Budget Bills Clash: Holding Schools Hostage

It is Thursday.  According to reports, the Senate and House must convene their conference committees by Monday if they hope to finish the legislative session by May 5th.  Negotiations between House Leader Richard Corcoran and Senate President Joe Negron fell apart Sunday.  Now they are calling one another names.  What is at issue?

Reports in the Miami Herald and the Tampa Bay Times see it this way:

 

 

 

 

 

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Action Alert Today

It is time to to swing into action!

CONTACT YOUR SENATORS

Support SB 1552.  This bill helps to recruit highly qualified teachers and to fund districts to provide community support services for struggling public schools.  It maintains local district responsibility for our schools and requires accountability.

Oppose SB 796.  This is the High Impact Charter Organization bill.  It would turn public schools over to private corporations to run turn around schools.  These charters have high student attrition rates in other states.  The bill is basically the same as the House bill for Schools of Hope.  The bill exempts teachers and administrators from certification, requires districts to share space in under enrolled or closed district schools with private companies, gives five year contract to private, non profit charter management firms, and designs a performance measure rather than school grades for accountability.

 

 

 

Testing Bill Train is Forming

SB 926 (Flores) is moving down the road.  The bill still removes all but the Algebra I and Biology End of Course exam requirements for high schools. It provides for a study to find alternative nationally normed tests for these exams.  The ELA and math state assessments are moved to the last three weeks of the year.  Then, the bill gets more complicated.  It gets more and more difficult to figure out what is in the bill.  Additional baggage has been added to make this a train bill:

 

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A Step in the Right Direction

Have you ever been in a maze and had trouble finding the exit?  Tracking bills through the legislative process is like that.  Well, it is even worse because some bills get lost and others change their identity.  I tried to check on the Best and Brightest bills.   SB 1552 is no longer just about teacher recruitment bonuses.  It is also about school improvement.  But, school improvement used to be about Schools of Hope.  Forget all the old bill numbers; it is time to start anew.  Here’s what happened:

Senator Simmons filed an amendment to his Best and Brightest teacher recruitment bill SB 1552.  The bill incorporates many of the provisions in House bill 796 and broadens eligibility for scholarships.  It adds college level tests and grade point averages etc. to those high school SAT and ACT scores that seemed such a bizarre way to select and reward teachers.  The new bills are not perfect but are an improvement.  They could help make teaching a more attractive option in this time of teacher shortages.  At least the bill provides multiple and diverse ways to qualify for salary bonuses.

Yesterday, SB 1552 changed again.  Senator Simmons filed another amendment to insert some School Improvement language from HB 5105.   The League was unhappy with HB 5105 last week.  It promoted Schools of Hope that took control of struggling schools away from districts.  Pulling students out of the district simply weakens all schools.

Senator Simmons’ amendment not only eliminates Schools of Hope funding, it maintains district control.  It provides support and flexibility that has long been needed.  Schools receiving grades below a “C” will have turn around support that includes:

  • An additional  hour of instruction.
  • Wrap around community support services provided by a non-profit entity that includes health services, after school programs, drug prevention, college and career readiness and food and clothing banks.
  • Principal autonomy mostly in the curriculum.

Traditional public schools that fail to improve after three years of intensive support still face a choice to either reassign students, close the school and reopen as a charter, or contract either as a conversion charter school or with an outside agency to run the school.

 SB 1552 addresses two crucial needs.  The first is to attract more teachers to Florida’s schools who are beginning to feel the teacher shortage.  The second is to help districts receive the resources and support to make a difference in schools that are struggling.
We can all wish that more could be done, but this bill is the beginning of a break through.  The Senate is addressing the problems that districts face and providing support rather than wresting away control.  It does not assume that the private sector can somehow ‘do it better’ when the evidence has repeatedly shown it does not.
 Sometimes there simply is not a straight line to the exit.  Hopefully, the exit leads to a better place.
 

 

 

Be Aware: Don’t be shut out

Why are the House and Senate education committees operating differently this year?  There has been relatively little discussion about differences in the policies offered by each chamber.  All of a sudden, bills in the Senate have replaced House  bills.  There are no committee hearings open to the public on these changes.  Instead, the House and Senate bills go to the conference committee that includes leaders from each chamber.  They negotiate the final bills in secret.

The Miami Herald published an article questioning this approach.  They are skeptical that any real input from the public will be heard.

The differences in policy have huge financial impact.  For example:

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Horse Trading Time

The House and the Senate are at the horse trading part of the session.  The Senate bills by and large are supportive of public schools (except for SB 796).  The House bills support charter school expansion.   Both chambers are concerned with struggling schools.  The House wants to shift these schools to the private sector.  Senate bills focus on making it possible for public schools to improve.

Remember our Action Alert on 5101, 5103 and 5105? Everything is now different.   Some things are better, at least for now.  Here’s the latest:

 

 

 

 

 

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Be Happy Today

Last night, SB 376 (Simmons) replaced HB 5103.  The amended version of SB 376 by Senator Farmer had all we hoped for.  It inserted language that gave districts’ discretion on whether to share local facility capital outlay with charters.  It controlled the mismanagement and self enrichment due to charter real estate practices.

Now the bill goes to the conference committee to negotiate with the House.  Will SB 376 survive?  Who knows.  Be happy today.

Money, money. Who gets it?

Wednesday the House (HB 5001) and Senate (SB 2500) budgets are aired.  They are very different when it comes to education.  Money for school facilities is at the heart of the issue.

The House bill provides $100 million dollars for about 650 charter school facilities and $20 million for the over 4,000 public schools.  The Senate bill provides $75 million each for public and charter schools.  Remember that charters are called public schools, but their buildings are privately owned.

The priority of the House is to expand charters.  Originally, charters were intended to be low-cost alternatives to meet Florida’s population growth, and the need, at that time, for more schools.  Now, nearly forty percent of charters are run by for-profit companies that make most of their money from real estate.  Rents and leases often are excessive.  The House wants local districts to share local funds with charters, and they want more state PECO funds to go to charters.

There is very little PECO money.  The funding sources are drying up.  The Senate wants to float bonds.  The House does not.  Where will the House get the money for these privately owned facilities charters use?  It wants to take over public school facilities.  See this News4Jax article for more insight.

Some charters fill a legitimate need.  Too many simply duplicate what public schools offer.  Instead of putting money into real estate, the legislature should put money into instruction.  Schools need to offer extended days and summer programs.  They need funding to improve aging schools.  They do not need charters whose only purpose is to make money.

 

 

Increase FSA passing standards?

Senate bill SB 926 contains a phrase that changes the name of the level 3 on the FSA from ‘satisfactory’ to ‘proficient’.  What does that mean?  Amendment # 351834 was filed to find out.

It asks the Commissioner of Education to study achievement levels and their relationship to student performance and success.  The Commissioner is charged to recommend changes in the meaning of the achievement levels to the Governor and the Speaker, the President of the Senate and the State Board of Education by July 2018.

This is the procedure that is required in existing law to change performance standards on the FSA.  It has been tried before.  What would the approximate impact be?

 

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