FL: Trees and the Taj Mahal
Florida Education Commissioner is angry with Duval Schools Superintendent Diana Greene. Grr mad. Really really mad.
Corcoran was previously the speaker of the house, where he pushed a variety of privatization moves. In particular, he pushed the "Schools of Hope," a cool plan in which public schools that were having trouble would be targeted for direct charter competition, with lots of incentives for big out-of-state operators to come and rake in some Florida taxpayer bucks. In other words, when the state finds a public school that needs some extra help and support, they instead call in private operators. Like finding a traveler beaten and hurt beside the road, and instead of calling a doctor, you call some vultures.
Yes, if you haven't been following events in Florida, they really are the worst. But then, they have installed a group of strongly anti-public education folks in all the education oversight positions, as well as powerful advocacy groups with lots of clout, so none of this comes out of left field. If any state is well-positioned to completely eliminate public education, it is Florida (even if they do attempt to hide the attempt by redefining "public").
Anyway, Duval school system includes several schools that are struggling, and they have a brand new superintendent, Dr. Diana Greene (with a background in actual education).
Corcoran gave her three choices. One of the choices was hand over some schools to IDEA, a Texas corporate charter chain founded by a pair of Teach for America products devoted to the No Excuses model.
That was the choice Greene was supposed to pick, but instead she went with working with the local community to salvage the schools they were committed to. Corcoran was not happy. In fact, he stewed aloud that perhaps it was time for the state to take over the schools that he wanted to hand off to IDEA. IDEA is on Corcoran's favorites list-- they have been given the green light to start moving into Florida and start opening those Schools of Hope.
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| Actually, I'm not sure this would make a very good school. |