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
    .
     

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