Romano: The topsy-turvy tale of charter schools and whom they really serve
Here is a hand basket.
And here is your state Legislature continually packing Florida up like so many groceries ready for final delivery.
Granted, today's outrage is more sneaky than blatant. It's more sleazy than audacious. Still, it gets high marks for being both shameless and, in the long-term, dangerous.
The subject itself — money for school construction — sounds like a bit of a snooze. But the devil, and his Tallahassee minions, are in the details.
Let's begin with the guy driving this mess.
Rep. Erik Fresen, a font of smiling insincerity, wants the state to turn most of its school construction and renovation funds over to companies that run charter schools.
Never mind that traditional schools outnumber charters about 6-to-1. Never mind that from 2009-14, charters got $312 million in capital funds and traditional schools got a pat on the head. Never mind that practically 1 out of every 4 charters eventually closes and that taxpayer money is forever lost.
Nope, let's forget all of that for a minute, and focus on Fresen, a Republican from Miami.
The guy the Miami Herald reports earns $150,000 a year consulting for an architecture firm that specializes in — I can't make this up — building charter schools. The guy whose sister and brother-in-law are executives with one of the state's largest charter operators.
Now who thinks that might be a conflict of interest for a politician in charge of divvying up construction funds between charters and traditional schools?
But perhaps I'm being unfair.
After all, the original mission of charter schools in Florida was certainly admirable. Charters were considered cutting edge education in the 1990s, and they were supposed to pick up the slack in areas where public schools were failing.
It was even spelled out in Florida's original charter school statute:
The schools were to have "special emphasis on expanded learning experiences for students who are identified as academically low achieving.''
That sounds like at-risk kids. Poor kids. Minority kids.
And yet all these years later, that's not what's happened.
For instance, based on the data included in the Florida Department of Education's school grades released Romano: The topsy-turvy tale of charter schools and whom they really serve<p></p> | Tampa Bay Times:
