CRC Amendment 8

Erika Donalds, the founder of the alternative school board association has formed a political action committee to support her conservative religious reform agenda in education. She calls it ‘8 is Great’. Indian River School Board member Shawn Frost and Duval School Board member Scott Shine have joined the PAC according to the Tampa Bay Times.

There is a story behind this group. You can read it here. Donalds is a public advocate for

Amendment 8 combines proposals for school board term limits with a requirement for civics literacy and independent schools. Term limits and independent schools are Donald’s proposals. Commissioner Pam Stewart has reservations about both. Removing local school board control over the establishment of charter schools goes too far, she said. Patricia Levesque, CEO of Jeb Bush’s education foundation supports the proposal.

Former Senate President Don Gaetz proposed civics literacy even though civics is already required for Florida students. His rationale was that future legislators might want to remove civics education from the curriculum.

There seems to be no good reason for any of these proposals. They are clearly the agenda of a narrow group of people seeking to destroy public education in favor of private and religious schools along with profit seeking charters. Maybe the motto should be? 8 NOT great!

Leon County: Latest Charter Battleground

Some things are just inane. Leon County schools are over enrolled, but the State will not approve a new school. It is all about how space is now counted by the legislature. Should a gym count as a classroom??

What is so disgusting is that the State would allow two new charter schools in the area that the Leon County schools do not want. The reason is clear. Charters syphon off funding and hurt existing schools. Read Roseanne Wood’s op ed here. It is time to stop this. There is not enough money to support private, charter, and public schools. Our constitution says “a unified system of free public schools’. This is anything but unified and for many, not even free.

What are Parents’ Real Choices with Schools?

Do Floridians want one school system that is equitable or several, each with its own rules? In today’s Gainesville Sun, the League asks three critical questions to help parents decide which choice to make for their schools: Who pays?, Who is in control?, and What does it matter? In an expanded system of choice, local voters are asked to pay more than the State to compensate for less funding and cost inefficiency due to expanded choices. Go to a charter and pay more in hidden fees and transportation. Go private and select a cheap school or pay the difference in tuition. Go public and worry the funding may not fix the air conditioning.

The State and private education management companies take control away from locally elected school boards. Parents lose their voices in how choice schools are owned and managed. “Don’t like it, then leave” is the response to complaints.

All of this matters. Schools are becoming more segregated by income and student ability while our nation is becoming more diverse. Student achievement stays flat in our choice system. The reason is clear; students learn better when they learn together. Isolate poor children, and they feel they have no stake in the system. Isolate high income children, they don’t learn the real world skills needed to be successful. The kids in the middle disappear; no one is thinking about them.

Students who learn only in like minded groups will be ill prepared for the diverse world in which they will work. Learning to live together starts in schools. The real choice is whether we value the diverse world in which we live or try to escape it by creating mini school clusters of like minded people. You can read the article here. It comes out under our local president’s name.

Compare the Policies: This is a real choice

The Florida House passed its version of HB7055. The Senate version has the same bill number but different content. It is moving forward. Compare the two versions.

Private School Expansion. Both legislative chambers would expand the corporate tax credit scholarships to students who could demonstrate they were bullied or otherwise harassed. Tax credits on new car sales would fund these private school scholarships, but the House would allow $105 per sale and the Senate would provide an option for buyers to donate $20 per sale. The Senate also proposes stronger fiscal audits and background checks for private schools and would raise standards for teachers who now are not required to have baccalaureate degrees from accredited colleges and universities.

Charter School Expansion. The House proposes converting public schools to privately managed charters and organizes charter school districts. These charters have governing boards appointed by private charter companies. The Senate proposes district-run charters that allow districts a more level playing field. Public school districts could be freed of stringent facility and staffing regulations, as charters currently are. Locally elected school boards, however, retain the responsibility of district-run charters.
In a long awaited move, the Senate bill takes aim at charter school profiteering. It prohibits financial enrichment by charter school owners and managers and their associated real estate companies. Charter school buildings that receive state funding for supplemental services must be transferred to a district, governmental entity, college or university if the charter closes.

