Jeb Bush’s Foundation Wants Florida to Ignore Crony Capitalism on Charter Schools
Big charter school operators have been whispering about getting their own independent board to approve charter schools. This week, Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education editorialist Mike Thomas unsurprisingly made the case that it was time for Florida to do just that. Writes Thomas in The Edfly Blog:
Charters are competitors. They steal customers, deplete revenues and increase costs. When charters siphon off kids, they not only take the money that comes with them, they often cause nearby schools to operate under capacity. This increases inefficiencies and per-student costs because all that empty space still must be maintained.
As charters continue to expand, they will force districts to make more and more tough choices on personnel, closing schools and redrawing attendance boundaries, both political poisons. We are seeing this play out in spectacular fashion in some older urban areas.
So there is a serious conflict of interest in play and it only will get worse as school choice