Charter schools in Florida are closing at an alarming rate.

Charter schools have been around in Florida for over a decade and you would think by now they would be improving but despite what the pro-charter crowd would have you believe they are not. Now don’t get me wrong there are some charter schools that do it right but there are enough bad actors and charter chains looking to make a buck that the industry has a serious black eye.

Over the years 252 charter schools have opened, taken public money and then closed and that includes 25 in 2013 alone.

http://www.floridaschoolchoice.org/Information/Charter_Schools/files/closed_charter_schools.pdf

Looking at the list of 250 plus schools 2013 was one of the worse years ever and this begs the questions why aren’t charter schools getting better? Why aren’t there fewer closures?  

One of the reasons is because the Florida legislature has made it very easy to open them as several legislators and their family members have found out and this has made it so there will be even more openings and failings in the future.  

Even if you are a charter school fan, shouldn’t you want Florida to slow down and get it right? Don’t our kids deserve it? Or are the bank accounts of charter school operators’ king.

Charter school supporter says, It is silly to worry about failed charter schools.

Patrick Gibbons of ReDefined Ed who has never met a public school she liked or a charter school he didn’t wrote a piece saying that charters received a greater percentage of A grades than public schools did. He leaves out a couple things in his love fest however like almost 10 percent of charter schools did not receive grades and the dozen or so that closed last school year. When I asked him if adding those closed schools might skew his terrific news he wrote:  Once a school is closed it literally does not exist anymore. It would be quite silly to grade schools on student achievement and student graduation rates when they have no students.  

http://www.redefinedonline.org/2014/01/fl-charter-high-schools-outperform-district-high-schools/#sthash.XxmJA0h4.dpuf

You see its silly to worry about the dozen or schools that closed last year and the half dozen or so that have already closed this. It’s silly to even consider the impact the 240 charter schools that have closed in Florida over the years. Money wasted, educations shortchanged, just plain silly.  

Ugh, I have to go throw up now.

A big problem with standardized tests.

What is the difference between a charter school and a private not for profit school.

The difference is none, accept politicians in Tallahassee knowing the lure and luster has fallen away from charter schools what with over 240 closing in Florida and dozens and dozens of others receiving low grades or wracked with one scandal after another, are attempting to change what Charters are called, hoping the public is asleep or to dumb to notice.

Friends of charters in Tallahassee are trying to funnel even money into these defacto publicly funded private schools.  These politicians like  George Moraitis have all but erased the line between what is good for their bank accounts and what is good for children.

If charter schools worked, if charter schools did better than public schools then maybe this is a conversation we could be having but they don’t and haven’t but that hasn’t stopped Tallahassee from handing them millions and preparing to hand them any more.  

Bob Sykes of Scathing Purple Musing has done some amazing reporting on this, to read more click the links.

http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/is-moraitis-hb-377-charter-school-bill-inspired-by-alec/

http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/hb-377-george-moraitis-stealth-florida-charter-school-bonanza-bill/

Why we have public schools!

Education reformer admits, destruction of teachers unions is the goal.

Ugh, I will just get right to the horses mouth, Doug Tuthill who already takes millions from Florida tax payers through Step up for Students, Florida’s voucher program wrote in Jeb Bush’s blog ReDefined Ed: 

Jeb Bush offered the nation’s teacher unions a grand bargain: “If unions released their grip on political levers, and parental choice was absolute, many public school reforms would be unnecessary because the desired results would be achieved through market forces.”

Eventually, teachers unions will accept this deal and embrace full parental empowerment in exchange for full teacher empowerment, but only after membership nationally slips below 25 percent. With market share in the low twenties, financial necessity will force unions to expand their business model to include educators working in charter, private and virtual schools.

http://www.redefinedonline.org/2014/01/school-choice-teacher-unions-mcdonalds-

He doesn’t mention that teachers at charter schools and private schools typical make less and pay more for their benefits than their public school counterparts. Let alone how they don’t perform better. Nor does he mention all the money sucked out of classrooms that vouchers and charter schools do. His step up for students takes out nearly 7 million annually. Also I don't know of anything but employers threatening teachers jobs that stops teachers from organizing at charter schools and private schools. Oh wait, yeah.

Then this stalwart of free market capitalism goes on to criticize public schools that have decided to compete against private and charter schools. He wrote in the same article:  Pinellas County Superintendent Mike Grego is “studying the number and location of charter and private schools” in the district to fine tune his strategy for recapturing lost market share. “I believe as a public school system we ought to compete,” he said.

Part of Grego’s strategy includes putting new magnet programs in closed school buildings so he won’t be pressured to sell these buildings to charter school operators.

That this will waste tax dollars by creating excess capacity in several neighboring district schools is apparently not a concern.

School districts should not be competing for market share.

Oy vey, so let me sum up, he wants unions to be forced into a position of irrelevancy while attempting to get private entities to throw their members nickels and he thinks competition should just be one way. This is who we are up against, he all but admits the destruction of unions and public schools is his goal. 

In Florida wolves guard the hen house when it comes to education

Making over 8,000 dollars a month a former charter school lobbyist, Nancy Ann Texeria has been hired by the chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, Bill Galvano. To manage his pac

Texeira had previously lobbied the committee on behalf of her charter school clients. Those included: Charter Schools USA, the Florida Charter School Alliance, the Foundation for Florida’s Future, and Parent Revolution, you know Michelle Rhee’s astroturf group that tried to bring the parent trigger to Florida

Often in Tallahassee lines get blurred between what’s good for kids and what’s good for peoples bank accounts and this seems like more of the same.

