Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas told school board members and superintendents from around the state on Thursday to get over their complaints about Schools of Hope seeking to co-locate in underused district buildings.
Then he suggested the state could look at shutting down “failing” school districts.
That’s when the boos started flying.
Kamoutsas’ lunchtime remarks riled attendees of the Florida School Boards Association’s winter conference in Tampa, the latest escalation of tension between the state’s top education official and local district leaders.
Kamoutsas — who had been invited to the conference but not confirmed as a speaker until Thursday — touted the strong student results of New York-based Success Academy, Florida’s latest Schools of Hope-approved charter school operator, and argued that local districts should want the same kind of outcome.
“That proven success is why Florida has committed to expanding the Schools of Hope model,” Kamoutsas said. “Let’s not forget Schools of Hope are subject to the same assessment program and grading system as the traditional public school. But these schools operate under a performance-based agreement with their sponsor, so if they fail to meet standards, they will be closed.”
Then came the boo line: “There’s not a school district in this state that could be shut down for failing to meet performance standards, though maybe we can talk about that with the Legislature this session.”
The crowd — who had previously heard the commissioner say some of them lacked leadership and conviction — erupted in anger, leaving the commissioner to repeatedly ask them to let him finish. A couple of attendees walked out of the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay ballroom where the meal was taking place.
After about 20 seconds, the group quieted down. Then Kamoutsas doubled down, telling them that he was not asking, but rather expecting them to innovate in any way possible to make the model succeed. Florida’s students don’t deserve failing public schools, he said.
“This is not the moment to protect the way things work,” Kamoutsas said. “This is the moment to put students first. We have a responsibility, a moral obligation to ensure that every child in Florida has access to a world-class education, not someday, not when it’s convenient, not after the funding gets negotiated. Now.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The so-called Schools of Hope have no intention of improving public education. The plan to share public school facilities with private school operators is a way for private schools to siphon resources, interfere with the operation of public schools, make it easy for private operators to pilfer the most prepared students, and put the two options in direct competition with each other. With the private option being given lavish gifts from outside donors, the private schools will receive preferential treatment from the state. It will deliberately put public schools in a vulnerable position, and this scheme is all part of the right wing extremists’ power grab.
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Another day, another Republican lecturing the plebeians on their failure of will. Yawn. Soon the yawns will turn to real political opposition. The rise of European republics in the era after the revolutions of 1831 and 1848 teaches us that a despotic domination of people cannot long endure.
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