Florida charter schools get $55 million for upkeep. Traditional schools get nothing.

[madfloridian]

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Charters get $55 million for upkeep, other schools get zero

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.

By the time Rick Scott and his Tea Party legislators are done with Florida, public schools will be a thing of the past.

To top it all off, Arne Duncan's education department is giving $49 million worth of grants to Florida and New York for charter schools.

U.S. Department of Education Awards $49 Million in Charter School Grants to New York and Florida

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced the award of two charter school grants, totaling $49 million, to increase public school options in Florida and New York. The Florida Department of Education and the New York State Education Department will each receive five-year grants under the Charter School Program state educational agency (SEA) competition, which provides funds to states to create new high-quality charter schools and disseminate information about existing charters.

“High-quality charter schools have an important role to play in the overall strategy of successful school reform,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “These states have an opportunity to spread effective practices and provide public charter school choices for more students and parents.”

The purpose of the Charter Schools Program is to increase financial support and build a better national understanding of public charter schools, while expanding the number of high-quality public charter schools across the nation. In total, the administration will invest $255 million in fiscal year 2011 through several grant programs administered by the Charter Schools Program

And here is Obama's 2012 budget regarding this issue.

President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2012 budget request includes $372 million to expand educational options by helping grow effective charter schools and other autonomous public schools that achieve positive results and give parents more choices.

There aren't many words to use anymore to describe how it feels to see public schools being dismantled.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. Aren't these the same shit schools that have a success rate because they get rid of kids?

Kids that don't do well? While public schools keeps all the kids and helps them?

Aren't these those same piece of shit schools that have a false success rate because they're teaching only the kids that succeed, and not the ones that fail?

This is SUCH BULLSHIT.

[HockeyMom]

3. Actually according to the latest schools gradings from FCAT

results there were more charters receiving F grades than public schools.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-07-16/news/os-charter-schools-fail-071711-20110716_1_charter-schools-imani-charter-traditional-schools/2

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. Infreakingcredible. We need to spread this info. around, since the media is all pure bs

The media and churches are the tentacles of the right wing.

[HockeyMom]

5. Loved that comment

that they are getting all the FAILING students from public schools. Hello? Why would a parents of an A or B student in a public school ever want to put their kids in an UNPROVEN, for profit Charter School?

There is an elementary school public school here where I live which has been ranking as A+ for a number of years AND been named a National Blue Ribbon School. Wonder how many of these students will be rushing off to charters, or private schools?

Of course, they NEVER mention THESE public schools do they?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

8. Never, and it causes me to fume. I'm a former teacher. I left teacher because repukes destroyed my

career by ridiculing teachers, blaming them for the things they (repukes) destroyed in public education, constantly attacking teachers' unions, etc.

[madfloridian]

12. FL charters did not do so well.

But then it is only public schools and public school teachers that are held accountable. :shrug:

It's okay to fail if you are a charter. :sarcasm:

[glinda]

2. I think lawsuits are in order.

[madfloridian]

48. I know the teachers union is filing at least one lawsuit against the state.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-06-20/news/fl-fea-lawsuits-announced-20110620-28_1_teachers-union-new-pension-law-pat-santeramo

"The 140,000-member statewide teachers union sued Gov. Rick Scott and other state officials on Monday to block a new law that requires state employees to begin contributing to their retirement plans.

The challenge, filed in Leon County circuit court, asserts that the law's required 3 percent contribution to the state's retirement fund amounts to a breach of contract with public employees, who accepted their positions with the promise of certain benefits. Those benefits included a pension plan that did not require contributions.

"It is essentially an income tax levied only on workers belonging to the Florida Retirement System. It's unfair — and it breaks promises made to these employees when they chose to work to improve our state," said Florida Education Association president Andy Ford.

The initial suit listed 11 public-employee plaintiffs, including teachers, health-care professionals and laborers representing other unions. Two other unions — the Florida Police Benevolent Association and the SEIU Florida Public Services Union, whose members work for the cities of Orlando and West Palm Beach and the Palm Beach County School Board — also asked to join.

The Broward Teachers' Union filed a brief in court supporting the lawsuit."

[Shagbark Hickory]

6. My complaint with this post is that it's a little deceiving . It's comparing two PUBLIC schools.

Charter schools are public schools.
Not saying they should get all the money but this article can leave a lot of people thinking that private schools are getting that money and they aren't.

