Fabiola Santiago has a stunning story in the Miami Herald about the deep corruption in the state’s charter industry.
Several key legislators are financially connected to charter schools.
He writes:
Florida’s broad ethics laws are a joke.
If they weren’t, they would protect Floridians from legislators who profit from the charter-school industry in private life and have been actively involved in pushing — and successfully passing — legislation to fund for-profit private schools at the expense of public education.
Some lawmakers earn a paycheck tied to charter schools.
One of them is Rep. Manny Diaz, the Hialeah Republican who collects a six-figure salary as chief operating officer of the charter Doral College and sits on the Education Committee and the K-12 Appropriations Subcommittee.
Some lawmakers have close relatives who are founders of charter schools.
One of them is the powerful House Speaker, Richard Corcoran, the Land O’Lakes Republican whose wife founded a charter school in Pasco County that stands to benefit from legislation. He was in Miami Wednesday preaching the gospel of charter schools as “building beautiful minds.”
Other lawmakers are founders themselves or have ties to foundations or business entities connected to charter schools.
One of them is Rep. Michael Bileca, the Miami Republican who chairs the House Education Committee and is listed as executive director of the foundation that funds True North Classical Academy, attended by the children of another legislator. Bileca is also a school founder.
These three legislators were chief architects in the passage of a $419 million education bill that takes away millions of dollars from public schools to expand the charter-school industry in Florida at taxpayer expense.
They crafted the most important parts of education bill HB 7069 in secret, acting in possible violation of the open government laws the Legislature is perennially seeking to weaken. There was no debate allowed and educators all across the state were left without a voice in the process.
It’s no wonder it all went down in the dark. It’s a clear conflict of interest for members of the Florida Legislature who have a stake in charter schools to vote to fund and expand them. Their votes weaken the competition: public schools.
This issue has nothing to do with being pro or against school choice. It’s about the abuse of power and possible violations of Florida statutes.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fabiola-santiago/article151418277.html#storylink=cpy
When people ask you how you can possibly be against charter schools, think of this story.
Dear Diane,
I just posted the comment further below in another discussion, but it is relevant here too.
You are a person of great stature in the education community and a respected voice.
Personally I do not believe, for example, that Bill Gates is totally evil and is out to screw over public education solely for the reason of greed. He made a fortune and is using it in the way that more billionaires should. Instead of simply buying aircraft carrier-sized yachts, he is trying to cure malaria and other scourges of mankind, for example.
Have you ever met with Bill Gates and presented your side of the story? I clearly do not know Eli Broad, the Waltons, or any of the other rich people who are part of the “opposition.” How many of them have you spoken directly to?
I worry that, like others in America, we are all either watching MSNBC or Fox News and not trying to talk to people of opposing viewpoints. As I mention below, on blogs we can get trapped into preaching solely to the choir unfortunately.
It seems to me that you might be able to be highly effective if you present facts like the ones you write about here directly to many of these people in face-to-face meetings. You are very fortunate to have the intellectual stature to be in a position to do so.
Have you done so? If so, it would be highly interesting to hear how your comments were received.
I am sure that there are some, perhaps many, in that group who are greedy and are out to beat up unions under the political cover of “education reform.” At the same time, I am also sure that there are people in the other camp that are following their path due to reasons like I outline below. If you could sway the opinions of some of these people via direct meetings, we might just find our way to a solution…
Sincerely,
David Kristofferson
Dear homelesseducator,
I am all in favor of having teachers’ unions to negotiate salaries and benefits, and represent teachers that have been wronged by the system. I am also familiar with the history of the labor movement from sources like Howard Zinn, etc., and am extremely sympathetic to the long and often bloody struggles that people in decades past went through to earn a fair wage, so please do not take what I am about to say in the wrong manner.
The one thing that gets to me about blogs is that they have a tendency to turn into echo chambers with people of a like mind repeating the same ideas.
