The whole education mess in Florida is out of control now. It should be the other way around. Public schools should be well-funded as more is demanded of them. The state should not be giving charter schools more money while requiring less of them.

This is a long article about a Florida high school that is considering becoming a charter. It's a good read, but there are a few short paragraphs that tell the whole story of how quickly the public schools are being dismantled in this state.

I call it chaos.

The three paragraphs that tell it all:

Group Seeks to Make LHS Charter School

Conversations about the change began in April, according to Tracy Collins, LHS's principal. Collins said Friday morning some of the reasons for the charter status include:



Academic freedom for the teachers; State financial benefits that charter status provides; Elimination of zoning issues for the athletic programs at the school.

The first one...academic freedom for the teachers.

I have a few things to say about that. For years now teachers in public schools have been forced into scripted teaching, lesson planning that must be perfect and follow every detail of some ever-changing philosophy. It has been a forced change, one that many teachers are just now beginning to understand may have a larger purpose....forced failure.

And get this...now they want to give teachers "academic freedom" by turning schools into charter schools so they don't have to follow the rules that have become so unbending.

It will be interesting to see which teachers remain after the change to charter is made. Will their union still be representing them? Will the older teachers be urged to retire? Will the teachers really have more freedom or will the operators be freer to make staff changes?

The next one....State financial benefits that charter status provides.



That is quite true. Florida's Rick Scott Republicans have changed the laws so much that it is more profitable to be a charter than to be a traditional public school.

Some examples:

Traditional public schools in Florida will get no money from the state this year for additions or needed repairs to thousands of aging buildings, but charter schools will score big.



All of the state cash budgeted for school construction and maintenance is going to the independent, tax-financed charters favored by the Republican-dominated Legislature and Gov.Rick Scott. The charter school operated for children of employees of The Villages, the Republican stronghold in north Lake County frequented by Scott and former President George W. Bush, is expected to receive about $1 million. School district officials across Florida are bemoaning the Legislature's decision to cut traditional public schools out of PECO — the Public Education Capital Outlay program. The state's 350 charter schools will share $55 million, while the approximately 3,000 traditional schools will go without. Charters get $55 million for upkeep, other schools get zero



Not just the 55 million for upkeep and construction, there is more. Thirty million dollars will go toward making it easier to expand charter schools in the state. Part of that is Race to the Top money.

It's getting easier and easier to open charter schools in Florida. State lawmakers did their part by easing the rules to start and maintain charters by amending the laws in the spring. Now the Department of Education has joined with a non-profit venture capital group to put $30 million toward charter expansion in Florida communities. One of the venture capital group leaders is a former chief learning officer for the KIPP Foundation. We are still trying to learn more about the people involved in this activity. Read on for the recently issued press release on the new fund. .."The Fund will help high-performing charter schools grow to serve more students in the neighborhoods of Florida’s persistently lowest achieving schools by utilizing $20 million in federal Race to the Top dollars along with $10 million in private philanthropic funds to be raised by CSGF. Over the next five years, Florida-CSGF will award grants to support the creation of 30 new charter schools that will serve 15,000 of Florida’s highest need students. Florida launches a new charter school startup fund

There's more. If a charter school is deemed by the state to be "high-performing", (which is easy to do if you send low performers back to the public school) they can expand more quickly and easily.

Is your Florida charter school high performing?

Keeping with new state law, the Florida Department of Education has blessed 104 charter schools as "high performing" this year. The appellation grants these schools added powers, making it even more difficult for local school boards to govern them. (See Pasco County's recent deliberations over a Charter Schools USA application.) The new abilities granted to these high performers include adding enrollment annually without outside permission, expanding grade levels without sponsor approval, getting 15 year contracts, and opening "replicated" schools anywhere in Florida with minimal barriers. Of course, that replication is limited to one per year, but that hasn't stopped some operators from proposing several all over the state. Keep an eye on that one. Which are these "high performing" schools? They include schools run by or connected to lawmakers, including Rep. John Legg (Dayspring Academy in Pasco) and Rep. Seth McKeel (South McKeel Academy and McKeel Elementary Academy in Polk), Rep. Erik Fresen (several Academica schools in Miami-Dade) and Sen. Anitere Flores (Doral Academy in Miami-Dade). Others include Hillsborough's Terrace Academy, Literacy Leadership Training Academy and Learning Gate Community School, Pinellas' Pinellas Preparatory, Plato Academy, St. Petersburg Collegiate and Academie da Vinci and Hernando's Gulf Coast Academy

Recently at Daily Kos education diarist teacherken covered a series in the Miami Herald by Scott Hiaasen and Kathleen McGrory. The series makes clear that the "high-performing charters" are not all they appear to be.

Public schools are being harmed while false claims are made.

Back to the first link and the third reason that high school might consider becoming a charter:

Elimination of zoning issues for the athletic programs at the school.

At least they put that third behind freedom for teachers and more money from the state....otherwise I would say their priorities are out of order.

Just imagine. We are to the point in this state that a principal of a high school can publicly state they need to become a charter to get more money and to give their teachers freedom to teach.

Everyone reading that should either be laughing out loud at the absurdity or shedding some tears over the pending loss of public education.