Its been no secret that the Florida Legislature has been
full speed ahead with their privatization agenda the last few years and their
main mechanism has been the charter school. They have not so subtlety stacked
the deck in their favor and this despite inferior quality, dubious results, and
scandal and charter school closing after scandal and charter school closing.
It’s shameful.
Good luck Simmons and
Montford, you are going to need it.
However this year maybe there is a bit of a push back going
on and a few legislators have introduced a bill to hold them accountable or
what I like to call, the bill least likely to pass the Florida legislature.
SB
744, by Sens. David Simmons,
R-Maitland, and Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, would
require an applicant wanting to establish a charter school to submit
information on annual employee compensation and to demonstrate financial
capability to open, operate and maintain a high-quality charter school.
You would think above would just be common sense
but sadly here in Florida when it comes to education common sense is extremely
rare. It is way past time Florida if it insists on going down the charter
school route makes sure they are putting in place financially accountable high quality
schools or what I like to call the opposite of what we have been doing up till
now.
Seems fair, thanks to Sens. Simmons and Montford.
ReplyDeleteLet's see how they vote on the Parent Tricker Bill.
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Dear Senator Simmons,
We understand that Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, filed SB 862 last week and that it is similar to the final version of last year's failed SB 1718.
We have heard you speak and profess to be in support of public schools and public school communities. If this is the case, you must be aware that parents don't want this, teachers don't want this, students don't want this, and even independent charter school operators don't want this. As far as we can tell, only certain legislators and corporate charter school entities want this.
As public school educators and as your constituents, we'd like to apprise you that we don't want this. Our schools are not for sale!
We expect you to protect them from hostile takeovers. We implore you to oppose SB 862 and/or any form of a Parent Tricker bill this session.
Which side are you on, Sir?
Thank you for keeping us updated!
ReplyDelete