Archives for category: Florida
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Florida: Leadership Changes Put For-Profit Charter Allies in Charge

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2018 //
16

Sue Legg, who chaired the education division of the Florida League of Women Voters, describes the leadership shake up in the state.

The new chair of the Florida House Education Committee, as I reported yesterday, is a woman who was home-schooled and dropped out of college. She has no education experience.

The likely state commissioner is Richard Corcoran, whose wife runs a charter school.

Legg reports that the fabulously wealthy for-profit charter chain Academica has scored a big win.

She writes:

“Manny Diaz will head the Senate Education Policy committee. Vice Chair is Senator Bill Montford D Tallahassee. Diaz was appointed in 2013 by Academica to head Doral College. This is the college that the Miami Herald skewered. It had no students and was created to provide online dual enrollment credit taught by Academica high school teachers. Remember that former Representative Erik Fresen, the brother-in-law of Academica’s CEO and a consultant to Academica, was convicted of tax evasion in 2018 for the eight years he served in the Florida House. We really do not need to have Academica lead educational policy for the state of Florida.”

She further notes that with DeSantis as governor and a choice-friendly State Board That is bostile to the public schools that enroll most students, Florida will follow the Jeb Bush-ALEC party line of privatization.

This is an agenda guaranteed to keep Florida anchored in mediocrity, perhaps falling like Michigan to the bottom 10 on NAEP.

Florida casts a vote for mediocrity!

Categories Charter Schools, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud

John Thompson: Oklahoma Republicans Long to Copy Florida’s Mediocrity

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2018 //
1

Betsy DeVos says that Florida is a national model.

She loves Florida because she invested millions of dollars imposing vouchers and charters, despite the provision of the State Constitution that requires a uniform system of common schools.

Actually, Florida’s performance on NAEP is mediocre. Its fourth grade scores are swell because low-scoring third-graders are not allowed to enter fourth grade. A really neat trick! Pay attention to eighth grade scores: In eighth grade math, students in Florida are well below the national average. In eighth grade reading, Florida is right at the national average. Nothing impressive about Florida, other than gaming the fourth grade scores by holding back third-graders with low scores. By eighth grade, the game is over, and the results are not impressive.

Thompson says that Oklahoma lawmakers are in love with a libertarian study claiming that spending less produces the best education! Is that why the elites spend $50,000 a year or more on tuition to get lower class sizes and experienced teachers? The only time that money doesn’t matter is if you have a lot of it.

Despite Florida being average on NAEP, Oklahoma legislators hope to be just like Florida!

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher, brings us up to date:

Oklahoma edu-politics remains in the spotlight after the 2018 election and it illustrates plenty of national issues. Despite many electoral gains, educators must worry about the state’s inexperienced governor, Kevin Stitt. It sometimes seems like Jeb Bush’s “astroturf” think tank, ExcelinEd, has found a second home in our State Capitol. Will the governor believe their spin?

Even worse, as reported by Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post, Republicans are being pressured by their own party to even “‘abolish public education, which is not a proper role of government, and allow the free market to determine pay and funding, eliminating the annual heartache we experience over this subject.’” The claim is that the state can reduce “‘its dependence on the tax structure by funding it through such means as sponsorships, advertising, endowments, tuition fees, etc.’”

https://www.excelined.org/team/matthew-h-joseph-2/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/11/27/republican-party-an-oklahoma-county-makes-clear-its-opposition-public-education/?utm_term=.e7b666b89e01

More importantly, the Oklahoman newspaper recently editorialized that our state should learn from the Reason Foundation, and from Florida, which supposedly is “the state achieving the greatest efficacy in education spending.” The editorial mistakenly claimed that the reforms Oklahoma implemented in 2011 and 2012, but that have been watered down in our state, have worked in Florida. The newspaper concludes, “Instead of backing off, Reason’s education rankings indicate Oklahoma lawmakers should double down” on their accountability-driven, choice-driven reforms.

https://newsok.com/article/5616294/education-report-merits-review-in-spending-debate

In fact, Florida’s 3rd grade retention policy has not been shown to do more good than harm to students, although “if you hold back low-performing third graders, the fourth grade scores the next year will appear to jump.” Even charter supporters such as those at CREDO acknowledge that Florida’s charters have not increased student outcomes, largely resulting in a decline of student performance. And the state’s online for-profit charters have a three-year attrition rate of 99 percent, and have driven down student performance gains by as much as -.46 std, which is approaching the loss of a year of learning, per year.

