to dilute local county govts. blurring the lines. how many PPP”S does your local community have?
” STAKEHOLDERS” are those sought to fascilitate the transfers and give CREDIBILITY for the ACTION, all under some false pretense, discussed briefly at a “FASCILITATED ” “CONSENSUS” meeting. complicit media owned by the corporatists who own all the corps partnering up. meanwhile your taxes go up, cause the beast has to eat!
and for what? and by whom? $$$$$$$$$ POWER.
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE>
here it is. slow and steady government-sponsored private takeover of public services.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-deane/2013-the-year-of-publicpr_b_3108378.html
My principal forwarded this message from the Florida Charter School Alliance to the entire staff today, calling it “good news.” Here’s their message:
“Dear Charter School Supporters,
After much conversation and negotiation extending late into Sunday night, the Florida Legislature has approved the following additional funding provisions for Charter schools:
1) Charter School Teachers will receive additional compensation in the form of a $2,000 (minimum) annual pay-raise, with a potential of up to $3,500 based on performance.
2) 65 percent increase for Charter School Capital Outlay Funding: $91 million.
Although we have a long way to go for equitable funding to all public school students, we would like to thank the legislature for making the first down payment on equitable funding for all public school students.
Quote from Senator Aaron Bean (District 4: Duval/Nassau):
“This is a great budget for Florida’s public charter schools and more importantly for Florida families desperate for a better option for their children. I applaud the great work of the Florida Charter School Alliance leading the way, providing valuable information and advocating for Moms and Dads all across our great state”.
We would like to also thank our many Charter school supporters for all their efforts in making calls and writing emails to legislators. We could not have achieved this victory without your action and engagement.
Thank you for your continued support,
Sincerely,
Your Advocacy Team in Tallahassee”
If this is the “first down payment on equitable funding to all public school students,” they’re clearly not stopping until they get equal funding for charter schools even though that flies in the face of the original intent of charter schools (do more with less). If their goal is equal funding, will they comply with the same state laws in the same way? My third grade class has 23 students (including two students who began the year in other teacher’s classes and suddenly showed up in my class after serving suspensions). Florida’s Class Size Amendment sets the cap for K-3 at 18 students. The language for how charter schools comply with the Class Size Amendment is 3 sentences long and uses language (“school level”) that doesn’t appear in the original amendment. So according to the state, my school complies.
That’s not the only immoral thing that’s happening. A former student of mine was counseled out of the school after being counted in the Full Time Enrollment (so the school received funding for him) but before the FCAT because his processing difficulty would have made it all but impossible for him to pass the FCAT. The school district requires a special education/co-teaching course for everyone with an ESE, ESOL, or 504 student in their class. Apparently the district thinks I’m supposed to be co-teaching because an email from a person at my school includes the following: “Because our school is set up differently, they are assuming that you and your partner co-teach. It would be impossible for our 4 ESE teachers to partner with each teacher that had a special needs student. What would be best would be to imagine, “if I were co-teaching with my partner, this is how I would respond to this question…” (Instead of simply replying “but we don’t teach together.”)” So they want me to lie my way through this course.
These charter school people make used car salesmen look morally impeccable.
Indiana just put $90 million in its budget to bail out charter schools and forgive their loans over the past several years.
Criminal.
Here is what is happening in the Phoenix area. There is inequality in teacher pay. http://www.azcentral.com/community/glendale/articles/20130426hiring-policy-creating-teacher-pay-inequities.html?nclick_check=1
I wasn’t too happy when I retired at approximately $42,500 and my daughter’s best friend was starting at $40,000. I had put in 13 years. I’m happy for her friend, but I don’t think it was fair that I retired at almost the same amount.
I’ve been in Fla 3 years and spent my first year at 2 different Charters prclaiming to serve the “under served.”. I guess the Charter Founder, at one, and the management company, at the other considered themselves the “under served.”. These self serving individuals were the only ones being served or enriched materially. Oh, and I was probably the only one getting an education in, A Terribly Flawed System 101.
The poor students got nothing but Fs from F schools that continue to operate.
Same thing is happening in Detroit. It is a great racket for anyone looking to enrich themselves.
This is happening in Baltimore too. Charter school operatives in the state legislature pushed through a bill which will effectively end public ownership of as many schools as the charter operators want (I call them “Grave Dancers”). It’s awaiting a signature from our governor, who is rumored to be considering a presidential run (his kids go to private schools).
The only real public debate on the bill took place in our free weekly City Paper (here’s the link, check the comments) http://citypaper.com/news/the-money-pit-1.1457438
The Baltimore Sun – now Chicago Tribune owned (soon Murdoch-owned?) bailed (again) on it’s journalistic responsibility and refuses to even examine the charter “movement”. They recently buried the statement, “charter school enrollment is declining” in an article about how the poorest Title I schools will lose almost the exact amount of per-pupil funding that the charters will gain
– http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bs-md-ci-schools-budget-presentation-20130423,0,6173973.
Where’s the ACLU on this issue? Headquartered in Baltimore City? On the side of the charter corporations, where their mostly white, comparably well-off kids go, if they have to go to public schools at all.
How can all this be legal?
I’ve always wondered about the ACLU too. So many people are on the take.
Sorry, here’s the working link to the funding article – http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bs-md-ci-schools-budget-presentation-20130423,0,6173973.story
http://www.gopublicschool.com/caught-cheating-in-florida-getting-aggressive-on-the-privatization-front/
here is a good read
Diane – you should link this…
Sounding to me like ALEC is sitting back in their easy chairs this year watching their handiwork come to pass as the institution of education is raped of all that was good for our students. When will it stop? When public education is no more? What happens to the most precious commodity we have–our children–the future generation.
“. . . the most precious commodity we have–our children. . .” God, I hate it when people refer to children as commodities or resources. Sickening it is!!
Donna it will stop when enough people have the guts to say ENOUGH, DO THEIR OWN HOMEWORK AND LEARN ABOUT THE HISTORY AND POLITICS OF THIS HOT MESS, SAY NO TO THE EDUBULLIES AND SEDUCERS and stop voting for sparkly unicorns like obama and bush. SHEESH.
three in Broward have already gone out of business this year, please send more reporters!