Parent trigger follies in Florida.

[hay rick]

Frank Cerabino, columnist for the Palm Beach Post, wrote a piece in which he compares the Florida Legislature's attempt to craft "parent trigger" legislation to a plan that the Legislature promulgated a few years back that was intended to increase the number of private prisons. Article here: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/local/cerabino-so-called-parental-trigger-bill-charterin/nXKNP/

The prison plan, which was overturned by the courts, sought to convert 29 public prisons into private, for-profit prisons. The private prisons were required to show a 7% savings in operating costs. To make sure that the private prisons would meet that standard, the state moved high-maintenance and high-expense prisoners out of the prisons marked for privatization, shipping them to the remaining public prisons.

Similarly, the parent trigger is designed to accelerate the transformation of public schools into private schools. Charter schools receive public money but don't operate under the same restrictions as public schools. Cerabino expands on the subject:

Hundreds of charter schools already are operating in the state and teaching about 7 percent of the state’s public school students. The results are mixed. Some schools are good, but many aren’t. Charter schools routinely get more than their share of F-ratings in the annual roundup of schools.

And they take capital improvement dollars away from traditional schools, money that’s flushed away when the charters go broke, which happens about 20 percent of the time.

Seeking to accommodate the Legislature, the State Department of Education released a study which claimed that charter schools outperformed public schools on 55 of 63 metrics in state exams.

Cerabino:

But Stanley Smith, a professor at the University of Central Florida’s business school, did his own examination and arrived at the opposite conclusion. Smith took into account that charter schools pick and choose the students they take, leaving these schools overall with fewer poor students, or kids with learning or language issues — the sort of kids who do poorly on standardized tests.

“The average charter school is doing about the same as the non-charter school when no adjustments are made for poverty and minority statuses,” Smith wrote. “When the adjusted scores are considered, the average charter school performs significantly worse than the average non-charter school.”

The case for private schools financed by public money, like the case for the advantages of private prisons, relies on the bogus bad-apples-to-oranges comparison.

The Post also published an editorial disparaging the proposed parent trigger legislation: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/opinion/editorial-no-need-for-parent-trigger-florida-has-p/nXKTd/

The editorial concludes:

For all the benefits of parental involvement, changing schools demands expertise that most parents do not have. Some charter school companies have that expertise. But others don’t. Florida charters have had a disproportionate number of F schools. Charter schools also have disproportionate clout in the Florida Legislature. The Post’s John Kennedy reported that key legislators or their family members are personally involved with charter schools. In some cases, they have paid positions.

For-profit charter companies also have made generous contributions to legislators. The result is a wave of legislation, including “parent trigger,” to ease regulations on charter schools. That boom has produced an increase in charters that misuse the public money they receive.

When the Palm Beach County School Board recently decided against closing Leadership Academy West, it primarily was because parents demanded that the charter school remain open despite receiving two F grades since 2009. Even without “parent trigger,” parental empowerment is here. At some point, it is easy to predict, a wave of charter school scandals will trigger the oversight of charter schools the Legislature is failing to provide.

[Peregrine]

1. This is mostly BS

Yes, charters are over represented among the F schools. But much of what is in the editorial is bullshit. Charter capital dollars come from a different budget than public schools. The amount a charter gets depends on the number of charters. Capital $ are split evenly among the charters.

The smaller charters do select students. The larger ones take whoever walks through the door. If my school got to choose, then Orlando has a lot of idiots. My school was 80% Hispanic and 15% African American. We had so many on free/reduced lunch that no student had to apply.

The Osceola school board was always on our ass even though we were a B school 5 years in a row. Last year the ast. Superintendent called my principal and told him that she had projected that the school would get an F. When we got a B (4 points) short of an A, my principal called the AS and asked for an apology. She slammed the phone down.

Charter teachers work hard for less money, less supplies, and parents blighting at their ass.

I actually moved over to public schools. Got involuntarily transferred to another school. Parents complained about my grades and how strict I was. No support from the principal and got fired.

[hay rick]

2. School funding comes from tax dollars.

You can complain that charters get their capital investment money from a separate fund, but that doesn't change the fact that money spent on charters is no longer available to public schools. Compounding the problem, the Florida Legislature reduced the amount that public schools can collect from local property taxes from $2 per $1000 assessed valuation to $1.50 per $1000. Article on Palm Beach schools here: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/local-education/multi-million-dollar-holes-in-district-budget-show/nXLK9/

All our schools are underfunded and Florida teachers are underpaid.

[madfloridian]

3. The per pupil money is mostly lost to public schools, given to charter schools.

And in FL the legislature is giving maintenance millions to charters and none to public schools the last couple of years.

Public school teachers work hard, very hard. They also have parents on their butts.

It is slowly destroying the public school system by defunding it, giving the money to CMOs.