Category Archives: Resegregation

The Florida League Speaks About the Assault on Public Education

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The Florida Sun Sentinel just published this article written by the co-presidents and Education Chair of the Florida League of Women Voters. When the Board speaks, you know there is reason for everyone to be concerned. There is a “Deliberate assault on public education and minorities” by our legislature.

What appears to be regular school operations — adopting instructional materials from state-approved book lists, updating standards and reviewing library and classroom materials — is anything but routine. Behind the scenes, political operatives (our legislators) are busily transforming Florida’s public education system from an institution committed to educating all students to their fullest potential, to one where racism saturates the very core of instructional practices, where only white children will be respected and encouraged.

There are deliberate and systematic efforts to use Florida’s public education system to undermine
Black and brown marginalized populations. Consider the evidence:

  1. Approving the African American History Strand in Florida’s 2023 Social Studies Standards that includes numerous false narratives. One particularly troublesome to historians is the curriculum guide’s statement that children will learn “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Another teaches students that some racially motivated massacres were “perpetrated against and by African Americans.” Forbidding accurate history by banning school lessons that make people “uncomfortable” about the actions of their forefathers. History will be whitewashed. White children cannot learn about or discuss their ancestors’ wrongdoings.

  2. Retracting AP African American History for students because the governor thinks it “lacks value and historical accuracy,” again keeping Florida’s students from truthful accounts.
    Eliminating programs dedicated to achieving diversity, equity or inclusion. These further one’s ability to communicate and collaborate with individuals from different backgrounds, show empathy, or recognize personal biases. Elimination implies minorities don’t have to be understood or respected.

  3. Mandating removal of books from classrooms and school libraries discussing the cultures of nonwhite persons. When literature recounting experiences faced by marginalized groups is unavailable, their challenges can be minimized or even trivialized.

  4. Removing Social Emotional Learning (SEL) from Florida’s approved curricula, a program that develops self-awareness and resilience, thus improving marginalized persons’ chances to succeed.
    Considered individually, each of these minority-targeted restrictions might be seen as simply ill-conceived. But in their totality, they are better understood as a deliberate assault on goals of public schools and minority children attending them, who represent 64% of Florida’s public-school population. We must ask: What happens when a state builds its public-school system on a foundation of racist misrepresentations?

  5. When possibilities are blocked, despair and distrust can replace optimism. With DEI training banned, teachers know less about the experiences and culture of minority populations that would facilitate positive interactions. Cultural misunderstanding abounds, and Black students, representing only 22% of public-school enrollment in 2019-2020, comprised 37% of in-school suspensions and are disproportionately subject to out-of-school suspensions and expulsions.
    Although legislation denied their children culturally relevant literature, parents may have believed that history lessons would compensate and introduce their children to powerful minority role models who fought for justice. But textbook publishers have revised their content to satisfy Florida’s efforts to whitewash history. The 2023 Social Studies Standards omit Florida’s role in slavery. They mention racism and prejudice but not Floridians’ Jim Crow laws. Concerned about public schools’ treatment of their children, many African American parents are transferring their children out of public schools, accountable for student achievement, and into private schools not answerable to Florida’s Department of Education. In 2023, 47% of Florida’s private school attendees were minority students; more than 33% of these were of African American descent.

  6. Racist public-school legislation is also economically costly for many public-school children, their communities and the state. Marginalized public-school students whose families have taught them honest history, rejecting ideas that slavery wasn’t so bad or that their ancestors were partly to blame for the 1920 massacre in Ocoee, won’t be motivated to learn from texts that are irrelevant or untruthful, where characters don’t look like them or where experiences depicted bear little resemblance to their own lives, and this will have a cascading effect.

  7. Many of these students will be unprepared for standardized tests based on these racist standards, triggering reductions in Florida’s public-school ratings and declines in home values. Fewer minority Floridians will seek advanced degrees, thus diminishing talent pools for critical jobs, dissuading businesses from Florida. They won’t be motivated to vote, believing it would just further empower their oppressors, or know the potential power of their vote to strip racism from public schools. They will not believe that losing their right to vote will make any difference in their lives. Through truthful history and literature, they will learn otherwise. This is what we must teach.

