Manny Diaz, Florida’s latest worst legislator ever!

In the teachers lounge in our rumpled coats before we head out to our ten-year-old cars teachers sometimes dream about being rich with the easiest and quickest way opening up a charter school. Manny Diaz must have had the same idea.

This former teacher and current legislator is doing everything he can to make it easier to open charter schools and to make them more lucrative too. He has said he plans to introduce legislation that:

-Makes it easier for charter schools to come to Florida offering them preferred status which comes with all sorts of benefits including 15 year contracts (hmm teachers have zero tenure, charter schools get 15 years), if the charter chain has had successes elsewhere. Just what we need more charter schools to siphon money not only out of our classrooms but out of our state too (where do you think those hefty management fees are going to go) that have zero proven record in Florida.

-Forces school districts to give up their underutilized space to charter schools. In effect he wants to add more seats to areas that already have more than they need further diluting the school resources in those areas. Imagine that public resources given to for profit companies so they can make more profits.

-He wants the FLDOE to review charter applications first before districts do so they can tell districts if they are good or not. First this would be a duplication of services, doesn’t the FLDOE have enough on their plate and second the whole reason behind it is to intimidate the districts. How can Districts turn down charter applications if the state says they are okay and there are many reasons to do so.

Here are some things you should know. The Stanford Credo study the definitive charter school study says Florida’s charters don’t perform as well as its public schools.

250 charter schools have opened taken public money, failed kids and closed over the years including 25 in 2013.

Finally you can’t go a week without hearing a charter school scandal.

People should say no to Diaz, even charter school supporters because every time one closes or its reported the principal of one makes a quarter of a million dollars or their poor test scores are released it hurts the entire industry. They without a doubt need more controls not freedoms.  

Manny Diaz is without a doubt Florida’s latest worst legislator ever.