It's time to question Florida's judgement with school reforms

From Scathing Purple Musings

by Bob Sykes

Those adult themes parties at that Miami charter school were put on by the husband of its owner, but Rocka Malik says she doesn’t know anything about them:

Balere’s principal and founder, Rocka Malik, told The Miami Herald on Thursday that she knew nothing about any after-hours parties at her school. But records show the party promoter is tied to Malik’s husband: A phone number for the promoter comes back to a car-wash company managed by Malik’s husband, Clifton Smith, who is also a director of a pre-school at Balere. Malik and Smith did not return phone calls on Friday.

This is not the first time the school has
come under fire: Last fall, school inspectors discovered that nine seventh-graders were being taught in a wooden storage shed on campus, records show. “Students had difficulty putting their legs comfortably under the desks,” district inspectors wrote in one report. When interviewed by an inspector with Miami-Dade’s building department, Malik denied that the shed was being used as a classroom, records show.

The senate sponsor of SB736, Steve Wise once said that “children would be irreparably harmed” if his bill weren’t passed. As it’s quite clear that the children and families of Belere Language Academy have been sold a bill of goods, at least Senator Wise now has a true illustration of what “irreparably harmed” looks like.

Such unethical behavior among Florida’s charter schools and other privately run ones is not new. A June story in Miami New Times detailed wide-spread abuse and fraud of the McKay scholarship system. The FDOE’s Director of “Independent Education and Parental Choice,” Michael Kooi was once Florida charter schools chief lobbyist. He wrote a condemning letter to the Miami New Times for it’s report. Wonder what he’ll have to say about this one.

Its worth mentioning as well that Steve Wise essentially attempted to end school boards this past session by eliminating their salaries. Its is school boards which are in charge of policing its local charters. This summer’s charter school scandal’s are demonstrating that this wasn’t such a “wise” piece of legislation afterall.

While on the topic of wisdom, lets question the wisdom of Rick Scott, his education bureaucrats and his legislative enablers.

It appears that the best ammunition that guys like Steve Wise and Michael Kooi have comes from the fact that they have a bully pulpit to spew their demagoguery. Such responses as these to criticism and bad news isn’t intellectually defensible. Would Jeb Bush’s chief ed policy wonk, Patricia Levesque deflect the Belere scandal as being trumped by the moral superiority of choice? As for Scott, his clear and public bias toward charter schools - in spite of their poor academic record and corruption - can no longer be seen as policy which favors Florida’s children.

http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/why-the-miami-charter-school-scandal-signals-that-its-time-to-question-the-wisdom-and-judgement-of-floridas-school-reformers/