To read more click the link: http://members.jacksonville.com/news/2014-01-02/story/charter-school-lobbyist-hired-do-political-work-senates-top-education-budget

Florida legislators have little respect for a college education

You know for a state that says they want all it’s kids to go to college they sure act differently. Take for example the changes to the Dual Enrollment laws, which stripped funding from the districts and will effectively end many kids opportunities.

http://members.jacksonville.com/news/2013-12-31/story/issue-dual-enrollment

Then couple that with how prepaid college plan and bright futures get more difficult and Florida has really shown its true colors about kids going to college

Two education programs that really helped out a lot of working class families have been dramatically altered here in Florida. The Sun Sentinel is saying that the pre-paid college enrollment fund Florida Prepaid used to provide a cheap and simple way to save money for college, but these days it's more complicated.

The cost of the most popular four-year university plan has quadrupled since 2006. At the same time, the costs of college tuition have become difficult to predict, with prices increasing 15 percent some years and nothing others.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-florida-prepaid-value-20131025,0,1406269.story

Next Bright Futures aren’t so bright, from the Fort Meyers press; Florida’s scholarship program for high-achieving students once covered 100 percent of tuition for top scholars.

Years of state budget cutbacks and too many smart students, however, have turned Bright Futures into a shell of its former self. Now, the best a student can do is get about half of the tuition covered by Bright Futures, which is funded through the Florida Lottery.

http://www.news-press.com/article/20131024/NEWS0104/310240033/Florida-s-Bright-Futures-scholarship-money-still-valuable

Florida really had one of the best systems around but after years of cuts it is a shade of its former self. These are three programs that really helped out a lot of poor and middle class families and now they won’t. I don’t call that progress and it is just more proof that Florida pays lip service to the importance of higher education.

Sobering statistics: and why we can't properly fund education.

By Ron Issac, from the education bloggers network

Now that the New Years Eve parties are over, here's some sobering statistics for garden-variety wage slaves, teachers included. You'll dry out fast:

1) Fifty-seven of America's largest companies on Standard and Poor's 500 index, almost one in nine, paid an effective tax rate of zero percent or even lower, according to USA Today. Verizon, General Motors and News Corp are among them.

2) "The typical corporation pays a lower effective tax rate that most middle-class families, and a far lower one than the statutory corporate tax rates..."

3) "Getting to a zero percent tax rate despite turning a profit requires creative accounting, but not lawbreaking."

4) "The U.S. tech giant ("Apple Inc") not only avoided the American tax system, but manages to shelter about $100 billion in revenues from any taxes at all."

5) "At its peak in 1968, the income from the minimum wage lifted a family of three out of poverty...If it had kept pace with gains in productivity, it (the minimum wage) it would be (today) more than $20 an hour."

Republican members of Congress not only oppose any increase in the minimum wage, but would actually vote to abolish any minimum wage whatsoever! One of these Dark Ages sentimentalists is Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a front-runner for his party's presidential nomination. By the way, the current after-taxes hourly minimum wage pay is just about enough to buy a Starbucks Grande ( forget the blueberry scone)

 6)"Newly hired federal employees would not be eligible for traditional pensions under a bill re-introduced by Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) and two colleagues."

And who's behind the above scheme and related plans to cut or eliminate jobs, pay and collective bargaining rights?  Why, it's the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. His name is Darrel Issa and his personal net worth is estimated at $450 million.

These medieval views, unthinkable just decades ago, are now mainstream.

Even more disturbing than the repudiation of the "social contract" and the mockery of the "American Dream" is that millions of people are not the slightest embarrassed about justifying it as though gross economic injustice were an expression of the rule of natural law and sanctioned by the Constitution.  Unrestricted warfare in the marketplace jungle.

The Constitution is apparently a versatile document: an instrument of liberty and a brief for the Wild Kingdom.

Note: All the direct quotations are from The Union Bulletin, Queens Area Local of the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO as are the paraphrased facts. The opinions are mine alone and have not been submitted for approval.

Corporate education reformers aren’t above being deceptive.

I like to think if Charters were doing better and they paid and treated their teachers well, I would be for them. However that’s not the case. That though doesn’t stop the ed reformers from selling their defective products.

Take former Florida education Jim Horne for example. After leaving the commissioner job he took his 30 pieces of silver and found a gig in the charter school industry and now he has proceeded to sell them and facts be damned.

“It is interesting now after 18 years of Florida charter schools when we have statistical data that clearly shows that Florida charter schools are outperforming district managed schools in most grade levels and gaining increasing market share that suddenly we see legislation that is aimed at severely limiting the growth of charter schools,’’ Horne said in an email. “In other words, if you can’t compete with them then let’s just stop them from opening in the first place.”

www.redefinedonline.org/2013/12/fl-bill-proposes-new-way-curb-charter-schools

Where do I start, well first there is no clear statistical data that says charters as a group, despite numerous advantages, are performing any better, though with almost 250 having closed over the years you would expect the group to improve somewhat. Though the Stanford Credo charter school study says thy do worse.

Then just yesterday Doug Tuthill from step up for Students the group that is paid millions in public money to manage Florida’s voucher program that districts should not compete with charter schools and vouchers. Most charter school advocates aren’t interested in playing fair nor are they interested in doing what’s best for children. They just want to see them spread unchecked and damn the consequences. I wonder if there was any restriction despite repeated failure they would find reasonable.

I am not a charter school guy but even I think they have a limited role to replace as a supplement to our public schools, not the replacements for that many who by the way are also profiting off of them think they should be. Furthermore there are so many bad Charter schools that the entire industry gets one black eye after another when they close or continuously do poorly. Even charter school advocates should want reasonable restrictions because they protect the good charter schools from the cadre of people operating them just to make a buck.

But back to my original point, how do these people try and sell them and the other corporate reforms with a straight face, none including merit pay and odious teacher evaluations have any proof they work and often have evidence saying they don’t.