--- PART 1: ACADEMIC TROUBLES ---
Risky choices: Many charters prove poor options
Pat and Tammy Rasmussen had no idea they'd sent their son Daniel to one of the lowest-performing schools in Florida [Richard Milburn Academy in New Port Richey] -- until he came home one day and said he was helping teach math class…
…Administrators offered to pay their son $50 for each friend he persuaded to join…
More than 300 charters teaching about 92,000 students have sprung up, funded by $1.5 billion in local, state and federal taxes in the past three years alone. Eighty schools are operating in Central Florida.
But a statewide investigation by the Orlando Sentinel found that while many charters serve children well, scores of others offer a poor choice…But Jim Warford, Florida's former chancellor of public schools, said state officials were so busy promoting an alternative to conventional schools that they looked the other way when problems arose…
What the Sentinel found is a state system that encouraged the schools to grow but made it difficult to curb bad ones. Many charters have academic and financial problems that state and local officials do not have under control.
The rapid growth of the system alarms Panhandle state Sen. Don Gaetz, a former school superintendent who chairs the Education Committee.
"Charter schools were a movement," said Gaetz, a Republican from Niceville, "but now charter schools are an industry. They have lobbyists -- they walk around in thousand-dollar suits, some of them. Some are still struggling, idealistic, mom-and-pop shops, and they need assistance. But the big boys and the mature organizations should be held accountable for how they use public money and how they educate children."…
Districts shut down Richard Milburn's Tampa and Sarasota schools last year for low student achievement.
In Tampa, nearly half of the 42 graduates Richard Milburn reported last year did not earn a diploma or a certificate of completion, district officials found. As for New Port Richey, district officials said they discovered that more children were eligible to graduate than the school identified because transcripts were in disarray…
As for paying students $50 for each friend who enrolled, Crosby called that a "reasonable incentive" and part of the company's "overall recruiting strategy." Doing crossword puzzles can be valuable because they make students think, and having students help teach classes improves their confidence, he said.
The Pasco principal in 2004 was not available for comment. But Crosby said his school administrators all know the importance of the head count to state funding.
"A charter school is an entrepreneurial activity," he said...
Pasco officials put the Milburn school that Daniel Rasmussen attended on probation last May. They reported finding, among other things, that the campus had no curriculum, no professional guidance counselor and a Spanish teacher who could not speak the language…
--- PART 2: FINANCIAL TROUBLES ---
Deals and debts: Nearly half of Florida's charters had operating deficits
…A decade after Florida launched charter schools to give students more choice in where they attend public school, nearly half of the 300-plus charters have operating deficits.
At the same time, more than $200 million of the $492 million Florida spent on these privately operated schools in 2005 went to charters that had business relationships with school officials: renting buildings to the charters, selling services to them, hiring relatives as employees.
Then there are the odd expenditures.
Palm Beach County's Survivors Charter Schools had a 10-year, $100,000 contract for eight season tickets to Miami Dolphins games, which it distributed to the principal and others.
One of the two Survivors campuses also gave the principal $600 a month to lease a BMW car and paid him $163,412 a year, according to 2006-07 audits by the Palm Beach County School District…
One of the biggest differences between charter and regular schools is also the source of many charter money woes: the need to find a school building…
Funding challenges have opened the door for charter directors, employees and managers to lease buildings they own to their schools. Of the more than $40 million Florida gave to charter schools for facilities in 2005, about $4 million went to charters with such arrangements, charter audits show.
More than 60 charters studied by the Sentinel had such financial ties, underscoring the interconnected relationships of some charters and their officers. By contrast, members of a county school board are barred by state law from leasing buildings to their districts…
Loans are another business tie between some charter directors and their schools. Six charters collectively owed their board members more than a half-million dollars in 2005, the audits showed…
Charters that go into debt either have to cut services, such as teacher pay, or they have to shift funds from education of children to interest payments, a state auditor general's 2005 report stated…
--- PART 3: OVERSIGHT TROUBLES ---
Cashing in on the kids: Even after pleading no contest to grand theft, school remains open
For nearly half a decade, Escambia Charter School hired out a group of students to cut roadside grass and weeds during class time for about 32 hours per week.
The privately run high school made about $200,000 by paying the children less than required under a state Department of Transportation contract. Meanwhile, it continued accepting tax money from the state Department of Education to teach the children five hours a day.
Until state prosecutors investigated complaints from teachers at the campus north of Pensacola, the falsifying of attendance records, course schedules and grade reports went unchecked.
Even after pleading no contest to grand theft, the school remains open. No more than 12 percent of its students have ever been able to read at grade level, test scores show…
Each week, however, Escambia sent false attendance records to the school district showing students were in class, investigators found. Report cards falsely showed that the work-crew members completed the courses…
State investigators amassed enough evidence to charge Escambia with one count of organized fraud, a felony, in April 2004.
Thomas said the criminal charge helped him negotiate an end to the student-labor abuses. The road crews were restructured into proper on-the-job training programs. Students attended class the required five hours per day. Grade and attendance reports were no longer falsified.
But Callender, whom state investigators identified as the mastermind of the scheme, remained in charge at the school. Thomas said there was little he could do, because charter governing boards have authority over staff matters…
Warford, the former public-schools chancellor, said the lack of will to improve oversight of charters came from the Governor's Office down through his appointees. Two Education Department workers who proposed more accountability for charters and other school-choice programs were removed from their posts during his tenure, he said.
A climate was created, he said, where "no one stood up and said anything" to improve monitoring or address the problems in charter schools…
--- PART 4: TROUBLING TIMES ---
Losing local say: State panel can supersede districts on charters
After a decade of chafing under the supervision of county school districts, Florida charter-school operators left Tallahassee in 2006 with a law that could allow looser oversight.
Advocates for these taxpayer-supported schools persuaded legislators and Gov. Jeb Bush to create a new agency that charters could choose as their monitor instead.
Now, the Florida Schools of Excellence Commission is on the verge of becoming a school district without borders, based in Tallahassee. Charters it approves are not required by law to meet some of the standards that local school officials must enforce in the name of accountability to taxpayers. The commission also can delegate its role as primary overseer to others, such as cities or charter advocacy groups, two of which have already applied to approve start-up schools.
A majority of the new commissioners have backgrounds in real estate, banking or charter management, all industries with an interest in making sure Florida has plenty of the independently run schools…
Campuses sponsored by the charter commission are exempt from the list of guiding principles and statutory purposes required of charters monitored by districts, such as to improve learning, teacher development and the performance of low-achieving students…
John Lewis, a real-estate-company president who chairs the charter commission, said the National Association of Charter School Authorizers had been hired to help the commission develop application criteria…
State Rep. Elaine Schwartz, D-Hollywood, said it makes no sense for the state to allow the Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools to get into the business of authorizing charters.
"That would be kind of like the fox watching the henhouse, now, wouldn't it?" said Schwartz, who filed a bill to disband the Florida Schools of Excellence Commission…
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