Click to access TT_Mathis_BushEd.pdf

http://credo.stanford.edu/reading-state-charter-impacts/

Click to access Online%20Charter%20Study%20Final.pdf

Reason’s “Find Everything You Know about State Education Rankings Is Wrong,” by Stan J. Liebowitz and Matthew L. Kelly claims to be the antithesis of “the self-serving interests of education functionaries who only gain from higher spending.” If the tone of the article doesn’t set off alarms, a review of its methodology shows its conclusions were preordained by a journal devoted to “Free Markets.” These sorts of papers serve as props for advancing the claim that money doesn’t matter.

https://reason.com/archives/2018/10/07/everything-you-know-about-stat

As Rutgers’ Bruce Baker explains, Reason’s authors “confidently assert that the higher performing states are those with a) weaker teachers’ unions and b) more children in charter schools.” However, they overlook a vast body of research to the contrary. They also ignore economic status and weight racial groups as equal factors in a way that is “specious at best,” and produced findings that “would only mislead policymakers.”

https://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2018/11/rankings

Student performance is determined more by the kids’ zip code than by the classroom. So why didn’t Reason and its paper attempt to control for economic disadvantage?

https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-life-outside-of-a-school-affects-student-performance-in-school/

Reason uses race as a substitute for economic advantage and disadvantage in a manner that is not only methodologically indefensible; it is likely a tactic which predetermines the ideology-driven conclusion that Florida and other border states (that oppose unions and support choice) are more efficient. I will just cite Hispanic student data as one example why their analysis is invalid.

The term “Hispanic” includes a wide range of subgroups, longterm citizens who are more likely to be affluent than the recent immigrants to places like Oklahoma City; Cubans who came to Florida a half century ago, as well as new arrivals from Mexico and Central America; and high-performing “bilingual” students as well as more costly to educate English Language Learners.

Before trusting the use of racial categories as a proxy for economic status, We should remember that Hispanics in Florida earn a median income which is $1,200 per person more than their counterparts in Oklahoma. The poverty rate for Oklahoma Hispanics who are17 years and younger is about 20 percent higher than Florida’s. Oklahoma Hispanic families are more likely to lack health insurance, with the big difference being that the majority of foreign-born Oklahoma Hispanics lack coverage.

http://www.pewhispanic.org/states/state/fl/

http://www.pewhispanic.org/states/state/ok/

Similarly, the percentage of black Oklahoma children who live in poor households is about 17 percent higher than black children in Florida. Oklahoma youth also are first in the nation in surviving four Adverse Childhood Experiences, and they are growing up in a state that is near the bottom of most child welfare metrics. In other words, the use of race as a substitute for economic advantage and disadvantage is one example why the Reason methodology gives a misleading picture of what it would cost to educate all children.

I must emphasize – contrary to the Reason ideology – that the additional costs to achieve equity are worth it. Education is so important that advocates, conservative, moderate or liberal, should also invest in research that meets high scholarly standards.

New Oklahoma decision-makers should expect plenty of cheap and easy, evidence-free proposals by noneducators. For instance, the legislative interim session was briefed by the Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce’s Oklahoma Achieves. It said that high-challenge schools should learn from systems that have lower per student spending but higher student outcomes. So, the inner city OKCPS schools merely need to emulate the best practices of Deer Creek, Oakdale, and other small, rich, exurban systems!?!?

