Florida has about 650 charter schools. Nearly half the charter schools in the state operate for profit. Charter schools on average do not get better results than public schools. Charter schools are rife with nepotism and conflicts of interest. The Leislature favors charter school expansion because many important legislators have ties to the charter industry and engage in self-dealing. Since 1998, 373 charters have closed, indicating that this is an unstable sector.
These are just a few of the conclusions of this important report about the toxic growth of charters in Florida.
The report urges serious review of the charter law. Otherwise the charter industry will continue to strip resources from public schools and create a parallel system that is wasteful, inefficient, and corrupt.
Here is a newspaper article about this report that summarizes it and includes responses from critics.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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I was glad to see one of the candidate’s for governor in Florida promises to start working for the families who use the public schools in the state.
The other candidate uses the ed reform approach- bash the public schools most kids attend and promote charters and vouchers.
It’s nice that there’s a choice.A real debate. For so long Democrats adopted Jeb Bush’s entire agenda on public education, to the detriment of the vast majority of the students in the state, who were ignored.
They may finally have an adult advocate in their own government. Surely they deserve at at least one.
The same thing is happening in Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin. The candidates are talking about PUBLIC schools, after a decade of focusing exclusively on charters and vouchers.
Still hasn’t punctured the DC bubble, though. They’re still all reciting stale ed reform slogans from 2010.
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The Newpoint racketeering and fraud trial of Marcus May has started in Pensacola. The trial is scheduled to last three weeks. Here’s testimony from a former Newpoint employee. https://weartv.com/news/local/newpoint-charter-employee-gives-court-testimony-on-alleged-racketeering-scheme
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Posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/The-Hidden-Costs-of-Charte-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Charter-Schools_Conflict_Hidden-Agenda_Legislators-180920-250.html#comment711988
with comments which have embedded links to great articles Diane posted here . so go to OEN,and click on them
Comment one ..
.Do look at Jeff Bryant: How the Rich Get Richer by Destroying Public Schools
and
A Layman’s Guide to the Destroy Public Education Movement, and also by thisTultican this post about a new organization determined to extinguish public education by privatization..
and read Laura Chapman’s : In Search of the Tentacles of the Privatization Movement and read a copy of a guide to marketing charter schools , published by the Colorado League of Charter Schools and posted by Mercedes Schneider https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2018/08/27/stand-out-a-guide-to-charter-school-marketing/
“It is slick. It tells charter folk which words to use and which to avoid. It advises them to build alliances with their local public schools, the better to poach their children away. t has the fascination of watching a train wreck in slow motion. That is, it is repulsive. It is consumerism at its worst. Read if you dare, “said Diane when she posted it.
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And Colorado should know — it has been heavily pushing charter/choice schools, watching many of them fail, blaming the kids, teachers, schools and neighborhoods…and then moving on to try the same game under new names for long years now.
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With Jared Polis as Governor, expect more charters in CO
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😦 😦
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Can’t stand polis.
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The report is thorough and well done. It goes to great lengths to describe a lot of the political manipulations that have promoted charter expansion. It describes the pros and cons of charters from different perspectives. The most interesting part of the report is their policy recommendations to help the state move forward. These recommendations can only be implemented if the public votes out those policymakers owned by the charter industry. Responsible government should regulate charters.
Inasmuch as charter schools can be an inefficient and wasteful option for “school
choice,” the legislature should evaluate the appropriate amount of funding the state
can afford to offer in educational choices to parents and students.
• Require for-profit companies associated with charter schools to report their
expenditures and profits for each school they operate.
• Require charter schools to post on their website their original application and charter
contract along with their annual report, audit and school grade.
• Charter school websites should include lease agreements, including terms and
conditions and who profits from the lease payments.
• Companies managing charter schools in more than one school district should have
annual audits ensuring local tax revenue is being spent locally.
• Add additional criteria for school boards to consider when reviewing and deciding on
a charter school application.
• Give local school boards more tools to manage the schools in their districts, including
greater contractual oversight and the ability to negotiate charter contracts.
• The Florida Supreme Court removed Constitutional Amendment 8 from the
November 2018 ballot that would have created a statewide charter school authorizer.
However, future attempts by the legislature to establish a statewide charter authorizer may occur and should be opposed. A state charter authorizer would preempt voters’ rights to local control of education through their elected school boards, even though local tax dollars would pay for charter expansion.
• Increase education funding to sufficiently fund all public schools to eliminate
competition between traditional schools and charter schools for inadequate public
education dollars.
• Prohibit charter schools from using public education funds for advertising to attract
new students.
• Limit the amount of public funds to be used for charter school facility leases to a
certain percentage of the school’s operating budget.
• Require charter schools to report annually the number of dropouts, the number of
withdrawals and the number of expulsions.
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Fortunately, those costs are becoming less and less hidden as every day goes by.
And the negative opportunity costs and externalities are becoming more and more known each day.
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