[madfloridian]

7. Please stop that. Charters get public money, but they do their own thing.

The only way most charters are public is in the public money they get.

Your statement is the misleading one, and NOT my post.

[Shagbark Hickory]

9. That's because Charter schools ARE (say it with me now) PUB-LIC schools.

They do their own thing and I make no dispute over that.

[The Midway Rebel]

10. Snide derision does not help your argument.

I have come to realize that it is your style but, it is ineffective and it still sucks.



That said, no, they ain't.

[Shagbark Hickory]

20. I'm not arguing. I'm voicing my opinion.

If you want to argue then you're the one with the hostility.

[LanternWaste]

30. I imagine a way will be found to rationalize it.

"I'm voicing my opinion..." with a misplaced and rather petulant snide derision.

But I imagine a way will be found to rationalize it.

[Shagbark Hickory]

35. Speaking of snide.

[LWolf]

47. Opinions are not facts.

Voice your opinion. Just don't frame it as truth.

[madfloridian]

11. They are not public schools except in their own minds.

They call themselves that so the public won't gripe because their taxes go to schools which can dismiss students very readily.

You should be ashamed to keep using that old talking point when it is obviously wrong.

[Starry Messenger]

13. They are not public schools.

A few of them are now suing for the right to be called their real name--private schools. Public schools are publicly accountable, not just open to the public, as so many like to redefine that. Charter schools are privately held, usually by private management companies. Like a Starbucks chain.

[Shagbark Hickory]

19. Were they ever at one point public schools?

Public school cafeterias are often outsourced to private companies. Are they also private schools too?

[Starry Messenger]

21. No.

And public schools outsource to private companies, they are not themselves private companies making a profit. Weaksauce.

[madfloridian]

23. Custodial services have been outsourced for years.

That does not mean the school is not public.

[Shagbark Hickory]

28. So we're obviously on the same page.

You might want to remember that there could be members of DU who attended a "charter school" and posts like this could be taken as broadbrushing all charter schools as being a problem or a waste or corrupted.

[madfloridian]

39. I don't worry about how my posts are taken when I tell the truth.

And that is what I do. The goal of charters is to privatize education, though they are not going to come right out and say it.

I also post about TFA teachers who are so idealistic while they are taking jobs of fired teachers.

It's a sneaky way of turning schools over to private management companies. I make no apologies for my posts.

[indurancevile]

51. florida has more charters run by for-profit management corps than any state but michigan.

and in michigan it's 80% run by for-profit corps.

nationally it's now 30%+.

[sulphurdunn]

58. Charter Schools

are to public schools what Jim Crow was to separate but equal.

[icarusxat]

62. And...

In many states, charter schools recruit students, get the public money, and then send the bad apples back to the "public" schools. the traditional public school have to take the rejects, but the charter schools keep the funds, further crippling a system that once led our country to the moon and beyond. How ironic that Florida is leading the way back to the dark ages.

[Dappleganger]

40. Charter schools are NOT public schools.

Please stop posting this bullshit.

[Selatius]

53. I strongly disagree. A charter school is a privately run entity with a contract with the state gov't

The contract stipulates what the entity can do. In this case, it's provide a service of educating kids. Charter schools have, and rightly so, been criticized as nothing but a backdoor towards bona fide privatization of the public school system because, ultimately, these entities have private shareholders and have private boards of directors like any privately-run corporation in the private sector with the primary goal to generate profits for said shareholders. Sadly, that means there exists an incentive to cut corners in order to generate bigger profit margins.

A public school's primary goal, on the other hand, is to educate children first; there are no shareholders, no profit mark-ups, no cost-plus contracts, or anything seen with private entities performing public functions under contract of law.

[RebelOne]

14. Sorry all, but I am happy about this.

Because my daughter is a teacher in a charter school in South Florida. So maybe this will guarantee that she will still have a job for a while. After teaching in a public school, she started teaching at the charter school and said that it is heaven compared with the public school.

[madfloridian]

15. The old "I have mine" attitude.

I know teachers who are being laid off so money can be given to charter schools.

May your daughter enjoy it.

[RebelOne]

26. Well, she will. At least she will have a job. n/t

[MadHound]

56. Coming at the expense of her fellow teachers,

She got hers, screw the rest of us, eh?