https://public.tableau.com/profile/okachieves#!/vizhome/OklahomaSchoolDistrictSpendingComparedtoStudentOutcomes/SDSpendingComparedtoStudentOutcomes
I would also urge our new legislators and governor to look deeply into the Rutgers Education Law Center’s estimates of what it would take to bring our students to the national average in student performance. Like Florida almost does, Oklahoma spends enough to bring our most affluent quintile of students to the national average, but we would need to invest an additional $6,600 per student to provide equity for our poorest kids. (Florida would only need an additional $4,489 to do so.)

https://public.tableau.com/views/NCMWebsite/NECM?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&publish=yes&:showVizHome=no

https://public.tableau.com/views/NCMWebsite/NECM?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&publish=yes&:showVizHome=no

I also hope they will read Bruce Baker’s new book, Educational Inequity and School Finance: Why Money Matters for America’s Students. The renowned scholar, Helen Ladd, writes that Baker “draws on his many years of research to destroy the myth that money in education doesn’t matter, and convincingly argues that equitable and adequate funding are prerequisites for an effective education system.”

http://hepg.org/hep-home/books/educational-inequality-and-school-finance

The new legislators and governor will face a steep learning curve, and the effort necessary to craft policies based on real science will be intimidating. But as new educators used to be taught, for every complex problem, there is a solution that is quick, simple, and wrong.

Categories Bush, Jeb, Florida, Funding, Oklahoma

Florida: Richard Corcoran Likely to be Next Commissioner of Education

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2018 //
9

Richard Corcoran, speaker of the House of Representatives, is likely to be selected as the next Commissioner of Education. Corcoran is a huge supporter of vouchers and charters. His wife runs a charter school. In Florida, conflicts of interest don’t matter. The Legislature frequently passes legislation to benefit members and their family members, especially in education.

He is also author of a much-ridiculed plan called “Best and Brightest,” in which Florida pays a bonus to teachers based on their high school SAT scores, the test usually taken when they were high school juniors or seniors.

As noted in the previous post, Florida is a citadel of school choice but is a model of mediocrity on national tests.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Charter Schools, Florida, School Choice, Vouchers

Florida: New Chair of House Education Committee Was Home-Schooled, Dropped Out of College

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2018 //
32

The new chair of the Florida House Education Committee is Jennifer Sullivan, a fervent supporter of vouchers, charters, and home schooling.
She herself was home-schooled. She apparently attended a private Christian college and dropped out without a degree.

She has no experience in education.

Florida is not a model for anything to do with education.

Under Jeb Bush’s leadership and with millions of dollars in donations from the DeVos family and the Walton family, the state has plunged into privatization, with large amounts of money diverted from public schools to support for-profit charters (half the charters in the state are “for-profit”) and vouchers for religious schools (even though the State Constitution forbids sending public money to religious schools and the voters rejected doing so).

On NAEP, Florida fourth-graders do relatively well only because the state holds back low-performing third graders, thus falsely inflating fourth grade scores.

On NAEP for eighth grade, Florida shows its true colors:

In eighth grade math, Florida is below the national average, scoring #35 out of 50 states plus DC and the Department of Defense schools.

In eighth grade reading, Florida scores at the national average. Nothing to brag about.

Florida is a model of mediocrity.

And with education policy now controlled by a home-schooler, the race to the bottom will continue.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Vouchers

Florida: Voucher School Bans Black Child Because of His Hair Style

By dianeravitch
November 30, 2018 //
12

Rebecca Klein, education editor of Huffington Post, writes here about a voucher school in Florida that rejected a black child because it didn’t approve of his dreadlocks.

The good news is that the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund are fighting back, saying that the ban by the all-white staff serves no useful purpose.

In August, 6-year-old Clinton Stanley Jr. was kicked out of his new school before he even had a chance to step inside a classroom. Administrators at the Florida school didn’t approve of his hairstyle, which he wore in locs, and said he couldn’t return until he changed it.

Now the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and American Civil Liberties Union are filing a legal complaint with the state’s Department of Education, alleging that the private school’s hair policy is racially discriminatory. The complaint cites HuffPost data showing that it is not uncommon for private schools in the state to maintain hair policies with clear racist undertones.

