St. Pete Times: "Tilt toward charters deprives public schools"

For two decades, the Florida Legislature has claimed the expansion of charter schools does not steal resources from public schools that serve most students. But lawmakers can no longer make that claim. A new state law and the 2011-12 budget significantly tilt the balance away from public schools to favor charters, their limited constituency and the people and companies that profit from them.

The law makes it dramatically easier for "high-performing" charter schools to expand or start additional schools anywhere in the state, where they will compete against public schools for students and dollars. The schools must have at least two A's and one B under the state grading formula in the past three years to be deemed "high-performing."

Gov. Rick Scott and lawmakers also failed to provide any state money for construction or maintenance for 3,355 traditional public schools, but found about $55 million in taxpayer dollars to offer to operators of the state's 459 privately run charter schools — some of which use for-profit firms to run their schools.

The film Waiting for Superman has popularized the notion that turning public schools over to private providers will fix what's wrong with public education. But as the latest round of Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores shows once again, Florida's two-decade experiment with charter schools has yet to prove they do better, on average, than public schools.

Florida has won a share of a $49-million federal grant that will be used to "create new high-quality" charter schools and spread information about existing ones, the U.S. Department of Education announced today.

..."Despite their different political affiliations, both President Barack Obama and Gov. Rick Scott view the expansion of charter schools as a key part of their educational reform efforts.

The grant money Florida will get is part of $255 million the federal government plans to invest in charter schools this fiscal year, the federal education department said.

FLORIDA -- 9 Investigates the expansion of Florida charter schools and voucher programs that taxpayers are financing. WFTV Investigative reporter, George Spencer, found one school that received millions of tax dollars, while violating the state's limited rules.

Critics told WFTV the problem is about to get much worse.

Principal Julius Brown's South Florida Preparatory received more than $2 million from the state to teach disabled students.

As the money flowed, parents complained that Brown "paddles" students, hired noncertified teachers and only looked out for "his own best interest."

There's no telling how many of Florida's 1,713 private schools — which educate a third of a million students — are run like InterAmerican. Even as Gov. Rick Scott leads a charge to privatize education on a historic scale, our state's private schools are among the least regulated in the nation. "If a school like that exists," Cheryl Etters of the Florida Department of Education said when asked about InterAmerican and its lax standards, "we might know about it, but we can't really do anything."