Governor Rick Scott and his education advisor, Michelle Rhee, believe that billions of public school dollars are better spent on for-profit charter school management companies (CMOs).
“Who are we to deny a child, a low income child, who has the opportunity to take the same dollars and actually get a better education?” Rhee asked when she joined Governor Scott at Opa Locka Charter who recently earned an F.
Here’s the breakdown according to Miami’s CBS4 I-Team:
Florida Traditional Public Schools: 2,280 schools*- 17 FCAT Fs.
Florida Charter Schools: 270 schools*- 15 FCAT Fs.
Florida Charter Schools Failure Rate: 740% higher than that of public schools.
*Includes only elementary and middle schools. FLDOE will release high school grades in the fall.
*Includes only elementary and middle schools. FLDOE will release high school grades in the fall.
These FCAT grades are clear: Charter students are at a dramatically higher-risk of attending an F school than their peers are at traditional public schools.
“Students at failing schools are more likely to drop out, which means they are most likely to have trouble keeping a job,” Scott correctly observed in the Orlando Sentinel last month. Yet, Scott is fixated on handing over taxpayer dollars to charter management companies for the chance to turn a profit on public education.
Even if Scott’s motivation isn’t about students, it might be about jobs. Representative Erik Fresen’s brother-in-law and sister own Academica. a prosperous charter management company/CMO. Fresen, the chairman of several powerful education committees, freely and repeatedly promotes and votes for legislation that favors the for-profit charter school industry.
“It certainly provides me a different perspective…that others perhaps don’t have,” Fresen said. “But it certainly doesn’t influence the politics one way or the other.”
Rep. Fresen is the subject of two active ethics complaints and his colleagues in the Florida House receive a bounty of campaign contributions every year from the for- profit charter school industry.
So, maybe it is about jobs, after all. It certainly doesn’t seem to be about students stuck in F schools. What do you think?
I-Team: Lawmakers React To Charter School FCAT Failures
July 6, 2011 Gary Nelson Reporting
MIAMI (CBS4) – When Governor Rick Scott visited Florida International Academy – a charter school – in Opa Locka in January, he brought his special advisor on education, Michell Rhee, with him.
Rhee, the controversial former superintendent of the Washington DC school system, is a big believer in spending public money on privately-operated charter schools.
“Who are we to deny a child, a low income child, who has the opportunity to take the same dollars and actually get a better education?” Rhee asked.
The answer may in fact be that kids in charter schools aren’t getting a better education.
Full story found here.