The school in question ― A Book’s Christian Academy ― is private, but it participates in several of the state’s voucher programs, which provides publicly funded scholarships for kids to attend private schools based on factors like income. Clinton was supposed to attend A Book’s Christian Academy on one such scholarship.

But the American Civil Liberties Union and Legal Defense Fund complaint says that A Book’s policy is illegal, violating federal civil rights laws that schools in state voucher programs are required to follow.

“A Book’s ban on ‘dreads’ – a style that Black students are particularly likely to wear – does not advance any legitimate school objective,” says the complaint. “Therefore, A Book’s policy illegally discriminates against Black students.”

Categories Bias, Civil Rights, Florida, Vouchers

Florida: Charter Operator Gets 20-Year Jail Sentence for Fraud

By dianeravitch
November 14, 2018 //
34

Marcus May, charter operator, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a fine of $5 million for fraud.

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — The founder of a company that operated charter schools in several Florida counties has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Pensacola News Journal reports Marcus May also was sentenced Tuesday to pay a $5 million fine for using those schools to steer millions of dollars into his personal accounts. He was convicted last month of two counts of racketeering and one count of organized fraud.

May’s company, Newpoint Education Partners, operated charter schools in Escambia, Bay, Broward, Duval, Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties.

Prosecutors say May misappropriated millions in public money to buy furniture, computers and other materials at inflated prices from fraudulent companies headed by his close associates.

A co-defendant, Steven Kunkemoeller, has been sentenced to 4 1/2 years for racketeering and organized fraud.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Florida, Fraud, Privatization

Sue Legg: Twenty Years of School Choice in Florida, Part 4

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2018 //
17

This is the final installment in Sue Legg’s series about twenty years of school choice in Florida. She is the former education Director of the Florida League of Women Voters and was assessment and evaluation contractor for the Fl. DOE for twenty years while on the faculty at the University of Florida.

She writes:

Twenty Years Later: The SociaI Impact of Privatization

Privatization of schools in Florida is about more than money. It reflects the ebb and flow of the common school movement originating in the 1830s which promoted a free public education system to assimilate the millions of immigrants arriving in the United States. Resistance came from political, religious, and social divisions, elements of which persist even now. Florida, now the third largest state must assimilate its growing immigrant population. The public schools include 2.8 million students who are 38% white, 33% Hispanic, and 22% black. Ten percent are English Language Learners. These demographics may well change Florida’s politics. There is a majority of younger and ethnically diverse people many of whom tend to register to vote as independents.

Charters and private schools represent 22% of the Florida student enrollment. Charter enrollments are 42% Hispanic and 20% African-American. The tax credit scholarship program enrolls 38% Hispanic and 30% African-American.
Numerous research reports e.g. Brookings, CREDO Urban Study, and Florida Department of Education raise concerns about the academic benefit of choice programs. Few examples exist where charters outperform similar public schools and proportionately more charters do less well. The social consequences of choice are even more serious as documented in the 2017 Florida State University Collins Institute’s Report on Patterns of Resegregation in Florida Schools.
The ‘separate but equal’ doctrine adopted by Governor Jeb Bush in 1999 has undermined diversity in schools. Schools with low income and high minority status tend to receive ‘D’ or F’ school grades, for which they were blamed, sanctioned, and made targets of charter school takeover programs.

The major findings of the Collins Institute report document the social impact of choice. The economic and racial segregation documented in regular public schools is even more severe in charters.

• About one third of black and Hispanic students attend intensely segregated schools (90% single race).

• Sixty percent of Florida’s children qualify for free and reduced lunch (FRL). Black and Hispanic students are 1.5 times more likely to experience double segregation by race and economic status.

• Charter schools over enroll Hispanic students (42%), and these students typically have from 10-20% fewer white students than in public schools.

• Black students are more likely to go to extremely segregated schools than Hispanics.

• Only in 8 districts did charters enroll at least 60% of FRL students.

• Most districts enrolled higher percentages of students with disabilities and English as a second language than their charter schools.

Accountability: Florida is masterful at self-promotion.

