When the Florida House of Representatives passed the legislation to award $200 million to charter operators who opened in competition with low-performing schools, they also passed two other bills that are ugly.
One would require districts to share their property taxes with charter schools.
The other would make adjustments to the state’s idiotic “Best and Brightest” bonus plan for new teachers, which gives a large cash bonus to new teachers who had high SAT scores many years ago.
House members also approved its version of a measure (SB 376) that could lead to local school districts sharing construction dollars raised from local property taxes with charter schools. That bill was approved on a 76-38 vote.
And by a 79-38 vote, the House supported legislation (HB 7069) that would overhaul the Best and Brightest bonus program for teachers.
The proposal would lower the scores teachers would need on college-entrance exams to access the award, expand the number of tests that could be used to qualify for the bonuses and give principals an opportunity to earn additional pay by having large numbers of teachers at their schools who receive the awards.
But opponents said the changes did not go far enough.
“This was a bad idea last year,” said Rep. Joe Geller, D-Aventura. “It’s a worse idea this year.”
Watch Florida for the worst possible ideas in political manipulation of schools and teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
To add insult to injury, Principals will not be required to submit their own test scores to qualify for the Best and Brightest scholarship. It will be solely based on the percentage of Best and Brightest teachers at their school. This is going to open the flood gates for many questionable practices. You can read more about it here https://kafkateach.wordpress.com/2017/04/16/best-and-brightest-principals-the-florida-legislature-takes-a-bad-idea-and-makes-it-even-worse/
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
And I thought Lt. Dan and the Texas Legislature were special.
The right wing will destroy public education one way or the other. As a nation, we will pay an unconscionable cost.
I find it very disturbing that people keep voting for these legislators. I’m very interested to find out what voters think about these evil bills.
Mary…where I live, I have noted a devastating combination, and I wondered how many places it happens beyond Missouri. 1.Democrat politicians are too lazy to pay much attention to some of the subtle nuances demanded to stay on track towards good education policy….and they believe they do not have to. Republicans pay slightly more attention, because battering teachers is usually a handy political tool for most of them. Worst of all is the media—which is more and more dominated by brief, easily explained, often wrong answers. Like democrat politicians, most are too lazy to pay attention to details–and treasure the easy to explain, even when wrong, answers. Their bosses demand that attitude of them.
The general public is up against it….but they have a better grasp of reality than the politicians or the media hired to cover education.
I feel very fortunate to live in MA where, at least so far, our Senators have been able to protect public education. Here the privatiziers at least talk about there being some value in education if not teachers. These laws in FL don’t even seem to pretend to have anything to do with education – just profits for charters.
thank you and your fellow citizens, Mary…
Massachusetts voters have decided not to lift the cap on charter schools.
It was a clear victory for the No on 2 campaign. With 96 percent of precincts reporting, only 38 percent voted in favor of expansion while 62 percent voted against raising the cap.
I would like to see all legislators who voted for this screwy scheme sit down and take the tests that they want to impose as the standard for teachers, and then publish the scores. As a condition for running for the legislature also have these candidates pass muster.
Glad to see Florida is still exclusively focusing on charters and vouchers and completely ignoring the state’s public school students.
They’re “agnostics”! Just ignore the fact that they never lift a finger to do anything for any kid who has the misfortune to attend the unfashionable “public school sector” in that state.
The reason charter schools don’t share property taxes in Ohio is Ohio requires a “taxing authority” to have local ELECTED boards. It’s intended to provide LOCAL elected accountability and oversight for public money.
They are state schools for a reason- they chose not to follow the requirements to levy taxes.
Did any state legislature anywhere get anything done for kids in public schools this session or are they still all spending 90% of their time on 10% of schools?
One would think they could put in at least 8 hours over the course of 9 months.
Here’s ed reform “agnostic” Jeb Bush.
Try to find a single Florida public school, student or parent anywhere in what he promotes:
The fact is they either denigrate or ignore public schools in ed reform. Read any of the “movement” leaders. It’s as if public school students and parents don’t exist.
Richmond and Oakland California already sharing their parcel tax with the charters they authorized. Richmond School Board reached an out-of-court settlement with the California Charter Schools Association that argued that charters are public schools and entitled to share of parcel tax revenues.Oakland School Board has authorized 34 charter schools and so far passed Measures N and G1 parcel taxes that include charters benefiting from the parcel tax.
In Oakland the rationale for inclusion of charters in these two parcel tax measures was that the Richmond settlement means that parcel taxes must be inclusive of charters authorized by California School Boards. A representative of the California Charters Association stated in a Oakland School Board meeting that if Oakland charters were not included in parcel tax funding, that they would oppose Oakland parcel tax measures that are not inclusive of charters. The Oakland School Board included its charters in both parcel tax measures.
Following up the Richmond victory, claiming as public charters they are entitled to parcel tax money, the California Charter Schools Association has been lobbying to claim a share of an existing Oakland parcel tax measure that had been passed years before but didn’t mention sharing parcel tax money with the Board’s charter schools.
Difference in California is that sharing is not based on the State Legislature passing a law; but the California Charter Schools Association lobby winning in court claiming to be publicly funded and as public charter schools entitled to the public’s education dollar.
In Oakland the School Board has not yet bent to the will of the California Charter School Association that has organized lobbying for a share of Measure G parcel tax money at Oakland School Board meetings. But, it looks like the Oakland School Board is not up to fighting the powerful California Charter Schools Association in court.
In Oakland when it comes to protecting the funding of its public schools from privately managed charter schools there seems to be nobody willing to fight privatization of public education funding in court, not the local School Board, the School Board’s professional association nor the teachers’ unions. Nobody there for democratically controlled public schools.
This is not a right wing or left wing issue but an issue of whether we have privately managed publicly funded schools or public schools. It is not working to have both public schools and privately managed schools competing for the same public education dollar.