FLORIDA'S CHARTER SCHOOLS
UNSUPERVISED
Taxpayers, students lose when school operators exploit weak laws
SCHOOL'S OUT FOREVER
In the past five years, 56 South Florida charter schools have closed, expelling thousands of students. Five charter schools in Broward and Palm Beach counties didn't survive three months. Read the investigation.
Source: Florida Department of Education and Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach county school districts
Unchecked charter-school operators are exploiting South Florida’s public school system, collecting taxpayer dollars for schools that quickly shut down.
A recent spate of charter-school closings illustrates weaknesses in state law: virtually anyone can open or run a charter school and spend public education money with near impunity, a Sun Sentinel investigation found.
Florida requires local school districts to oversee charter schools but gives them limited power to intervene when cash is mismanaged or students are deprived of basic supplies — even classrooms.
Once schools close, the newspaper found, districts struggle to retrieve public money not spent on students.
Among the cases the newspaper reviewed:
• An Oakland Park man received $450,000 in tax dollars to open two new charter schools just months after his first collapsed. The schools shuttled students among more than four locations in Broward County, including a park, an event hall and two churches. The schools closed in seven weeks.
• A Boca Raton woman convicted of taking kickbacks when she ran a federal meal program was hired to manage a start-up charter school in Lauderdale Lakes.
• A Coral Springs man with a history of foreclosures, court-ordered payments, and bankruptcy received $100,000 to start a charter school in Margate. It closed in two months.
• A Hollywood company that founded three short-lived charters in Palm Beach and Collier counties will open a new school this fall. The two Palm Beach County schools did not return nearly $200,000 they owe the district.
South Florida is home to more than 260 charter schools, many of them high-performing. Some cater to students with interests in the performing arts, science and technology, or those with special needs.
Like traditional public schools, charter schools are funded with tax money. But these independent public schools can be opened and operated by individuals, companies or cities, and they are controlled by volunteer governing boards, not local elected school boards.
When conceived two decades ago, charter schools were designed to be free from heavy oversight to encourage innovative approaches to education.
But that lack of regulation also can allow abuses.
In recent years, South Florida has seen a rise in charter-school closings because of spikes primarily in Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Fifteen charter schools in Broward have closed in the last two years. That number doubled the county’s total closures since charter schools first opened in Florida 18 years ago. Seven charter Read the investigation.