Cecile M. Scoon and Debbie Chandler serve as co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of Florida. Jill Lewis-Spector serves as the organization’s second vice president and statewide education chair.

The New Republic Checks Out Florida’s Byron Donalds

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Byron Donalds hit the media spotlight when he was suggested as the conservative alternative to Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of the House. He is a relative newcomer to Washington D.C. In Florida, however, he and his wife Erika are well known in the conservative Christian charter school movement. Is he, as the New Republic speculates, the future star of the Florida Republican Party? You can read about him here.

I am quoted in the article. I have been following the Donalds’ for several years because they helped found the Classical Academies in Florida. It is worth knowing the people behind the attacks on Florida’s public schools. It helps to understand the strategies behind the vouchers, charters, and religious ideologies that seek to divide our communities.  Donalds offers the viewpoint of the only Black member of the Freedom Caucus.

Florida Legislators at Work….For Themselves

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Remember when the three Jefferson County schools were closed and taken over by Academica, the largest for-profit charter management company in the state?  The story makes your hair curl.  Here is a report by WLRN news that details where the money came from and where it went. Find out how Academica works and how the students fared.

New funding included a $2.5 million special appropriation from the Florida Legislature, $2 million from federal startup grant funds, and a $1.9 million interest free loan from Academica’s Somerset division.  This was funding denied unless it became a charter district. Academica received $327,000 in fees in 2017-18 to manage the fewer than 800 student K12 school.  The per student cost rose to $16,600 which school leaders recognize cannot be sustained.  The state pays much less.

The behind the scenes orchestrators for the takeover were Senators Manny Diaz and Anitere Flores, both of whom have close ties to Academica. Diaz is an administrator at Doral College and is Chair of the Senate Education Committee.  Flores is deputy Majority Leader for the Florida Senate and moved from being the head of Doral College to the Academica foundation.  The current Doral College president, Rodriquez,  was named to supervise the transition of the Jefferson County schools to Academica.

In previous posts, I reported on a series of misdeeds associated with Diaz and Flores related to their association with Doral College.  The college was bankrupt and had no students or faculty when Academica took it on.  It now offers online courses to Academica students.  The credit was worthless because the college had no accreditation.  Diaz worked to get a private school accreditation agency to recognize the college.  Diaz’s personal interest is noted here.  

What is the result of the takeover?  Behavioral specialists were hired to help students, teacher salaries increased, and the physical facilities were improved. Initially, the school grades rose to a ‘C’, but the elementary school has now reverted to a ‘D’.  The increase in the percentage of students passing the FSA state examinations in order to raise the school grades may have had as much to do with discipline policies as with learning strategies.  The charter school policy created a 45 day suspension policy in which students were given a laptop and sent home.  They were to take online classes from Doral College.  Many students never returned.  It is one way to raise school grades…just limit which students take the tests.

There is no question that the years of neglect in Jefferson County created the abysmal schools.  Parents who could, mostly white, had left for private schools or for schools in nearby Leon County.  Those few students who remained had the greatest needs and the fewest resources.  No doubt some students and their families were grateful for the influx of new funding for the charter district, but it cannot last.    

This is the result of a choice system in which racial and economic segregation flourishes as described in ‘Tough Choices‘, a report sponsored by the Leroy Collins Institute at Florida State University.  It has happened in other Florida cities.  It is the dark side of a choice system that favors some at the expense of others.

 

The Achievement Gap Discussion We Seldom Have

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How we see ourselves has so much to do with our willingness to dream. All the hoopla about various forms of equity fall short if children feel hope does not apply to them. What may make a real difference to children is the sense that they belong to a successful group. School grades, however, create winners and losers. Take away school grades and it becomes possible to have real integration, not only by race and economic class but also by academic achievement. Unfortunately, with school grades, ‘A’ school parents are worried their children might suffer if lower achieving students enroll. The ‘A’ grade will fall even if their children have the same courses and teachers.

