The new superintendent in Palm Beach County was hired from the Fulton County School District in Georgia; Georgia has a law permitting “charter districts.” Superintendent Robert Avossa now wants to try it in Palm Beach County, where parents have been fighting for years to keep the hands of the charter industry out of their county. In his application for the job of Superintendent in PBC (which he assumed in June), he spoke of his passion for public education; there was no indication that he would immediately bring in the privateers, entrepreneurs, and fly-by-night operators whose charters overpopulate the lowest-performing schools in the state.
Palm Beach County’s schools chief wants permission from state lawmakers to convert the county’s public school system into a “charter school district,” a designation that could let him end-run state rules and drastically reorganize schools’ schedules, class sizes and instruction time.
Superintendent Robert Avossa’s proposal would require approval from state lawmakers and the support of the county’s school board. If granted, he said the extra freedom would allow the county’s traditional public schools to better compete with charter schools, which have more flexibility under state law and are attracting thousands of new students each year.
In light of the fact that the charter industry has already bought control of the state legislature, he is not likely to have much opposition there. The question is whether the local school board is as happy to privatize public schools as Superintendent Avossa is.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
whats there hang up about our schools they dont make sense
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“… he said the extra freedom would allow the county’s traditional public schools to better compete with charter schools, which have more flexibility under state law and are attracting thousands of new students each year.”
What a crock of crap. Is that the new spin? The rhetoric hurts my brain. The reformers really think parents, and voters, are stupid.
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I was just thinking the same thing…it sounds like charters are theme parks, attracting thousands of new students. The students you have i your school district are the students you have, not more or less. True if you have a good school district people might move to your area and pay higher taxes to have ‘better’ schools but charters are just the fad of the month. A true public school takes everyone, they work together to make it better, there is good interaction between the stock holders (parents, teachers, board and students!), in this way it becomes a great public school! A charter is a business and no one has any say but the business and their stock holders…who usually live very far away and have, no real, vested interest in the students.
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Love the theme park analogy. When Avossa was in Fulton I told him I didn’t want a boutique school for my children…that what I wanted for my children is solid, quality early childhood education with small class sizes and supported teachers and that all the children of Fulton deserved that no matter their circumstances outside of school. He kept selling his wares to the unsuspecting public.
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Donna, Look at Florida’s socioeconomic numbers then look at the representation we have voted in at the state level. About 80% republican and much of the political power is held in the sparsely populate panhandle. Until the people start voting, and voting their own self interest we will continue to see this garbage. If the supt. didn’t disclose this radical plan before he was hired they board should immediately move to terminate and then sue for all the damages that have already resulted. If the board knew and has deceived the public then they should all be recalled and brought up on ethics charges. When are the people going to say enough is enough and run these bastards out of town on a rail?
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If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Palm Beach county is known for great public schools, it has some of the best ones in the state. What is his justification for doing something so drastic?
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Based on my experience in Fulton, he is selling the Broad brand. He makes it seem like the people want all of this by doing listening tours, surveys, focus groups, and town halls. But the narrative is tightly controlled.
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I love how the paper describes it – “freedom from state rules”
Who doesn’t want “freedom”, right? That HAS to be a good thing. There is never, ever any possible downside of deregulation. It’s all “freedom” and rainbows from here on out.
Who wrote these onerous state regulations that we all must be free of anyway? The people the citizens of Florida elected, right? Why did they write them? No reason? What will happen when they’re gone? Who knows, but it’ll definitely be great!
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According to this charter school promotion site, charter schools and public schools can “get along”. In this imaginary world, everyone gets everything they want and there are no trade-offs or downsides or unintended consequences or budgetary priorities or ideological preferences, ever:
http://educationpost.org/what-healthy-competition-among-schools-really-takes/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Choice&utm_content=TwChoiceHealthyCompetitionMK3#.VbtYtFUViko
Win/win, for everyone, 100%, no possible negative consequences or downside risk if we’d all just believe and focus on greatness.
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As Diane mentioned, Georgia has a law permitting charter districts. Each Georgia school district must elect to operate as a Charter System, as an Investing in Education Excellence (IE2) district, or remain Status Quo. Both Charter System and IE2 require the district to enter into a performance contract with the state in exchange for the state to grant the district more freedom from state law to meet contractual performance goals. Status Quo requires no such contract and the district must operate was state law as the law stands. With Robert Avossa as its superintendent, Fulton County Public Schools became kind of Georgia’s poster child for Charter System.
More here… http://patch.com/georgia/buckhead/measured-amount-freedom
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Thanks. I think there’s some confusion about the term “charter” which broadly means “a contract between a state and another entity”.
I don’t doubt he’ll turn all the public schools over to private management because that is of course wildly fashionable in ed reform movement circles at the federal and state level but it doesn’t HAVE to mean that.
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If the rules are so terrible why not change them for everyone.
How can a legislature create a class that is exempt from the law contingent on how badly a district wants to break with its union.
This tying of regulation to performance is insane.
It is like saying let’s free Wall Street from regulations contingent on their ability to turn a profit.
You are going to get people who game the unregulated system where money is the object not the children – I doubt the virtues that so many claim – we got a lot of people interested in starting schools once they started profiting off it.
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Agree M. I have been saying this for years. Districts can not sustain a dual education system. It seems discriminatory to have two separate set of rules for public and charter schools. Where are the unions? There is enough evidence to demonstrate that charters harm the public school system. It is time to file a class action suit about the unfairness of the laws.
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I agree but I just don’t see any advocates for existing public schools in government. There are charter advocates and there are agnostics who may as well be charter advocates, by default.
Can one get hired in the current climate if one defends existing public schools? It’s probably a career-killer.
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A charter district in Florida is different from a district that only offers charter schools. The language is similar to what Ed Johnson posted about Georgia.
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Another Broadie in charge. Enough!
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Enough is right. It’s gross.
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Under the guise of improving education Charter Schools are nothing more than a cleverly designed strategy to eliminate traditional public education and validate segregation while giving the rich additional ways to increase their wealth. 20 years of charters have done nothing to improve our children’s education.
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The writing was on the wall before he was hired—Broad Academy and what went on in Fulton–yet he was hired. In fact the PBC school district’s short list of candidates was horrible to begin with. He had the school board eating out of his hand. Now let’s see if this same school board and the parents can send him packing or at least nix these ideas. Then it’s time to send members of this school board packing so teachers and parents better step up and get out the vote this time around.
Avossa is a smooth-talking politician. His sights are much higher than just being superintendent. And watch the vipers with deep pockets gather around him.
This was one honeymoon that ended quickly.
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Florida already has a law allowing district’s charter status but Palm Beach County will never qualify as they have too many poor low performing schools.
Given their demographics there is no way they could ever achieve the necessary benchmarks put forth in current state law.
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Maybe I’m not understanding this. I never heard the term Charter School District nor did Diane explain it. Can you provide a link as to what exactly this is and how it could benefit a district because now I am totally confused by Diane’s take and what I am hearing from those in PBC who oppose charters but see this concept differently?? Also what other districts are CSDs??? How do they operate???
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