Support for Low Performing Students. The House bill awards $400 per student who fails the third grade English Language Arts exam. Additional services would be funded by sales tax revenue. Families would be on their own to find a private tutor or other instructional materials. The Senate creates Hope Supplemental Services as part of current educational funding to school districts. These services provide $2000 per student for tutorial and after school programs as well as student and parent counseling and nutrition education. In addition, the Senate proposes an intensive mental health program be initiated in public schools.

Yes, the Senate threw a bone to the House by including a small amount of funding for the ‘bully bill’, but on balance, it is a much better bill. It gives districts control of charters that it decides to create. It puts meaningful control on charter profiteering. It supports struggling students in low performing public schools.

There is more to come. Watch for the House Ways and Means bill HB7087. They will continue to try to get more money to the private sector. The bill creates the Florida Sales Tax Credit Program. This is all a prelude for the November 2018 election when the pro choice advocates will attack the Florida Constitution to allow vouchers.

The BIG Questions: What Choice Really Means

The Florida House and Senate will negotiate over how school systems can be either publicly or privately run or a combination of the two. They call this ‘district flexibility’, and it raises four BIG questions.

In the House version, HB7055, public schools will be run by privately managed charter districts, if they so choose. In the Senate version, SB2508, school districts will continue to be overseen by elected school boards, but individual public schools may be converted to charters managed by district school boards.

This district flexibility is PHASE TWO of the movement to privatize public schools. The major components include changes in the quality control for buildings and staff, funding for services for struggling students, and control of curriculum. There will not be much more money for schools, but differences in how the two chambers pay for schools are important.

WILL THE LEGISLATURE CHOOSE:

  1. cheap school buildings for some? If the K12 School Code is revoked, as proposed, there will be no standard for school construction. It will be legal for all schools, not just charters or private schools, to be in strip malls, abandoned buildings or in palaces with superb labs and auditoriums for the lucky.

  2. lower qualifications for teachers and principals? In response to teacher shortages, the House revokes union contracts for salaries, benefits, or working conditions. In the Senate version, teachers are district employees, but their pay and hours are determined by principals. To fill vacancies, teacher certification allows individual schools to mentor and qualify teachers. The House bill introduced the term ‘manager’ instead of principal. Both houses allow one principal to supervise more than one school.

  3. schools that choose which students they wish to serve? Proposed House legislation gives funding for struggling students to parents, not schools, and it broadens eligibility for tax credit scholarships. All scholarship programs are consolidated under Step Up for Students, the private entity that now administers private school scholarships. The Senate proposals fund schools to support struggling children, and schools converted to charters must serve the neighborhood children.

  4. religious instruction in all schools? Current bills to allow districts to exceed curriculum standards and introduce religious beliefs and ideological economic theories into schools (SB966). Some charters already blur the distinction between secular and non secular schools. They are located in church facilities, or they advertise ‘Christian or other ethnic values’.

In November 2018, voters will vote on changes to Florida’s constitution to implement PHASE THREE. Will barriers be removed to direct funding of private schools and teaching religion in public schools? This what school choice is all about. Do companies and churches run schools and parents do the best they can to find a school that will accept their children? Do you relax standards in order to save money? The League position is clear; we support free, high quality public schools for all children, and these schools are run by locally elected school boards.

Good News Bills to Improve Florida Education

Some legislators are truly focused on improving the management and oversight of Florida’s schools. Three cheers to each of them. Here’s a brief description of bills related to charters, capital outlay funding, ethics, early childhood education and community schools.

CHARTERS
SB 1690 Farmer. Requires principals and chief financial officers of charters to have valid third party certification. Given the importance of principals in schools’ success, it is important that principals have knowledge of educational issues, instructional strategies, operations, funding, and management. Top Priority Support

SB 1672 Farmer. This bill gives districts the discretion to share local discretionary capital outlay funding with charters rather than requiring districts to do so. It also requires charter financing companies to have at least an A- rating, and the right of eminent domain does not apply to charters.
These provisions are important. The discretionary capital outlay issue is part of the lawsuit over the local control of districts to operate public schools. Millions of dollars of local funding will now go to privately owned charter schools. Florida’s charter closure rate is the highest in the nation with at least 300 closed. The buildings are retained by the private owners.

Charter bond ratings are at risk because many have low initial payments at high interest and large balloon payments at the end.