Richard Rothstein studies this issue. In an article published by the Economic Policy Institute entitled Revived Debate Over School Busing Highlights Deepening Racial Segregation, Rothstein begins with Kamala Harris’ statement in the presidential debate: “That child was me”. She is now running for president, and she was bused to school as a child. Is there a causal link? Read Rothstein’s article. How we see ourselves has so much to do with our own notion of what we can and cannot do.

My school district has passed a large facilities building program. It has instituted a strong equity program. Will it also consider alternative routes to achieve a better racial and economic balance in our schools? Housing patterns make this difficult but not impossible. Real change in achievement takes a commitment to a sense of belonging for all children. It is a difficult road, but maybe the best goal over the long run.

What We Know and are Afraid to Hear

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“Fixing” education solutions run the gamut…except for the basic issue which is segregation. Most students are segregated by race, economic status and test scores in cities even though all students must have access to high quality programs in schools with diverse enrollments in order to succeed.

New York City has tackled the issue based a new study released by the School Diversity Advisory Group. The angst in the city is palpable, but the determination to reduce segregation is real. Gifted and talented programs will no longer be targeted to the top 4% of elementary students. These children were identified by test scores when they were four years old. Admissions to kindergarten, middle and high schools based on scores also will be reexamined.

The October 2019 issue of the Atlantic includes an article titled: The Culture Wars Devours the Children written by George Packer. Packer is a parent and well known author who shares progressive values but questions the zeal with which they are being implemented in NYC. He recognizes the value of project based education, but he is concerned about political ideologies from the right or left that are imposed upon all students.  Carol Burris, CEO of the Network for Public Education and Leonie Haimson from Class Size Matters discuss the NYC integration plan in NPE’s new weekly radio broadcast called Talk Out of School.

Alachua County Schools in Florida have recognized this equity problem. They have taken some steps to broaden participation in magnet schools and offer advanced learning programs for a broader range of students. It is a step in the right direction to remove labels from students and improve school culture. There is always concern that too much integration will compel more parents to resort to charter and private schools which are prone to increase segregation.

Parents recognize that the stakes are too high when a child’s future is dependent upon test scores in preschool. Parents worry that education opportunity has become so competitive that minor differences in talent and achievement loom large. The problem is real for all families. It is time to listen to the whispers and make our voices heard.

“An incisive and devastating critique of the Bush A+ Plan”

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You have to tell it like it is, especially when so many people have so much money invested in a failing education reform policy. Read the summary of the report: Twenty Years Later: Jeb Bush’s A+ Plan fails Florida’s Children posted by Diane Ravitch. Find out the hard truth about the impact of the A+ Plan on student achievement, school grades, teaching, and communities. Insist on an end to policies that seek to destroy public schools and rob children of a high quality education.

School Discipline Policies: Helpful, Hurtful, Both?

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Do out-of-school suspensions help or hurt school climate? Are student discipline problems getting worse or better? Betsy DeVos has eliminated the Obama era policies of federal oversight of discipline policies that may impact some student groups more than others. She charges that the Obama policies that are intended to reduce inequitable discipline practices have made problems worse. When teachers are afraid to refer students to the principal, and schools are afraid to suspend students acting in a dangerous way, are school classrooms becoming a ‘free for all zone’? Some teachers may think so. Others claim that minority students are often subjected to harsher penalties than white students for the same offenses. Suspending students, moreover, may simply make student problems worse. It is a conundrum.

There is a report: School-safety that addresses these concerns and the need for more attention to factors within and outside of schools that impact student safety. There are best practices identified from which states and local district are urged to select those that fit their circumstances.

One has to wonder if this data driven educational system based on student test scores and a ‘test and punish’ mentality is also at fault. Students’ schools are labeled as failing or near failing; so are the students themselves. Even students who are achieving at grade level may feel alienated when they do not qualify for a particular magnet program or other selective program. Students feeling tense, left out, and inadequate may well act out.

