Jessica Bakeman and a team of investigative reporters at WLRN in Florida report here on the state’s takeover and privatization of Jefferson County, the state’s first all-charter district. It was forced on the district by the state against the wishes of local elected officials and funded by state legislators with close financial ties to the charter school company (and its for-profit parent) that took over the district. It’s also setting the stage for a massive expansion of charter schools in the state.
The Republicans who run state government in Florida have abandoned local control. They worship the Almighty Dollar.
Bakeman writes:
Florida’s first and only all-charter school district was engineered by unelected state bureaucrats at then-Gov. Rick Scott’s Department of Education, funded by the Legislature and carried out by Somerset Academy, Inc., a rapidly expanding network that’s affiliated with a politically connected for-profit company in Miami.
Two years into Jefferson County’s transformation, the still-unproven charter-district “experiment” is being used to justify a potentially massive expansion of charter schools in the state’s poorest communities. A state law dubbed “schools of hope,” first passed in 2017 and broadened this year, offers millions of dollars to charter schools that open near traditional public schools that have struggled for years.
Jefferson County is home to the first charter “schools of hope.” Neighborhoods in Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville are next…
South Florida legislators with close financial ties to Somerset and its for-profit contractor, Academica, played a key role in facilitating and bankrolling the all-charter district, which critics argue is a conflict of interest.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
DeSantis is continuing Scott’s social engineering plan to expand “Schools of Hope.” There are about fifteen districts in which the superintendent is chosen through a public vote. Many of these smaller districts are in the Panhandle where I live. The two neighboring counties have been targeted for “Schools of Hope.” There is a well funded campaign to make superintendents in these counties an appointed position. I think that an appointed superintendent is easier to control than an elected one, and this may be the plan behind the two “YES” campaigns in the neighboring counties.
DeSantis is a Trump supporting Catholic who is an enemy of public education. By appointing Corcoran to lead the DOE, he has shown that he will continue the unethical, profiteering, neolliberal policies of Scott. DeSantis appointed a number of right wing judges that will back DeSantis when his policies face challenges in the courts. DeSantis also made charters eligible for public funds to construct new schools, and he has widened the definition of “Schools of Hope.” So far, these companies are eligible to apply for these “Hope” schools in the state:
“The state Board of Education so far has granted four charter companies tax-exempt hope Operator status: Democracy Prep Public Schools, IDEA Public Schools, KIPP New Jersey, and Somerset Academy.”https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2019/02/19/desantis-use-trump-tax-plan-to-expand-charter-schools-859362
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Thanks retired teacher for making the Catholic connection. 60% of white Catholics voted for Trump. While 80% of evangelicals voted for Trump, the Catholic role in promoting the agenda of the rich has flown below the radar and is just now being exposed. Recent American conservative attacks against the Pope have brought the issue to light. The “religious right” political movement was founded by a Catholic, Paul Weyrich whose training manual calling for parallel schools is posted at Theocracy Watch. His political activities e.g. ALEC were funded by the Koch’s. Catholic, Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, is stacking the courts with conservative judges.
IMO, the Manhattan Institute, linked to the Koch network has made a cottage industry out of praising Catholic schools. The superintendent of Los Angeles Catholic schools became a Pahara Fellow (a Gates-funded organization) in 2018.
BTW- The ties between a prominent cardinal and Catholic, Steve Bannon, weren’t severed until 3 months ago.
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If Gates and the Koch’s like religion’s involvement in education
(Bellwether’s lackeys recommended reformers reach out to churches) then, they should leave public schools out of the agenda and cough up their own money for the schools of the religious. Don’t force local taxpayers to foot the bill.
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Looks like “Somerset Academy” is just the charter shell for another management company, Academica:
“Step 3
Contact Educational Support Provider (Academica)”
They’re a national for-profit charter contractor.
Charters were never local schools- they were always state schools- but in this case this isn’t even a state school- it’s a national school.
https://www.somersetacademyschools.com/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=215885&type=d&termREC_ID=&pREC_ID=543421
Is there ever any discussion in elite ed reform circles over whether it was ethical to mislead the public this way?
If the plan was to privatize every public school in the country and farm them all out to national government contractors, why don’t they admit it?
They don’t admit it because they would never get elected or hired if they pitched this product that way.
KNow this- if they succeed in eradicating public schools we will never, ever get them back. All of these contractors will hold onto this funding stream. They will never, ever relinquish that control back to the public. If ed reform succeeds, public K-12 education is a thing of the past.
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Academica is connected to key Republican politicians in the legislature.
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Charter Shell. Perfect phrasing.
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Here’s Academica- the giant charter management entity who actually run these schools:
http://www.academica.org/
The charters themselves are just a legal mechanism to hire the contractor who actually are “the school”. It’s a shell. They could call it Acme Charter for all the meaning THAT has.
Each layer of this charter onion is adults getting paid with 100% public funds, yet zero transparency or accountability. This is what ed reformers envision for the whole country.
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OMG! Isn’t this a CRIME?
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A huge failure (deliberate?) by media – calling contractor schools, public schools.
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Make no mistake, too. Ed reformers absolutely want every state to be Florida.
Jeb Bush and Betsy DeVos, the two leaders of the movement, both point to Florida as an unequivocal success of the dogma.
They no longer mention OH, MI or PA. There were some inconvenient facts they had to grapple with in those states, so they’ve been disappeared. They dropped off the ed reform marketing promotion lists about 2012. Haven’t been seen since.
If the results of ed reform in a state are bad, the state simply disappears. They no longer discuss it. So now we get Indiana and Florida held up as miracles, instead of MI and OH.
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Florida is an example of mediocrity and profiteering.
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It is also the home of bogus “studies” that confirm charters and vouchers are wonderful. The state leadership traffics in misinformation.
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If you’re counting, we’re now at Day 500 of the US Department of Education spending entire work days promoting vouchers:
U.S. Department of Education
@usedgov
·Aug 28
Leidiana was given the opportunity to rediscover a new love for education because of #SchoolChoice.
Are there no public schools or public school students in this country? Anyone know why this entire federal agency ignores 90% of American students? Is this what we’re paying them for?
Perhaps we could hire a couple of people from outside the ed reform echo chamber? Someone with some actual interest in PUBLIC education?
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My opinion- a group promoting vouchers is the Manhattan Institute linked to the Kochtopus and a second, Bellwether (Gates-funded) which advises reformers to reach out to churches.
I watch the money spent by Gates and Charles Koch. Their words are meaningless.
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side issue here: A number of people in my Vermonttown are extremely concerned about having all its schools ranking in the 5th percentile statewide. I wonder if anybody out there would be willing to attend a dinner meeting in late September to promote the recommendations in “Reign of Error”?
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If I were near your town, I would show up.
I wish you could assign the book as reading in advance for discussion.
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