HB 7123 Vote on Monday to Take Away Referendum Money

The move to give millions of dollars to charter schools from local referenda will affect Alachua County’s support for our public schools. Let Senator Perry know how you feel. Call his office…352-264-4040. Ask him to vote no on sharing local public school funds with privately owned and managed charter schools.

This bill affects all local districts who have passed funding measures.

Posted in Uncategorized.

One Comment

  1. The Big Picture For Opposing HB 7123:
    Voters agreed to raise their taxes in support of traditional public schools, not charter schools. What is at stake for students, teachers and schools if HB 7123 passes is the districts will be forced to cut more than $22 million from the 2019-2020 school year budget and turn that money over to charter entrepreneurs.

    In a recent study by the Network For Public Education found that up to $ 1 billion awarded by the federal government’s Charter School Program went to charter schools that never opened. The report reveals, “In Florida , of the some 500 schools getting federal grants, 184, 36% never opened or closed representing a loss of $34,781,736 in lost federal tax dollars.” This report is based on accounting from 2006 to 2014.

    Since then hundreds of millions more have been disbursed to charters by the grant program. During a recent congressional hearing , Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, who was there trying to increase the program’s budget to half a billion dollars annually, was asked to respond to the report from the Network For Public Education. I could not believe her dismissive vacuous stare when confronted with knowledge that the US Department of Education has been scammed for up to $ 1 billion awarded to charter schools that never opened or opened only for brief periods before being shut down for mismanagement, poor performance, lack of enrollment, and fraud. Her response, “You are always going to have schools that don’t make it.”

    In Florida, where an average of 20 charter schools close per year, state legislators continue to vote on legislation that enrich themselves and family members and no one cares! How much longer are the generous people of Florida going to vote to increase their taxes for traditional public schools only to have bills written by ALEC and supported by Jeb Bush and Betsy DeVos waste money on voucher programs and charter schools?

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.