In April 2018, the headline for Governor Scott’s press report on NAEP results was: Florida Students Lead the Nation in Reading and Mathematics. While Florida’s schools fourth grade NAEP reading scores ranked 6th nationwide, they fell to 26th on the eighth grade. It may be no coincidence that the spectacular rise in fourth grade NAEP scores coincided with the implementation of third grade mandatory retention for students who are not proficient on the state assessment. A contributing factor to the drop in eighth grade scores is that about one half of the children on private school scholarships return to public schools after third grade. The high school graduation rank is 38th which may in part be due to requirements that students pass an algebra I exam and an English Language Skills test to graduate.

Florida also touts the improvement rate of ‘failing public schools’. Of over 4000 public schools, 35 received a failing grade in 2018. Yet, the legislature passed a law mandating a state takeover of failing schools by designated by charter management firms. The 2018 failure rate for Florida charters is much higher (30/365 schools).

Resistance to the Impact of Choice is Growing.

Progress through the courts is slow but necessary to make change possible. The Florida League of Women Voters won a Supreme Court decision in 2016 to redraw legislative districts. It won again in 2018 to allow early voting on college campuses, to block a confusing proposal to create a separate statewide independent (charter) school system, and to prevent the current governor from naming new members of the Supreme Court on his last day in office. The Citizens for Strong Schools’ Supreme Court hearing on school funding and quality is November 8th.

The court of public opinion looms even larger. The common school movement arose out of the need to address inequities due to immigration, religion, and school funding. Free public schools were seen as the best way to build a sense of the civic responsibility needed to support our new democracy. Will the voters, not only in Florida, once again recognize the value of the public interest over self interest in our public schools when it matters most?

Categories Accountability, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud

Sue Legg: Twenty Years of School Choice in Florida, Part 3

By dianeravitch
November 10, 2018 //
6

Sue Legg recently retired as education director of the Florida League of Women Voters. She was assessment and evaluation contractor for the Fl. DOE for twenty years while on the faculty at the University of Florida. At my request, she wrote a four-part series reflecting on School Choice in Florida after 20 years.

Twenty years later: Who Benefits, Not Schools!

Florida’s Constitution mandates that the state shall make ‘adequate provision for all students to access a uniform, safe, secure, efficient and high-quality system of free public schools.

The strategies on how to implement or circumvent these values result in constant lawsuits…at least five in the last two years alone. The arguments are not new: civil rights, funding, local vs. state control, and accountability. One might ask: Who benefits in a system that generates so much conflict? Politicians and profiteers, but not the public may well be the answer.

Political Cronyism and Conflict of Interest.

Charter supporters use money and influence to affect policy outcomes. According to Integrity Florida, $2,651,639 was spent on committee and campaign contributions in 2016 alone. Major donors include John Kirtley, who heads Florida Federation for Children and is also chair of Step Up for Students (which distributes a billion dollars in corporate tax credit scholarships to private schools). All Children Matters, run by Betsy DeVos, gave over $4 million to Florida political committees between 2004 and 2010. The Walton family gave over $7 million between 2008 and 2016 to Florida’s All Children Matter. Large contributions by the Waltons, John Kirtley, CSUSA, Academica, Gary Chartrand (a member of the State Board of Education) and others were also made to Kirtley’s Florida Federation for Children. In addition, for profit charters have spent over $8 million in lobbying in Tallahassee. Former Governor Jeb Bush’s foundation ExcelinEd, supports the spread of pro-choice policies in 38 states.

Conflict of interest claims in the Florida legislature have been made against current and former legislators including Speaker of the House Richard Corcoran; legislators Manny Diaz, Eric Fresen (recently found guilty of tax evasion), Seth McKeel, House Education Chair Michael Bileca, Senators John Legg, Anitere Flores, Kelli Stargel, and Ralph Arza (who was forced to resign for other reasons). They have personal ties to the charter industry and held important education committee leadership roles.

Testing Companies.