[madfloridian]

16. Oh, BTW get back to me when she gets the test scores.

Okay now?

[RebelOne]

27. I'll let you know. n/t

[madfloridian]

38. I won't be reading your posts again.

Too upsetting in this time of great stress for so many people.

[Starry Messenger]

17. Once the public schools are all closed, the charters will get all of the kids.

All of them. Hope she has a back-up plan.

[RebelOne]

29. She does, believe me. n/t

[saras]

61. No they won't - the difficult ones simply won't be educated

[LanternWaste]

32. I imagine we often value our own backyards

I imagine we often value our own backyards over that of community parks. I guess that's one reason many community parks are unkempt and under-kept, despite them being the only convenient nature for those without backyards...

I'm sure your sorrow will be warranted all the credibility it is due. :shrug:

[RebelOne]

37. What sorrow?

[dameocrat67]

34. my sister had the opposite experience and ended up in the charter

from hell. mind you, in minnesota there are clearly charters for rich people that heavenly and swanky complete with equestrian lessons, and hellish ones where they stick learning disabled and underprivledged kids and do not even provide them desks or enough teachers. none of them answer to the school board, so they are privates that take public money from my perspective.

[RebelOne]

36. It seems that Minnesota charter schools are a hell of lot

different than those in Florida, as is probably the case in most states. The school where my daughter teaches is most made up of Hispanic students.

[Selatius]

54. Typically, from my experience, charter schools get to pick the good students and trash the rest.

They won't even accept children who under-perform in my state because it will lower the charter school's test scores, so they get to pick the best and brightest in a particular school district and push off the stragglers onto the public school system, and if the public school system doesn't perform up to par with NCLB, it suffers serious consequences.

There exists no role for private for-profit corporations in the realm of providing education to children. None. Profit should not be placed ahead of the children.

[Dappleganger]

41. Why screw everyone else in favor of your daughter's job security?

You do realize that more than half of charter schools in this state are failing, right?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1595725&mesg_id=1599397

[RebelOne]

44. Why would you say that? I am not screwing anyone else.

I am just happy that she will be keeping her job for a while, since other states are laying off teachers left and right. She just separated from her husband and is struggling on her own and needs every cent that she can get. There is no child support involved because both of her daughters are on their own. Fortunately, they both can get college educations for free because they were adopted.

[Dappleganger]

46. Well that is great, but teachers here in FL are being laid off right and left.

GOOD teachers with lots of experience and the data to prove it have been laid off. Is it alright to screw them over just so a charter school teacher can get a job?

BTW, I care because as a FL taxpayer my tax dollars are being diverted from my children's public schools to pay for these private charter schools with little to no accountability. That is NOT ok in my book.

[DiverDave]

60. I got MINE, the rest of you?

Who the hell cares, I GOT MINE.

Child support? when you say the kids are GONE??

So, she needs the child support for what? her?

Sigh, another ignore, I hope you and your daughter make out.

[MouseFitzgerald]

43. Thank god your daughter is going to be okay

for a second there I was actually worried about all the kids in public schools who are seeing their classrooms deteriorate from lack of funding. But now that I know that one persons daughter will continue to have a job, it makes everything much better.

Are you fucking serious?

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[soleiri]

67. I'm canceling the prayer circle. nt

[Tatiana]

18. Just like Republicans want to starve the "beast" of government, they also want to starve

the "beast" of traditional "free" public education. One way to do this is to close down public schools and re-open charters in their place.

This is very sad and completely unjustified. ALL students have the right to be educated appropriately. If charters are going to take public funds, they should not be allowed to "counsel out" special education, low-performing, or truant students.

The money needs to be given to the entities that actually educate the students who come to school with the most challenges.

I expect this kind of thinking from Republicans, but shame on the (New) Democrats for pushing this tripe.

[Fire Walk With Me]

22. Check this short link...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1482530

[madfloridian]

24. I had saved this on "disaster capitalism."

"Schooling in disaster capitalism: how the political right is using disaster to privatize public schooling.

Around the world, disaster is providing the means for business to accumulate profit. From the Asian tsunami of 2005 that allowed corporations to seize coveted shoreline properties for resort development to the multi-billion dollar no-bid reconstruction contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, from the privatization of public schooling following Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast to the ways that No Child Left Behind sets public school up to be dismantled and made into investment opportunities--a grotesque pattern is emerging in which business is capitalizing on disaster. Naomi Klein has written of,

"... the rise of a predatory form of disaster capitalism that uses
the desperation and fear created by catastrophe to engage in
radical social and economic engineering. And on this front, the
reconstruction industry works so quickly and efficiently that the
privatizations and land grabs are usually locked in before the
local population knows what hit them."

