During Teacher Appreciation week, the state board of ed shows who they really Appreciate

From the Orlando Sentinel by Dave Weber

Florida’s state Board of Education is having a love fest for charters schools this week, with board members fanning out around the state to tell charters what a wonderful job they are doing.

But where is our love, officials at traditional schools are asking?

In observance of National Charter Schools Week, members of the state board are heading to various charter schools, according to a news release from the Department of Education.

But it occurred to us, when was the last time we saw a state board member in a traditional public school? At least for our area of the state, we can’t think of one since Phil Handy served on the board some years ago.

We asked DOE to give us some examples of traditional school visits by board members. They couldn’t think of any off the top of their heads either, but are looking into it.

Meanwhile, amidst all of this love for charters, officials for Seminole, Orange and Volusia school districts have the formidable task on Wednesday of convincing the state board to uphold the districts’ decisions to reject some charter school applications. The rejected charters have appealed to the state board, which can – and most often does – override the decisions by the locally elected school boards.

How do you suppose this will go down during National Charter School Week?

It especially will be interesting to see how the state board handles the application of Renaissance Charter out of south Florida to “replicate” in Seminole County. Under state law passed by the Legislature last year, existing charters that meet certain standards have their paths greased to open shop in other school districts.

The Seminole School Board turned down Renaissance for, among other reasons, the school’s plan to aim for student achievement that is substantially below what the typical Seminole school achieves.

The DOE news release about charter school week also mentions that it is using a $104 million federal grant to push for charters in “high need neighborhoods and rural and low income school districts.” Does affluent, high achieving, suburban Seminole fit that description to a T? Local school officials argue that the state actually is encouraging a shift of school operations from local, publicly controlled to corporate operated through increasing numbers of charters run by management firms.

Footnote: We reminded DOE it also is Teacher Appreciation Week this week. Haven’t heard anything from them about that. Oh. We’re on it, they said.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/2012/05/state-board-loves-charter-schools.html