LWVeducation
The Florida LWV legislative priorities are coming due. Please make your voices heard within your local leagues. In order to be able to advocate for our Education Team issues, we have to make it into the top priorities statewide.
Make education tops for your local league. Here is a list of topics we expect to come up in the legislative session. Remember that committee meetings start in September.
On the radio this morning, I heard a story about the latest pitch for facilities funding from the charter school advocates. This one was to the State Board of Education.
It signals the latest attempt by the charter industry to tap into facilities funding for traditional public schools. Public schools need to renovate old buildings and upgrade technology infrastructure. Charters do not have to meet traditional public school state facility standards. Charters are supposed to be cheaper. Their real estate companies are making millions of dollars. Why give them more?
I have compiled a list of posts on this issue. Take a look and build arguments to make charter school policies more rational. Charters should make our educational system better, not destroy it. You can write letters, make presentations and make a difference.
As the school age population goes down, families leave cities for suburbs, and school choice enrollments increase, traditional public schools face a new problem: What to do with empty school buildings? This may be a symptom of a bigger issue. Continue reading
How can a school go from an ‘A’ to a ‘D’ in three years? Pinewood was an ‘A’ school serving over 1000 students for many years. About sixty percent of its students were economically disadvantaged. A higher than average number of students were English language learners or had learning disabilities. By any measure, Pinewood was a public school success story. The charter located across the street was half the size. It had 20 percent fewer economically disadvantaged students, and it earned only a ‘B’ grade from the State. Then, Pinewood’s world began to change.
by Margery Marcus, LWV of Broward
Margery’s compares two schools located across the street from one another, Pinewood traditional elementary and North Broward Academy charter school. Pinewood used to earn a ‘B’ school grade. The schools could be fraternal twins, but now one earned a ‘D’ and the other an ‘A’. I was intrigued. So, I went back through the data for the last three years to see if there were changes in the schools over time. There were.
Margery states that CSUSA is doing something right. What do you think it may be? Numbers do not always tell the whole story.
In the last legislative session, there was a proposal to allow students to enroll in any public school that had room. It would give parents flexibility.
Most districts already allow students to enroll in a district school outside their zoned school to accommodate parents’ work places. Some states have enacted these open enrollment policies for everyone to go to any school. I was surprised at what happened. Maybe this is not good for Florida.
Vouchers for private school tuition were supposed to be for at risk children in poor neighborhoods. In Florida, that assumption was dropped when the legislature expanded eligibility for tax credit scholarships to include family incomes up to $62,000. Now, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is more concerned about the high cost of tuition for middle class families. They want to help.
Lots of money easily available can lead to abuse, and it did–over and over again in Miami. It is so much money that it may be time to follow New York’s lead and ban for-profit education management companies. In this post we look at Academica, Florida’s largest for-profit education management firm.
Its schools are consolidated into at least four non-profit entities that allow Academica to operate legally as a contractor to its own schools. Their 100 schools are organized into the Mater, Somerset, Pinecrest and Doral networks. They also manage several Ben Gamla schools as well as others. Academica operates in five states plus D.C. including Florida, Utah, Texas, Nevada, California.
The Doral and Mater charter governing boards keep appearing in the Miami Dade Inspector General reports. There is a lot of money involved and continued poor governance citations. You can follow the money. Do these schools do more with less?
Education Now reports that the Foundation for Florida’s Future has released its grades for legislators. They are based on their support for the Bush/ALEC school privatization agenda.
As you know, Jeb Bush made his mark in Florida with his advocacy for charter schools and vouchers. When the State Supreme Court declared vouchers unconstitutional, they were turned into corporate tax rebate scholarships. The Southern Legal Counsel’s lawsuit against school choice Citizens for Strong Schools comes to trial next spring.
Privatizing schools has turned into big business in Florida. To protect the business interests, legislators are pressured and cajoled. In this report you can see the grades your individual representatives and senators have received from the foundation Jeb Bush created. High grades mean that those legislators are failing our public schools and promoting privatization. Here’s the link to the report.
There is something compelling about the need for our educational system to embrace the future. Joanne Weiss, Secretary Arne Duncan’s Chief of Staff used to run Race to the Top. She explains why big money and national educational standards matter. Her explanation is cogent unless you consider the unintended consequences. Or, were they intended? It all depends upon your point of view.
As Congress is closing in on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it is more than a little curious how the political forces are aligned. There is speculation that President Obama may veto the final legislation. If he does, more of the same may stir even greater resistance, especially to the testing and accountability systems that are in place now. If, however, the new legislation makes it into law, have we lost a great opportunity to reach for the moon once again? As in any serious debate by serious people, there is likely truth on both sides of the issue.