Florida parents and educators opposed HB 7069, a bill which hurts public schools and enriches charter schools (private contractor schools), but the legislature didn’t listen. (Key legislators have financial ties to the charter industry.) They urged Governor Rick Scott to veto it but he didn’t listen.
Now school boards, led by the one in Broward County, are suing to block the law and have it declared unconstitutional.
The Palm Beach Post urges the Palm Beach school board to join the suit. Perhaps the courts will listen.
“Kudos then to the Broward County School Board for being the first to get this legal action started. It has outlined five grounds to challenge the law. Among them, aspects friendly to charter schools such as making it easier for a charter — or “School of Hope” — to open near an academically struggling traditional public school.
“Perhaps the most salient argument, however, will be that the omnibus legislation violates the Florida Constitution’s requirement that each bill deal with a single subject. To help guarantee passage, the law — championed by House Speaker Richard Corcoran — mashed together bills that dealt with, among other things, eliminating a state math exam, requiring most public elementary schools to offer daily recess, and providing more money for teacher bonuses and a school-voucher program for students with disabilities.
“If that doesn’t raise questions about the single-subject rules, how about this: The constitution also requires that a bill’s “one subject” be “briefly expressed in the title.” The title for HB 7069 is more than 4,000 words.
“Corcoran’s office says the law — which essentially rewrites the state’s public school system — falls under the “single subject” of “K-12 education policy.”
“The Speaker called the Broward lawsuit “another example of the educational bureaucracy putting the adults who administer the schools ahead of the children who attend the schools.”
“Not only is it clueless,” he added, “it is also arguably heartless, to sue to stop school children from getting recess, disabled children from getting funding, poor children from getting out of failure factories and teachers from getting more pay.”
“No, Mr. Speaker. What’s “clueless” and “arguably heartless” is holding things such as teacher pay, help for disabled students and recess for elementary school kids hostage in order to siphon more money from struggling traditional public schools to funnel to less accountable, for-profit charter school operators.
“There are many well-run charters in Palm Beach County; and our district is better for it. But there is no evidence that as a group they perform any better for our tax dollars. In fact, hundreds of charter schools have failed in the state of Florida, and dozens more are academically struggling.”
Why is it that Florida wants to divert funding from public schools to contractor schools? Follow the money.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“But there is no evidence that as a group they perform any better for our tax dollars”
That’s the crux of it, right? People in Ohio were told the same thing- they were told charter schools would be BETTER than public schools. That was central to the sales pitch. They were also told charter schools would be CHEAPER than public schools, but they dropped that fairly quickly.
To switch now to “choice!” as the sole argument is deceptive.
Lawmakers have to explain why they are promoting and funding these schools over public schools if “as a group” they don’t perform better.
What’s the justification? Why are public schools put second?
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What justifies the TIME that federal and state lawmakers spend promoting charters and vouchers, too?
How can they explain that they spend whole legislative sessions on expanding charters and vouchers and offer absolutely nothing to kids in public schools?
There was a period in Ohio where every single legislative session on education was dominated by charter and voucher proponents. How did these schools become the only schools lawmakers bother with?
It looks like capture because it seems to me that if they weren’t captured we would hear more about public schools, if only because there are so many more public schools.
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Why can’t our unions, which we veteran teachers have paid tens of thousands of dollars to in dues, come up with a coherent argument for public education and against the insidious spread of charter schools, which are stealing taxpayer monies and robbing normal childhood school experiences from young people? Our union leaders have move beyond their $200,000 plus salaries, get off their rear ends and start to effectively combat the march of charter schools.
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There’s two Medicare programs- there’s Medicare Advantage (privatized) and traditional Medicare.
If I said to you “MOST people use the traditional program but Congress and the Medicare administration spend 90% of their time and energy on the privatized program” you would ask why they don’t work on or support the public program, because that doesn’t make any sense UNLESS they’re biased toward Medicare Advantage.
That’s how school reform plays out- the privatized schools and programs get 90% of the (positive) attention and no one in power shows any interest in the public schools.
Why is that? They should explain.
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“U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos—an ardent school choice supporter who has turned out to be among the Trump administration’s most polarizing cabinet picks—will deliver a speech this week to members of a controversial organization that some argue is her best shot at advancing an aggressive school choice agenda.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, is known for drafting conservative model legislation in states on a range of issues including gun rights, tax reform, and education. DeVos will appear at ALEC’s annual meeting Thursday in Denver.”
This is fairly typical in ed reform. The ALEC site for this conference doesn’t mention public schools, except to call them “failing monopolies”
90% of kids attend public schools. Why does the US Sec of Ed spend 90% of her time on 10% of schools?
That’s not “agnostic”. It’s absolutely bias. They have essentially disappeared 90% of US students, in favor or what I suppose they believe are potential charter or private schools students.
That’s crazy. And they are public employees! Huge groups of public employees who either oppose public schools or pretend public schools don’t exist.
How did this happen?
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Some members of the Florida legislature are charter operators, and the same can be said of Pennsylvania. Florida and other states need stricter ethics rules. Why are such investments not considered a conflict of interest? If people are state actors, they should have to divest themselves of these interests when they take office.
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