I can't get the original archived link to work, but it was saved here.

[Fire Walk With Me]

25. ...

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[madfloridian]

50. And another vital comment about disaster capitalism.

"Capitalizing on Disaster in Education

Despite the range of obvious failures of multiple public school privatization initiatives, the privatization advocates have hardly given up. In fact, the privatizers have become far more strategic. The new educational privatization might be termed "back door privatization" or maybe "smash and grab" privatization. A number of privatization schemes are being initiated through a process involving the dismantling of public schools followed by the opening of for-profit, charter, and deregulated public schools. These enterprises typically despise teachers unions, are hostile to local democratic governance and oversight, and have an unquenchable thirst for "experiments," especially with the private sector. (10) These initiatives are informed by right wing think tanks and business organizations. Four examples that typify back door privatization are: (1) No Child Left Behind, (2) Chicago's Renaissance 2010 project, (3) educational rebuilding in Iraq, and (4) educational rebuilding in New Orleans."

[Uncle Joe]

31. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, madfloridian.

[dameocrat67]

33. The charters were created to add another layer of class separation between

parochial and public schools in big cities.

[Dappleganger]

42. Half of Florida's failing schools are CHARTERS...

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/content/florida-education-news-stolen-laptops-teacher-training-failing-schools-and-more


FAILING SCHOOLS: Florida charter schools received half of all the F grades given to public schools this year, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Such results show charter schools aren't necessarily the answer to what ails schooling, Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell writes.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/os-charter-schools-fail-071711-20110716,0,4470007.story


Charter schools, which account for only a fraction of the state's public schools, received half of all the F's when the state handed out its annual letter grades two weeks ago.

[madfloridian]

49. Very true.

Yet they are treated as successes. No accountability.

[blkmusclmachine]

52. That's "Change!" you can believe in (or NOT)

n/t

[russspeakeasy]

55. Thanks Mad....I appreciate your post.

:fistbump:

[roxiejules]

57. Neoliberalism: turning education into nothing more than

a publicly traded commodity on the New York Stock Exchange.



Thanks for posting this good info, madfloridian.

[sulphurdunn]

59. Charter schools bear

the same relationship to public schools that Black Water bore to the US military and that Jim Crow bore to separate but equal public facilities, including schools.

[lib2DaBone]

63. That chipping..knawing sound.. is pRick Scott and the Koch Bros..

chip.. chip.. chip..... Sooner than later .. you will all be Borg.. no need to resist.

All bow down to the god of Goldman Sachs.

[YBR31]

64. There are good and bad public schools and public charters

There are good and bad public schools and public charters. Just like there are good and bad teachers and good and bad parents. We have some good public charters that do a great job, kids are admitted thru a lottery system and are not tossed out contrary to popular belief. We also have some that do not perform and they should be shut down. I imagine this is true everywhere. I once toured a fabulous charter in Denver called Denver School of Science and Technology. It is part of the public school system. Admission is by lottery. They've had great results. 100% of their seniors were accepted to 4 year colleges. A majority of the student body is black and hispanic with something like 40% qualifying for lunch programs. Their test scores are among the best in the state. The issue of charters is like every other issue--it isn't black and white.

[madfloridian]

65. Not my issue. Only schools which answer to the public should get tax money.

Charters and private schools should not get public money. That is the bottom line to me.

It is a sneaky way to turn schools over to management companies which have profit in mind more than the needs of the students.

[soleiri]

66. Of course it's not black and white

However, with a little research I found out a few things about Denver School of Science and Technology.
The school serves grades 6-12 and only have an enrollment of 728 students.
Our school is 9-12 and has an enrollment of over 3,000 students. My son's graduating class (2012) has only 21 less students than their total enrollment.

The student-teacher ratio at DSST is 13.5-1.
I'm not sure what our school's student-teacher ratio is, but my sons have never been in a class with less than 30 students. One year, one of my son's classes was so crowded, the last students to arrive had to stand in the back.

And a mogul never gave our school $7 million dollars.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18465843