Charter schools are supposed to be public schools where parent/teacher driven innovation occurs. Instead many have become cash making enterprises for business more concerned with the bottom line rather than educating our children. They even have their own lobbies as they attempt to get bigger and bigger pieces of the education pie. Something that actual evidence says they do not deserve.
Consider these recent charter school stories (John Romano Tampa times).
A charter high school in Orlando was recently closed due to poor performance. The principal, who was drawing a salary of $305,000 and was paid a severance of $519,000 in taxpayer money. The enrollment of the school was 180 students. Our super for 176 schools and 123,000 students makes 275 thousand.
Then there is the case of the charter in Manatee County, which recently ran a newspaper ad offering a free Nintendo handheld game system to any student who enrolled by a certain date.
How about the charter school in Dunedin that operated for more than two years and siphoned more than $1.6 million dollars from the public while failing to provide basic class supplies and posting the worst standardized test scores in Pinellas County.
The list could go on and on… and on. Seriously how many more example do you want me to give, 10, 20, 50?
There may be some great charter schools but to many operators see Florida as a cash cow that requires little accountability, regulation and oversight.
What does Florida get for this money? Charter schools have more than triple the rate of F grades and that doesn't even count the dozens of charter schools the state didn't even bother to grade.
Why is accountability something we only require from public schools?
The state in their zeal to privatize public education through charter schools has completely abdicated its responsibility to educate our children and instead of continuing to rob public schools of state funds it is time we said enough.
The answer is to fix our problems, not starve our public schools to death.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Consider these recent charter school stories (John Romano Tampa times).
A charter high school in Orlando was recently closed due to poor performance. The principal, who was drawing a salary of $305,000 and was paid a severance of $519,000 in taxpayer money. The enrollment of the school was 180 students. Our super for 176 schools and 123,000 students makes 275 thousand.
Then there is the case of the charter in Manatee County, which recently ran a newspaper ad offering a free Nintendo handheld game system to any student who enrolled by a certain date.
How about the charter school in Dunedin that operated for more than two years and siphoned more than $1.6 million dollars from the public while failing to provide basic class supplies and posting the worst standardized test scores in Pinellas County.
The list could go on and on… and on. Seriously how many more example do you want me to give, 10, 20, 50?
There may be some great charter schools but to many operators see Florida as a cash cow that requires little accountability, regulation and oversight.
What does Florida get for this money? Charter schools have more than triple the rate of F grades and that doesn't even count the dozens of charter schools the state didn't even bother to grade.
Why is accountability something we only require from public schools?
The state in their zeal to privatize public education through charter schools has completely abdicated its responsibility to educate our children and instead of continuing to rob public schools of state funds it is time we said enough.
The answer is to fix our problems, not starve our public schools to death.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Flip the coin over and you have Community In Schools.
ReplyDeleteMillions of dollars go to the CEO's of so-called non-profits like Community In Schools and we have nothing to show for it.
But since they are pet projects of the tax and spend liberal teacher union then I guess it is not to be mentioned on this blog.
Unions neither tax nor make budgets.
ReplyDeleteGive me something to mention, I'll do it....