Some parents opt out of local schools only to find that they enter into a separate system of schools where take it or leave it policies prevail. What they are forced to put up with in many charter and private schools has little to do with student achievement. Discipline and discrimination, moreover, may be even more rigid and arbitrary. These schools have everything to do with which kids get in, which do not and who gets kicked out. There is a better way, a more equitable way, where students and parents from diverse backgrounds feel a sense of belonging. These schools exist. How can we create more of them?

Florida Twenty Years Later: Social Impact of Privatization

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The fourth piece “Twenty Years Later: The SociaI Impact of Privatizaton” covers resegregation and the result of the ‘separate but equal’ philosophy governing school choice. Separate is not equal. You can read it here.

For your convenience, I have included the links to the first three articles below.

The third piece: “Twenty years later: Who Benefits, Not Schools!” covers the impact of choice policies on civil rights, funding, local vs. state control, and accountability. One might ask: Who benefits in a system that generates so much conflict? Politicians and profiteers, but not the public may well be the answer. Read it here.

Here is Part 2 of the series I did for Diane Ravitch on where the lack of common rules governing charter and private schools leads. The simple answer is profiteering, corruption and charter school closures.

The first post “Florida Twenty Years Later: Undermining Public Schools” covers the false assumptions behind the choice movement i.e. choice saves money and spurs innovation. What really has happened the last twenty years to school facilities, teachers, and the learning process that demonstrate Florida schools are nearing a crisis? You can read it here.

Florida Gets an ‘F’ on Support for Public Education

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Public education is about the value and necessity of providing equal access to high quality education. As public funds get diverted to private schools and entrepreneurs, the public school system gets more and more fractured. There is less money as cost inefficiencies mount. More communities are fractured by race, income, and academic programs. In areas where privatization is dominant, parents must search for a school to accept their children. If transportation is a problem, as it often is, they may not have good choices because available schools may be segregated racially, economically and/or by achievement levels. They may not even have a way to evaluate the quality of the available options.

By design, no one really knows much about where the money is spent and what is happening in privately operated schools. Parents who question are invited to withdraw their children. Children who do not ‘fit in’ are invited to leave. There are people in leadership positions for whom children can be ploys in policies to implement a political and/or religious agenda. Proponents celebrate their successes without regard for the children they exclude, dismiss or serve poorly. Parents learn this the hard way.

Most private schools are openly religious. Many charters are covertly supporting particular religious orientations e.g. those housed in religious facilities or that espouse a particular set of ‘Christian or other values’.

Many charters and private schools do not support children with special needs or who are learning English as a second language.

The Schott Foundation and the Network for Public Education analyzed data to assess support for public education in each state. Overall, Florida received an ‘F’. You can see state-by-state results here.
The criteria include:
1. Types and extent of school privatization
2. Civil rights protection of students in private school voucher and charter programs
3. Accountability, regulations and oversight
4. Transparency of voucher and charter programs
5. Other charter school accountability issues

Florida’s low grade is due several factors:
1. It has the most school privatization of all states.
2. Students receiving vouchers and tax-credit scholarships are not required to participate in the state testing or teacher certification programs. Private schools are not required to be accredited. Thus, most are small religious schools of unknown quality. Private schools are also exempt from federal civil rights protection. Children can be denied admission or expelled for any reason.

What would improve accountability?
1. Comparable pubic and private school student achievement measures.
2. Transparency in how money is spent for charter and voucher ESE students by individual schools.
3. Comparable attrition and discipline measures for public, charter and private schools.
4. Public accountability of spending by charter management firms.
5. Stronger provisions to avoid conflict of interest between charter board members and management companies.
6. Return school facilities to the public if charters close.

District-Charter Compacts

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This is worth more than a glance.  You can see the impact or lack thereof, of a Gates Foundation program to improve collaboration between districts and charters.  The evaluation of this effort gives specific examples based on 23 District charter collaborations  formed across the nation since 2011.  The Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) report cited what was and was not accomplished and why.

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