LWVeducation
The final version of SB 7029, the charter school bill, took awhile to locate. Here it is! There is along list of provisions, some minor and some major. The highlights follow. They are easy to scan. Most do little damage. Some good things happened. Considering what could have been, we can put our energies toward making good things happen next year.
by Paula Dockery
Paula is a syndicated columnist and member of the Florida LWV Board. She wrote a column summarizing the Florida legislative session. I extracted her description of the process in developing education policy this year. I personally thought of it as a ping pong match. She uses the analogy of a train. This train kept criss crossing the tracks. Enjoy her description.
Legislation
The devil is often in the details, and this bill HB 830 Stargel has many provisions. In a nutshell, it requires better background checks and more transparency for charter providers. This is good, right? It also gives the State Board of Education the ability to authorize High Impact Charter Networks. Maybe this is not so good.
Charter providers in approved networks apply to districts, but if they are already authorized, is this simply smoke and mirrors? In a way, this is a mini version of the bill to amend the constitution to create a separate charter system. It takes away local control. The constitutional amendment will not make it to the ballot, but the High Impact Charter Networks are likely to become law. If I were a betting person, I would think this is another effort to attract and expand KIPP schools.
I have something positive to say about the Walton Foundation report on online charters. Yes, it is true that the Foundation has spent billions of dollars on school choice and launched many online charter schools. They decided to evaluate their investment, however, and the results were very disturbing.
I just saw a post from Diane Ravitch citing a New York Daily News report. Parents have organized against Success Academy Charter Schools in New York. I wondered when this lawsuit would happen. The charges include:
Are charter schools an emotional response by inner city low income families to long standing state funding inequities? A University of Virginia Law Review article addresses concerns that school funding inequities in Black urban areas lead to a tolerance of unfettered growth in charter schools.
The federal government support for charters also feeds the expansion without sufficient regulation. The net result may be a bubble and crash much like the recent financial crisis. What should be done to avoid a cataclysmic fall that could destroy communities?
Mother Jones summarizes the three practices that lead to serious mismanagement. I add a summary of the status Florida’s legislation to address these concerns.
Legal frameworks for charter districts plus the creation of the Florida Charter School Institute, move Florida toward a separate educational system from the traditional public school system.
This bill creates the Institute for Charter School Innovation, Charter School Collaborative Networks, High Impact Charter Networks and some greater transparency in the backgrounds of charter school service providers.
The Charter High Impact Charter Network is a structure similar to those in other states that are called takeover districts in low income areas whose public schools are turned into charters. These take over districts have been the source of significant community resistance and have a poor academic track record. The bill is sponsored by Representative Bob Cortes from Seminole and Orange Counties. HB 7029 School Choice will be heard in the House Education Appropriation Committee on Monday.
Major components of the bill are listed below. The provisions to revise the calculation of full time equivalence for online learning and credit for End of Course exams are in the bill but not included in this summary.
Michigan has raised standards for new teachers. Their teacher certification examination is more difficult. English, math and writing skills are set at the level expected for college bound high school students. Yet, the results of the first administration of the test are troubling.
Click to access new_charter_school_black_hole_report_oct_21_2015.pdf
Since expelling students is difficult in New York City, Success charters drive parents to withdraw their children. The suspension rates are reported to be between 4 and 23 percent at least once. Most schools suspend at least ten percent while public schools have a three percent suspension rate within a school year. Suspensions start as early as kindergarten.
The charters use other strategies to encourage some parents to withdraw children who find it difficult to adapt to rigid rules. Schools repeatedly call parents to pick up their children early. They may be counseled that the school is not a ‘good fit’ for their child. Staff may tell parents that students needed special education that the school could not provide. Some schools use 911 calls as a threat for children who misbehaves. One mother whose child was on the list said she did not know about it. She said, “He doesn’t hit kids, he doesn’t knock kids over, he doesn’t scream, he just talks too much.”
This whole notion that parents should be able to choose schools that ‘fit their children’ has serious consequences. The whole idea of a school where some children do not belong does not sound like a ‘public’ school. When schools become exclusionary communities, the sense of community is lost. With that loss, the problem is not contained just in a school.
The State of New Jersey took over Newark’s public schools in 1995. Fifteen years later, Newark schools were still struggling. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame, donated $100 million to the district in 2010. The Education Commissioner, Chris Cerf, had formerly served as deputy chancellor of New York’s schools. Prior to that he was president of Edison Schools Inc., a private for-profit management company that failed. He hired Cami Anderson, former head of Teach for America and New York’s District 79 at risk schools. What happened next is alarming. It could lead to something constructive.