The A.I.R. testing company received a six-year $220 million contract for the Florida state assessment exams. This contract does not include the mandatory End of Course exams required in high school subjects, the kindergarten readiness test, the English Language Learner test, or the 50 teacher certification tests and the principals’ leadership exam. Add to this cost was the technical debacle resulting from a law requiring all tests to be administered online. Districts did not have the bandwidth.

Private and Charter Schools Expansion.

The Florida tax credit scholarships (FTC) to private schools no longer serves only low-income families. Income eligibility has risen to $63,000 for partial stipends. Funding is increased by 25% per year, but the corporate tax revenue to support them runs afoul of the governor’s agenda to reduce taxes. As a compromise, in 2018 a sales tax ‘donation’ to private schools for new car owners was approved for students with approved claims of being bullied. Students with disabilities may qualify for MacKay scholarships to private schools which may have no qualified teachers to serve them. Parents whose children have severe disabilities are given a stipend and search on their own for assistance.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Fraud, Funding, Privatization

Sue Legg: Twenty Years of School Choice in Florida, Part 2

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2018 //
4

Sue Legg, the former director of education for Florida’s League of Women Voters, wrote this series at my request. She was assessment and evaluation contractor for the Fl. DOE for twenty years while on the faculty at the University of Florida. This is part 2.

Twenty Years Later: Impact of Charter and Private Sector Schools

With support from the state, charter and private schools enroll 22% of Florida’s three million children. Charters receive the same per student funding as regular public schools. Private schools receive tax credit scholarships to avoid Florida’s constitutional ban on vouchers funded directly by the legislature.

Nearly half of Florida’s 655 charters are run by for-profit management firms dominated by two firms: Academica and Charter Schools USA (CSUSA).

In 2016, In the Public Interest reported that Academica’s real estate arm controls more than $155 million in south Florida real estate. They essentially own the property for half of their schools and lease it to themselves through the non-profit charter boards they establish. Some of its charters pay exorbitant leases to the Catholic church or other religious entities. Using church facilities is not illegal if there is no religious instruction or other artifacts in classrooms.

CSUSA operates in a similar manner. CSUSA has its own real estate company. We tracked the history of one such school and found that CSUSA had purchased a former ATT call center for about $1.2 million. They flipped the building several times to have the property reappraised, and invested $1.5 million in air conditioning etc. The final appraisal was for $9 million, and the CSUSA board signed an escalating lease for over a million dollars per year which would in time surpass the school budget. Teachers are paid from the remaining budget which seldom allows for retirement or health benefits. Thus, teacher turnover tends to be more than double the rate for traditional public schools.

In 2016, the U.S. Office of the Inspector General delineated the similarities between charter financing and the subprime loan crisis that wreaked havoc with the housing industry. Real estate loans have minimal annual payments with large balloon payments when the loan becomes due.

Independently run charters survive at first on start up funds from the state and federal government. Even though charters are exempt from the regulations governing the quality of school facilities, many complain they are underfunded. Some are housed in abandoned strip malls or former business locations that need remodeling.

The lack of regulation was supposed to spur innovation. Charters must meet local fire and safety codes, employ teachers who are certified within 18 months, and administer state assessments. Otherwise, they are exempt from operational district oversight and state school facilities codes. District school boards can only intervene if charters cannot pay their bills or they receive failing grades two years in a row on the state assessment tests. There is no limit on charter expansion, and the State Board of Education may overrule, and does, proposals that are not approved locally.

Where does this lack of regulation lead? The simple answer is profiteering, corruption and closures. The management of Newpoint charters is the current scandal. The company has been charged with racketeering involving 57 million dollars in the operation of its 15 schools. Investigative reporting by the Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, and Tampa Bay Times have documented many other scandals in which charters close without warning, funds are collected for unenrolled students,

Charters close at an alarming rate. At least 373 Florida charters closed in the last twenty years. They take the money with them. Even some proponents of charters are having doubts.

Parents are finding out the hard way that they have no voice in charter school management. Erika Donalds, a former school board member whose husband is a legislator, sponsored the doomed constitutional amendment 8 to create a separate charter system. She also co-founded one of the Classical Academies where she was a board member. The charter was based on ‘Christian values’, but had a principal who created an environment “where fraud can occur without detection”. Donalds withdrew her children. She has, however, formed an alliance with the wife of the 2017 Florida Senate president to open another Classical Academy.

