I wasn't a charter school guy until now

I am not a charter school guy. They play by different rules and there is no evidence accept in the case of superhuman efforts that they do any better than their public school counterparts. Furthermore since many education companies have gotten involved in creating them, education has become a business and all the managers of some of these schools are interested in is praying on the fear of parents so they can suck money away from education and put it in the pockets of parties more interested in the bottom line rather than doing what’s best for our children.

Yes I have never been a charter school kind of guy until now. There is a statute on the books that says teachers can turn their schools into charter schools. Can you imagine it? They could have administrators more interested in good instruction than what teacher’s word walls look like. Teachers could have rigorous classes where they could fail kids and where they wouldn‘t be afraid to write a referral and have their classroom managements questioned. Imagine an end to Learning recovery accept in the most deserving cases.

One of the biggest problems education has is it’s not run by educators. Politicians who aren’t interested in doing what’s right run it; these people are more attracted by the education fad du jour even if there is no evidence saying it works or it defies critical thinking. If more educators ran schools then more schools would be doing better.

So teachers next time you are in the lounge or at a faculty meeting bring it up, next time an administrator is more concerned with what your phone book sized data notebook looks like rather than taking care of the kid who makes teaching a nightmare imagine what the school would be like without them. Then make it happen.

The provision for a public school to convert to a charter school has been in statute for some time. Currently in Statute, the parents and the teachers must vote to convert with more than 50% approving the conversion. Here is the Statute F.S. 1002.33(3)(b):

(b) An application for a conversion charter school shall be made by the district school board, the principal, teachers, parents, and/or the school advisory council at an existing public school that has been in operation for at least 2 years prior to the application to convert. A public school-within-a-school that is designated as a school by the district school board may also submit an application to convert to charter status. An application submitted proposing to convert an existing public school to a charter school shall demonstrate the support of at least 50 percent of the teachers employed at the school and 50 percent of the parents voting whose children are enrolled at the school, provided that a majority of the parents eligible to vote participate in the ballot process, according to rules adopted by the State Board of Education. A district school board denying an application for a conversion charter school shall provide notice of denial to the applicants in writing within 10 days after the meeting at which the district school board denied the application. The notice must articulate in writing the specific reasons for denial and must provide documentation supporting those reasons. A private school, parochial school, or home education program shall not be eligible for charter school status.