Crony capitalism is alive and well in Floirda

The Florida legislature is preparing its annual budget and we should be alarmed by how much they are planning to allocate to charter schools.

The house is budgeting 90 million in construction and maintenance costs for the states 650 charter schools, many of which are managed by for profit companies. Since the facilities are privately held this is money the public will never recover if one of these charter schools fails which has already happened 313 times over the years in Florida, costing us hundreds of millions of dollars.

It’s not so baffling that we are giving these companies millions in extra money when you consider the hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions charter schools have given to the members of the legislature.

It however gets worse, at the same time the legislature is planning on giving charters 90 million it is planning to allocate only 50 million to the states 4,300 public schools. Furthermore since 2011 charters have received 326 million in maintenance funds while public schools have received barely over a hundred million.

Maybe this could be justified if charter schools as a group were doing better than public schools but they aren’t.

Isn’t it time we ended this crony capitalism and instead invested in our public schools? After all they are by far the better investment.

To read more click the link: https://theedvocateblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/30/house-budget-begrudges-construction-dollars-for-public-schools-doubles-charter-money/