Past attempts by some legislators to limit the ‘self-dealing’ and profiteering failed. In September 2018, Integrity-Florida released its latest report on needed reforms. Millions of tax payer dollars have been lost to both excessive profits and criminal misuse of funds. Legislation is needed to require a justification for opening a charter and improved regulation to prevent profiteering. At least now, the public is growing aware of the financial threats to our public schools. No longer is the problem ‘over there’. It is affecting everyone.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Florida, For-Profit, Privatization

Sue Legg: Twenty Years of School Choice in Florida : Part 1

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2018 //
15

Sue Legg was assessment and evaluation contractor for the Fl. DOE for twenty years while on the faculty at the University of Florida. She recently stepped down as Education Director of the Florida League of Women Voters.

This is the first of a series on the effects of school choice, which she wrote at my request.

Florida Twenty Years Later: Undermining Public Schools

Florida has a long track record in school privatization.

Consequently, I recently had the sobering charge to help Louisville citizens understand what lies ahead if their new charter school enabling law is funded. Florida has 655 charters enrolling nearly 300,000 students, the third largest number in the U.S., and it also spends over a billion dollars per year in tax credit scholarships to 2800 private schools. What does Florida have to show for it?

Privatizing schools was sold to the public as a money saving policy. Education, after all, is the second largest Florida state budget item.

Competition from the private sector, it was argued, would increase quality and save money. State assessment scores would grade students, schools and teachers to assure the public that the ever-increasing education standards were met. This competition myth imploded. Education became a battleground over funding, support for teachers, and the impact of parental choice on neighborhoods.

Twenty years later, Florida schools are nearing a fiscal and social crisis. Not only did the legislature cut funding in 2008, it reallocated money to charter and private schools and put a cap on local property tax revenue for public schools.

Student enrollment grew, and the Hispanic population doubled.

A forest of temporary buildings sprouted on playgrounds to add classrooms.

In my district alone, $168 million has been lost in facility funding. Some of our schools have buckets in classrooms to catch the rainfall and use sandbags to block water from entering hallways. Others are so crowded that lunch begins at 9:30 a.m. Many districts are asking for increases in local sales and property taxes to support schools; others already have. Opponents, however, want to prevent communities from increasing taxes.

Building maintenance is only part of the problem facing Florida’s schools. Its per student funding to support instruction is among the lowest in the nation. Its teacher attrition rate is high. The PTA reports that there were 1482 teaching positions still vacant in January 2018. Two thirds of teachers who leave are for reasons other than retirement. One clue is that the NEA ranks Florida 46th in average teacher salary. As a result, Florida now ranks first in the nation (25%) in inexperienced teachers.

Teaching and learning also have changed in many ways. ‘Test Prep’ begins in February for April state assessments. The districts’ versions of choice include magnet schools and student placement based on test scores within and across schools. The increasing lament is that there are ‘schools within schools’ where some students have access to high quality programs and teachers and others do not.

Choice fragments neighborhoods.

Think, for example, of the charter school in south Florida that opened across the street from an excellent public school, thus reducing its enrollment and funding but not its overhead expenses. An ‘A’ school became a ‘C’ school. Schools in south Pinellas County declined and were labeled ‘Failure Factories’ drawing national attention.

What changed? The choice movement adopted a ‘separate but equal’ philosophy undermining the integration reform from the 1970s through the 90s. Charter and private schools siphoned off the higher achieving students. Other parents who could, moved away leaving under enrolled schools with insufficient funds to support needed equity programs for children in poverty.

Florida educators and parents are fighting back. Lawsuits reflect the issues: vouchers, school funding, tax credit scholarships, invalid teacher evaluation system, local district control over school funding and charter authorization, ‘union busting’, merit pay, third grade retention, students with disabilities, state take-over of local schools, teacher certification, and a proposed separate educational system for charters.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Florida, Funding, School Choice
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »