I
ssue Fifteen
“We are moving in the right
direction by continuing to push for
greater local control in education,
while encouraging more
accountability and parental
involvement through the creation
of new charter schools.”
--Secretary of Education Jim Horne
Florida awarded $76.5 million
grant to support charter schools
Florida is one of only a handful of states to earn
this competitive grant funding, based primarily on
the positive growth and expansion of charter
schools during the last six years. There are
The Florida Department of Education has been
awarded a three year, $76.5 million grant from
the U.S. Department of Education to support
charter schools.
currently 223 charter schools in operation in the
state. This is the fourth such award of funds from
the federal government and is the largest to date.
The grant comes as recognition of Florida's
success in establishing a charter school
program.
"We are moving in the right direction by continuing
to push for greater local control in education, while
encouraging more accountability and parental
involvement through the creation of new charter
schools," said Horne.
"This is great news for students and educators in
Florida," said Education Secretary Jim Horne.
"We are thrilled that the U.S. Department of
Education appreciates our efforts to support
charter schools, and we will continue to provide
the necessary resources and leadership as we
expand and enhance Florida's charter school
movement."
According to Florida's grant application to the U.S.
Department of Education, Florida has identified six
primary objectives. These include:
•
Increasing parental choice in school
selection.
•
Promoting deregulation and local control
of public education.
•
Increasing participation of at-risk students.
•
Demonstrating greater accountability in all
public schools.
•
Improving statewide evaluation of charter
school performance.
•
Assisting policy makers in decision-
making.
Please visit www.floridaschoolchoice.org for more
information about charter schools in Florida.
The grant will fund at least 127 first- or second-
year charter schools annually over the next
three years through a competitive application
process. The Public Charter Schools Grant
Program will greatly increase the success of
charter schools and improve the effectiveness of
charter school models for other public schools.
Under the stipulations of the grant, Florida will
receive $25.5 million each year for the next
three years. The state will distribute resources
through sub-grants to address four major issues,
including:
•
Leasing or renovating suitable facilities.
•
Investing in other major program start-up
costs.
•
Hiring or retaining adequate professional
expertise in the areas of school
administration, business and legal skills,
and financial management.
•
Developing thorough assessment and
evaluation programs in order to
substantiate charter school performance.
2002-2003 Public
Charter Schools Conference
Building Bridges to ensure that
NO CHILD is LEFT BEHIND
October 29-31, 2002
at the Royal Pacific Resort at Universal Studios
The event,
Building Bridges to Ensure NO CHILD
is LEFT BEHIND
, has been designed for charter
school
community stakeholders to come together
for two and one-half days to dialogue, share
successes and best practices, clarify legislative
intent, and discuss research regarding charter
schools from a national and local perspective.
There will be over 50 breakout sessions, as well as
nationally-renowned keynote speakers.
Early Registration Deadline:
October 15, 2002
Early Registration Fee:
$100.00
Hotel Reservation Conference
Rate Deadline
EXTENTION
: October
11, 2002
The Brookings authors did acknowledge that
charters might appear lower achieving because
there are more low achieving students attending
them. Thus, they recommend a grace period from
hard and fast accountability timelines - a different
accountability clock, they call it, so that charters
are given a fair amount of time to produce
learning. The authors recognize that new schools
take time to produce results, particularly when
poor children who've been failed by other schools
are involved.
By Michael Davis
Charter schools have gotten a bum rap publicly
by a variety of research organizations and
opponents.
A Washington, DC-based think tank, the
Brookings Institute, issued a report right after
Labor Day concluding that while research shows
charter schools students score lower than other
public school students, the research is actually
inconclusive. "With the data at hand, it is
impossible to tell whether charter schools' test
scores reflect the quality of education at the
schools," said the researchers. That's cold
comfort in the world of public policy given that
news editors had a field day with just the
opposite conclusion. A detailed review of the
study finds several shortcomings in their study.
The Florida Department of Education received a
$2.65 million grant under the new Voluntary Public
School Choice Program authorized by the
landmark education reform law, the No Child Left
Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).
First, Brookings had no way of assessing where
the students of the 376 charters they studied
started academically upon entering the charter.
Other research has found that charter students
start behind their peers. The Brookings study
found that there are more Black and Hispanic
students on average in charters than traditional
schools. Thus, rather than assess student
growth from year to year, this report simply
takes a snapshot in time of how one school's
students compare to others as a whole.
"As we work to improve all of our public
schools, we must give children who are
trapped in low-performing schools an
opportunity
for a brighter
future. These
innovative public school choice programs will
demonstrate that greater parental options --
and greater
competition -- will help all
schools to improve and succeed."
---
US Secretary of Education Rod Paige
The competitive program supports five-year
projects that offer the widest variety of choices to
students in participating schools, including options
that allow students to transfer from low-performing
schools to higher performing schools. Under
NCLB, students in under-performing Title I schools
must be given the option to transfer to a higher
performing school in their school district. This new
program offers additional options for those
children and for others.
Additional questions we've raised about the
Brookings charter study include: Why did they
average together test results from different
grades? How is it possible to make judgments
about how schools perform when a 10th grader's
score is considered equal to that of an 8th
grader? Does it matter that charters serve more
elementary and middle school age children than
high school students? Why did researchers
compare schools of vastly different compositions
to one another?
To ensure the widest possible reach and
participation, the funds can be put to use to help
notify parents about the existence of the choice
program, what the program offers and the
program’s availability.
Three states that the researchers studied just
released data that show its charters serve
significant numbers of low-income students.
According to the Charter Friends Accountability
report, in Massachusetts "of the 20 school
districts with the biggest percentages of poor
children, 11 are charter schools (charter schools
are considered their own school district in
Massachusetts). In the 2001-02 school year,
about 25 percent of the state's 979,000 public
school children were considered low income.
Twenty-seven of the state's charter schools rank
above that percentage, and 15 are below it."
“The Choice Office staff put many hours and an
abundance of energy into writing this grant. We
firmly believe that this grant will allow school
districts to explore innovative school choice
options, providing a educational choices for
Florida’s students,” said Kendra Lee,
Communications and Research Specialist for the
Choice Office
.