It is more bust than boom with Florida Charter schools

From Grumpy Educators, by Sandra

1) 15 of 30 "F" schools in Florida are charters. "Then last year in Florida, charter schools received 15 out of 31 of all the failing FCAT grades that went to public schools. Charter elementary and middle schools were seven times more likely to get an F than traditional public schools."

2) VP Joe Biden's brother is associated with charter Mavericks HS, which has accounting and performance issues - plus a desire to open 100. Third whistle blower on alleged fraud emerges. Frank Biden has real estate experience.

3) Parents signed up for an arts-oriented charter, but were not told of its association with Scientology.

4) Duval School Board, in North Florida, followed the rules on charter applications and denied an application. The charter took it to an Charter School Appeal Board established by the State School Board. The appeal board sided with the school board and against the charter. The charter took it to the State Board (all members are appointed), which overturned the appeal board and the district. The district is taking this one to court. What are the rules? Who decides? Murky. More loss of local control?

5) Then there was the recent Parent Trigger mess. Florida residents were denied opportunity to speak at committee meetings and at hearings to give opposing views, while proponents from outside the State were given that access. This is hardly an example of democracy. The good news is that the bill failed. It deserved to fail...the "devil is in the details."

6) Florida took RT3 funding and school districts are under strain trying to meet the requirements.

7) In Florida, former Governor Jeb Bush and his Foundation exert too much power. The Director of his foundation, Patricia Levesque, is adviser to Governor Scott. Her husband is also General Counsel to the Florida House. When voting on charter bills, he advised no conflict of interest nor ethics violation for legislators with personal ties or ties via family to vote on those bills IF the bill did not affect only that family business. .

8) Last week the Florida DOE issued a report on public charter progress. While some point to the report as clear evidence that charters are "better" than traditional schools, the report itself does not identify variances. One critical factor is that of the total number of public charters in Florida, the performance of only 40% are included in the report. The remaining 60% are not required to be "graded" because the size of the student population is too small to be statistically relevant and under Florida law are excluded. So while we applaud student achievement, growth, and progress wherever it exists, taxpayers still have no information that affirms the disruption leads to any return on investment. There are too many unknowns to recommend Florida's charter boom as a scalable model to replicate.

What happens in Florida is worth watching. These initiatives are heralded in other states as models to follow; however, they do not hold up under scrutiny. Legislators should analyze carefully what is in the best interests of their states students, parents, community members, and taxpayers. Careful deliberation and legislative accountability is not a sign of being anti-charter nor anti-accountability; but rather a sign of doing the job they were elected to do.

http://grumpythings.blogspot.com/2012/04/florida-charter-school-boom-warning.html