Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida
Charter Schools USA Savage Public Relations Campaign to Sheild Them From Scrutiny
Scathing Purple Musings
Color me purple in Florida, red in Washington, dark sky-blue in Israel and public school in Education
Charter Schools USA Savage Public Relations Campaign to Sheild Them From Scrutiny
The Tampa Bay Times has now begun reporting on Charter Schools USA Hillsborough problem. Writes reporter Marlene Sokol: Frustrated by answers her staff was getting to questions about school governance, superintendent MaryEllen Elia dispatched letters this week to the boards of three schools, saying she’ll soon move to terminate their charters. The reaction? Unlike other community leaders who often
Hillsborough: A Fight Like No Other For Charter Schools USA
Mary Ellen Elia is no ordinary superintendent. Her Hillsborough district is the state’s 8th largest and no Florida superintendent is as positioned politically as she. Elia was the only representative from the state’s traditional public schools in newly elected governor Rick Scott’s education transition team. There was a reason for that. It was Elia’s district which in 2009 accepted a $100 millio
JUL 31
BREAKING! Three Charter Schools USA Facilities Marked For Closure For Illegal Oversight Practices in Tampa
Well, well. The Hillsborough School District versus Charter Schools USA battle just got more intense. From WTSP reporter Noah Pransky: Hillsborough County, Florida — 10 Investigates has confirmed Mary Ellen Elia, the superintendent for the School District of Hillsborough County (SDHC), will attempt to close three schools this fall operated by for-profit company Charter Schools USA. Elia sent 90-da
Charter Schools USA Resubmits MacDill AFB Application, Includes Sketchy Survey Data
So Charter Schools USA is back in trying to bag a facility on MacDill AFB. In spite of lots of showboating and aggrieved hand wringing by CSUSA mouthpieces, Hillsborough school district rejected their application because it wasn’t clear if local folks would make up the controlling board. They’ve taken care of that this time, but CSUSA may have been a little too cute in their application by includi
Florida School Board Member Opts-Out His Children From High-Stakes Testing
In a press release from three Florida parents organizations and Lee County School Board member Don Armstrong: Lee County School Board Member, Don H. Armstrong, announced at Tuesday night’s Board meeting that he intends to ‘opt his children out’ of high stakes testing this school year. Armstrong is the father of twins enrolled in fourth grade at a Lee County Public School. After much review of the
Jeb Bush’s Common Core Website Goes Silent
For two months, nothing. No more TV spots. No more teacher Tweets. No more press releases. What happened? Scathing Purple Musings wrote in March about the Common Core initiative from Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s future. Learn More. Go Further was designed to end all debate and educate the public on Common Core’s benefits and superiority. So why did they pull the plug? There are two possible
Step Up For Students’ Shameless False Narrative on SB 850 Lawsuit
None of the hacks from Step Up for Students put their name on this morning’s post regarding a group of special needs children’s parents who are “taking on” the Florida Education Association for filing a lawsuit against SB 850. Obviously following the lead of Sen. Andy Gardiner’s opinion piece, SUFS is intentionally misleading Floridians about the nature of FEA’s suit. Parents of students with sign
JUL 30
About Those Terrific School Grade Improvements for Charter Schools USA
Charter Schools USA boss Jonathan Hage bragged last month in his blog about some remarkable improvements his schools made in the past year: Every single one of our “D” and “F” schools from 2013 improved to an “A”, “B”, or “C” this year. This evidence further proves that Charter Schools USA, one of the nation’s leading providers of education management, is making a positive difference in our child
JUL 29
Inauthentic Conservatism At Work in Alan Hays’ Mandate to See D’Souza Movie
It’s not hard to sense that Tampa Bay Times reporter Jeff Solochek doesn’t think much of Sen. Alan Hays (R-Umatilla) bill which would mandate Florida students see what the editors describe in the headline as a “conservative, patriotic” movie. During the 2014 legislative session, Florida Sen. Alan Hays looked to remove the state from the process of reviewing and selecting textbooks. The decisions,
JUL 27
What Bobby Jindal Says That Rick Scott Won’t and Charlie Crist Can’t
Make no mistake. Bobby Jindal never met a piece of school choice legislation he didn’t like. And he is no friend of his state’s teachers union. But it is his position against Common Core Standards which separates him from Republican governors like Rick Scott and political opportunists like Charlie Crist. Jindal’s rhetoric against Common Core is becoming more forceful and persuasive. Consider his r
Andy Gardiner’s Demogoguery Misleads Floridians on FEA Lawsuit
The incoming president of the Florida Senate cannot be trusted on education policy. Not if he’s going to deliberately mislead Floridians while misrepresenting the position of the state’s teachers. Senator Andy Gardiner (R-Orlando) writes in the Tampa Tribune that “union bosses, union politics or union lawyers, ” filed a lawsuit earlier this month to block families of students with disabilities fr
JUL 26
Florida Law Firm Requests More Cash From Indiana for Florida-Based Charter Schools USA
Charter Schools USA executive Sherry Hage boasted last month about “opening schools in areas of highest need,” but all isn’t going so well in three Indiana schools she and her husband took over in 2012. From reporters Eric Weddle and Scott Elliott in the Indianapolis Star: The four takeover schools in Indianapolis lost huge numbers of students — between 35 and 60 percent at each school — between t
Charter Schools USA $2.9 Haul For Two Louisiana Schools
Small wonder the wife of Charter Schools USA CEO Jonathan Hage was touting their test scores in an Orlando Sentinel opinion piece last month. Sherry Hage and her husband take in a lot of taxpayer money to run schools. Consider this story from Marsha Sills in The Advocate LAFAYETTE — Two new charter schools opening on opposite sides of Lafayette Parish in two weeks together will pay nearly $1.2 mil
Mouthpieces Jeb Bush Launch Transparent Political Attack on Teacher Unions
It’s doubtful that two state education chiefs wrote the recent Washington Post column which claimed that teacher unions were “sacrificing higher standards to avoid accountability.”What’s more of a political hit piece was most likely crafted by the hacks at Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. The two ed chiefs – New Mexico’s Hanna Skandera and Tennessee’s Kevin Huffman are both among