When I returned to teaching after a long absence, it was because of my total frustration with the education system. Please take the time to read this article:
Click to access 08_Never_Believe_Educational_Experts_or_Me.pdf
There is a clear reason that charter schools continue to make inroads, with the LAUSD election being the latest warning shot. It is not simply because of the bogeyman of evil, greedy billionaires that is always repeated here.
Parents are fed up with encountering problems like I describe in my article in the link above. They are fed up with parent-teacher conferences where they are treated like idiots and fed condescending “eduspeak” pablum. They are fed up with seeing education experiments like I describe in the article that enrich publishers and pad the publication lists of education school professors conducted on their kids without their consent. In math, they are fed up with supposed experts telling them that their elementary school kids are better off learning several different methods to do the same basic calculation (which often results in the parents not being able to help their kids with their homework and having to hire high-priced tutors if they can afford them).
Finally when their local middle schools trashes the math education of students for several years running, leaving the kids at a substantial disadvantage in high school compared to other middle schools in their district, they are fed up when changing personnel is virtually impossible due to union protections!!!
Unions need to change with the times to stay relevant, but they persist in a state of denial about the problems that I mention above.
Until they finally wake up and come to the negotiating table with solutions to the problems above, the charter school movement will continue to gain ground and trash public education. That is not the outcome that I want, that is not the outcome that you want, nor any of the rest of us that read this blog. But it is the outcome that we will get if unions do not address these problems!!!
Take the time to talk to any well-educated parent instead of approaching them like they are ignorant slobs that need to learn progressive education “research,” and you will get the SAME STORY!
Duane Swacker, a retired teacher who often participates in this blog and lives in a totally different part of the U.S., read my article above and commented that he was astounded by how similar his experiences with his kids’ education were to mine. This is probably because education schools are spreading the same B.S.
I worked in biomedical research for many years. All one has to do is read the newspapers to see how often medical studies contradict advice that was considered “gospel” just a few years ago. These studies are FAR BETTER than 99.999% of educational research, and yet in education all one has to do is use the words “research says” followed by illogical garbage, and it seems as though all critical thinking is suspended…
Hi Diane,
Did my comment end up in your spam folder? I posted a reply almost two hours ago, well before two others that have been approved.
David,
I have asked for meetings with Bill Gates and he has rejected my requests. I have been in Seattle on several occasions when he was in town. He avoids me. I did get to meet with Jeff Raikes, who was then the president of the Gates Foundation and he took notes. Bill Gates will not meet with me.
Very sorry to hear that! I doubt that my voice will mean much, but I will write him and request that he reconsider.
Have any of the others of the billionaire charter proponents ever taken the time to hear you out?
Thanks for posting my comment.
Sincerely,
David Kristofferson
We used to refer to this as a conflict of interest. Now corruption is brazen and out in the open. Representatives need stricter rules of conduct that are enforced, and we need to pass laws to limit campaign finance. Otherwise, democracy cannot survive.
There is no corruption in charter schools, Diane.
All of these lawmakers and lobbyists are self-sacrificing heroes who only want the best for children, unlike those icky, dirty teachers union lobbyists.
Education is vital for our future. They is why they have taken money away from PBS, closed our libraries on Sunday, and now decimating our public schools. Makes perfect sense – when money becomes more important than people.
Greed trickles down.
It’s not just Florida, either. Utah legislators have the same incestuous relationship with charters. Kudos to the Florida media for reporting on these conflicts. I wish the Utah media would be brave enough to do the same.
Hi Diane. My comment has been in the moderation queue all day while many other comments submitted much later have gone up.
I have bought two of your books, read one and will read the other soon. I value your opinion and your blog as evidenced by the considerable time that I spend reading it and also through my posts here.
I am putting forth what I believe to be legitimate issues raised by not only myself but many other parents with which I have conversed.
I am hoping against hope that this is only an oversight, but I am starting to feel like my comment is being censored for some reason.
Sincerely,
David Kristofferson
Sorry, David, I strained something serious in my back and have been offline all day.
Sorry to hear that. Hope it heals quickly.
I hope you are feeling better.
Linda,
Not yet.