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Erik Fresen Faces Prison Time
Remember Representative Fresen, whose sister Magdalena Fresen is Vice President of Academica, Florida’s largest for-profit charter management company? He term limited out of the legislature this year. His next step is to go to jail?
Ethics Florida Style: Go Directly to Jail
The buzz about Florida is that there is more self-interest than public interest than in any other state. Are such allegations warranted? Information is not difficult to find. The Center for Public Integrity ranked states on a corruption index in 2012. Florida was rated an ‘F’ on ethics enforcement agencies. It appears there are rules that are easy to bend and break.
Tax Credit Vouchers to Increase
SB 1314 and HB 15 increase the amount of money for tax credit scholarships to private schools from 80% of the per student funding to 88% for elementary, 92% for middle, and 96% for high schools. While the legislation tightens up the problem of private schools collecting funds for students not enrolled, it now allows funds to be transferred by debit cards. These scholarships are funded by personal or corporate tax credits in order to avoid the constitutional restriction on direct payments from the legislature to private schools.
This program is no gift to students. The program provides over $418 million dollars to 1602 private schools. There are over 78,000 FTC children enrolled in primarily religious schools. About one-half return to public schools. They have no requirements for teacher certifications or state assessments. They do not perform better academically than do public school students. Many do less well.
The program is advertised to give options to low income students, but low income is defined as less than $63,000 income for a family of four. Based on Florida Department of Education evaluation reports:
Students do not come primarily low achieving schools. They are not primarily students who struggle academically. They do not achieve at a higher rate than public school students. In fact, many do less well.
- FTC students sit a nationally normed achievement test. In the most recent DOE evaluation, ten percent of the students gained about twenty percentage points and thirteen percent lost twenty percentile points.
- Only 25% of FTC students came from public schools with a ‘D’ or ‘F’ school grade.
- Only 23% of FTC students were in the bottom fifth of their prior public school reading distribution.
Why is the State of Florida investing in this program? It surely is not to help children. Let your legislative delegation know these facts.
Don’t be fooled by the DOE: Charters bomb in Florida cities
Every year the Florida DOE compares charter vs. traditional public school performance. The report shows percentages of proficient students in each sector. Charters win, hands down in this report but not on reports from national research studies. Why is that?
- Charters enroll a lower percentage of students who qualify for Free and Reduced Lunch, disabilities and English Language Learners. Thus, given the correlation between income and achievement, charters should look better. In general they represent higher income families. See the Florida DOE chart below.
The achievement for Florida charters is dismal when compared to similar traditional public school (TPS) students. The DOE comparisons do not match students based on their test scores. The CREDO urban area study did. Look at the evidence for achievement gains, in 42 cities, between charters and traditional public school students when matched on their initial achievement levels and the amount gained three years later.
CREDO STUDY RESULTS: The picture for urban charters in Florida is not pretty. Based on results from Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Tampa and West Palm Beach:
- Charters in five of seven cities did worse than the TPS in reading. Miami and Tampa had small charter gains.
- Charters in three of seven cities did worse in math. One showed no difference; three (Jacksonville, Miami and Tampa) did slightly better than the TPS students.
Only in Jacksonville and Miami are student demographics similar between charters and TPS. In other cities, Florida charters generally enroll a lower percentage of students in poverty and with learning disabilities. It should be noted that in Miami, while there are similar numbers of students in poverty, the charter sector is largely Hispanic. This is generally not the case in most of the urban areas studied. No matter how you look at the comparisons, something is lacking in Florida’s charter sector.
Some U.S. city charters do remarkably better than the TPS e.g. Bay Area, Boston, Memphis, Newark, New Orleans, and New York City. Most cities do not. These gains are largest for low-income black students and Hispanic English language learners.
While the data from these cities are disputed by reliable sources, it is important to look at the charter sectors in these areas to see if and how they differ from those in other cities. For example, Boston has a limited and tightly controlled charter group. New York City charters are known to have high dismissal rates. What is happening in these charter successful cities? Who do they really serve?
Is the formula for successful charters to weed out students whom they cannot help? Should traditional public schools do the same? Where does this road lead? Want to find out? Read the blog tomorrow.
Massive Last Minute Education Bill Emerges
A new mega bill HB 7069 for education was released last night–278 pages long. It combined provisions from other bills. The funding is dismal; for most districts there will be less money next year. Local district capital outlay funds do not increase and must be shared with charters which seriously harms districts.
Other provisions impact teacher bonuses and scholarships and expansion of charter schools by taking over schools in low income areas without requiring district oversight.
Testing and accountability have minor changes–Algebra II EOC is no longer required and the testing window is pushed back by allowing paper and pencil test for grades 3-6. Districts may determine data for teacher evaluations.
Schools of Excellence and Schools of Hope are created. It seems as though current state regulations now apply only to schools earning a grade of ‘B’ or ‘C’. The others are granted flexibility. The logic is flawed there. The needs for the middle (or most students) are ignored.
For more detail, continue reading.
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- League Members visit the office of Senator Marco Rubio
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- League Members wait to see Senator Bill Nelson
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- Education Team at the Department of Education
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