HB 6047 Charter Schools Newton, Berman. Repeals certain capital outlay funding for lab schools. Deletes provisions stating charter schools are eligible for capital outlay funding and that Schools of Hope are considered charter schools and may not use capital outlay for purchasing facilities. Top Priority Support

ETHICS
SB 1750 Rodriguez. Ethics. Prohibits public officials from voting on bills that inure financial gain to themselves and related others. The legislature had changed the ethics rules to allow members to vote on bills on which they could benefit if they disclosed their interest and if the bill affected a ‘class’ e.g. a group of people rather than the legislator alone. Top Priority Support

EARLY CHILDHOOD
HB 1297 Brown. The bill strengthens early childhood programs by terminating those with repeated citations. High Priority Support

COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
HB 4331 Community Partnership Schools. This is an appropriations bill to support the University of Central Florida’s community partnership schools for $2,930,570. UCF is the partner with the Children’s Home Society community schools that bring wrap around services, after school programs, and parental education programs to public schools it sponsors in collaboration with local agencies and businesses. There are nine schools statewide that are being expanded to 17 public schools. Additional information to track this bill is located here.

Games CRC Plays: It is dark behind doors, not sunny.

The CRC is making its own rules. According to CRC member Erika Donalds, the CRC operates like the legislature; it does not follow the Sunshine law. If they want to speak together secretly, they do so. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who sits on the CRC, stated that she personally does not engage in one-on-one talks with other commissioners.

Politico has taken an interest in the behind the scenes discussions about Erika Donalds proposals to amend the Florida constitution. Procedural issues continue plague the operation of the CRC which can invalidate the CRC proposals. Her proposals would end school board salaries, impose term limits, require appointed superintendents, and promote funding for private schools, and strip charter school authorization authority from local school boards.

Donalds is the Collier County School Board member who helped organize her own school board association, separate from the Florida School Boards Association. The membership of this alternative group has ties to a charter school chain operated by a private religious college in Michigan. She and her husband, Representative Byron Donalds, were founding board members of Mason Classical Academy charter in Collier County. Donalds has filed for a second charter. Shawn Frost, who is part of this group, has announced he will not seek reelection to the Indian River school board. It seems he expects to be appointed to the Florida State Board of Education.

How many HB 7069 lawsuits are there?

There are three. All cases are yet to be decided.

Single Subject Case. Alachua et al vs. Corcoran. In a 4 to 3 decision, the Florida Supreme Court, citing the time sensitive nature of the case, referred the case back to the Leon County Circuit Court. This is the case that nine districts file that claimed HB 7069 violated the single subject rule. There is no way that HB 7069 pertains to a single subject. It was framed just before the end of the legislative session by rolling as many different bills into one as possible. It’s another one of those mega bills that had no committee hearings and public input. Even though the issue is time sensitive, the Court did not mandate, it suggested, that the case be heard quickly.

Local District Control. Palm Beach school district lawsuit over the constitutionality of the HB 7069 requirement to share low district facility revenue with charters will be heard in circuit court.

Multi Issue Lawsuit. Alachua et al v. Fl. DOE. This complaint, which is yet to be heard, includes 1) sharing local discretionary capital outlay funds with charters 2) Schools of Hope that operate outside of local district control 3) charter systems as their own LEA 4) standard charter contract with no local input 5) restrict district authority to allocate Title I funds and 6) restricts district authority to allocate funds to meet needs of certain schools with low performing students.

Scott Cites Budget Surplus

Once again there are promises on the table. As last year, Governor Scott’s budget calls for education funding increases. He would push for a $200 per child funding increase and increased revenue from property taxes. Will anything come of it?

The battle in the legislature will be over privatization once again. Proposed changes to the Florida constitution would eliminate the separation of church and state and expand vouchers. Charter school districts would create a separate school system. Expansion of who can approve new charter schools beyond elected school boards would create a back room bargaining network that would be impossible to manage.

Class sizes will continue to grow as limits disappear in proposed legislation from the Bush Foundation’s Patricia Levesque. Just think, the legislative session has not even begun, and we already are shaking our heads in disbelief. Governor Scott has a projected budget surplus with which to bargain. Let’s hope it will not be the Faustian bargain it was last year.