Same old GOP

       So, fellow Floridians, some of you have done it to yourselves (and the rest of us) yet again. An article in today’s paper (Our local rag) is headlined thus: “New Power Players Ready to Get to Work.” 

        As is to be expected here, the article below listed local and state legislators and their legislative agendas for the upcoming year. There are some telling and disturbing objectives salted among the boiler plate jargon.

        New Speaker of the House, Jose Oliva (R-Miami Lakes), says his way of looking at government is really simple – “Get as much of it as possible ‘out of the way,’ so businesses and people are free to make their own decisions and pay fewer taxes.”  Mind you, we are already one of the most undertaxed states in the most under taxed industrialized nation in the world. Add to that, the fact that Florida’s wealthy are among the 3 states where their social stratum least taxed as a group in the US. “Getting out of the way” is code for less regulation of all sorts of things, like how much more crap can be pumped into Lake Okeechobee before it simply hardens into muck. Or, perhaps, what mosquito control agent can be fogged over unwitting homes.  

        All this is familiar rhetoric. We heard it from Rick (“f**k the everglades”) Scott for eight years. So where do we think Mr. Oliva wants to “pare down” spending in Florida? Why of course, like his two Senators, he wants to cut spending in the areas which hurt middle- and low-class Floridians the most – Health Care and Education. He has stated specifically that his “top two priorities” are reducing spending in both areas.  

        In a state which already has legislators with ties to “for pay” charter school providers, further cuts to education make no sense. More on charter schools when we get to Mr. DeSantis.

        In the area of health care, remember it was the former governor who, in the face of all logic, rejected federal dollars in support of extending Medicare. As a former Medicare cheat on a scale never seen before, Rick Scott still shills for private health insurance, and the accompanying gifts to insurers.

       The article also cites construction services executive now  Republican State  Representative Brett Hage’s  goals of (surprise!) infrastructure spending. Meanwhile Dennis Baxley, Republican State Senator, and funeral director (remember, these guys keep their day jobs while latched on to the public teat) has sponsored the controversial fetal heartbeat abortion prohibition. I’ll just leave that here.

        And so, to new Governor, Rick DeSantis. I must admit he has done several things which I find congruent with personal concerns. He has expressed intent to deal with the issues exacerbating Red Tide and Everglades pollution. Yeah, I know that’s good for tourism, but it’s also environmentally critical. He also fired the sheriff whose deputy’s inactivity may have led to more fatalities at Stoneman Douglas than occurred while he cowered outside the building.

       However, DeSantis’ first priority per this article, which features what I am sure are sound bite statements from staff, is “expanding school choice.” See what he did there? School choice doesn’t sound quite as bad as “expanding charter schools”…and yet, that’s what it is for the most part. Florida’s track record with charter schools is checkered and littered with the debris of failed charters. There are those which failed because they couldn’t provide what they promised and those which failed due to administrative malfeasance and financial fraud. Worse, in my opinion, and with portent in many places is the proliferation of parochial schools masquerading as charters.

        While, on average, nationally, 17 percent of charter school students outperformed students in their local public schools, students in 37 percent of charter schools performed significantly worse, and students in the remaining 46 percent of charter schools did not perform significantly better or worse than if they had attended their neighborhood traditional public school. In real numbers, diverting public education dollars to charters has an 83% chance of the same or worse results for the expenditure.  

        The “rest of the story” as Paul Harvey would have said, is that even the data above is skewed in the interest of making charters seem better, because public schools take every student who comes through their doors, whereas charters may have either specified entry requirements or parental involvement standards which produce a “better” (as in more academically driven) group of students.  Overall, the great majority of charter schools do no better or worse than traditional public schools, yet our governor thinks we need more of them.

        Why? First, off, some Florida charters are “ism driven. While they cannot specifically “teach” a specific religion as part of curriculum, they can certainly, and do, hire the “right” kind of teachers. In recent years, the number and diversity of charter schools with religious themes and relationships have grown, focusing increased interest in several states on the cultural experiences of groups like the Muslims, Jews, Greek Orthodox, and most recently Catholics. While these charter schools don’t claim to be religious, the influence of their mission helps to provide a program and atmosphere that are culturally relevant to that religious group. Since these charter schools teach the values of religion -- but do not require prayer or Bible/Koran/Torah teaching -- they apparently don’t as yet violate the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution -- and are therefore being publicly aided under various states’ charter legislation.

       Secondarily, there many ways to avoid the Public Schools requisite financial oversight. One, in Michigan, had, as the head of its financial oversight group, the principal of the school, who was also a primary investor. In Florida specifically, “Though initially proposed as a way for teachers to help run schools and showcase innovations that could help all public schools, charters have become a “parallel” education system in Florida, with nearly half now run by for-profit companies that donate millions to elected officials, the report. The percentage of charters run by for-profit companies was 45 percent in the 2017-18 school year, up from 25 percent seven years earlier. That said, about out 20 charters a year close, and at least 373 have closed in the last 20 years.” (Orlando Sentinel, June 29, 2017) That comes with a cost to taxpayers.

       Elsewhere, news outlets in Ohio reported the largest charter school closure ever in that state (this is last year, 2018!) and perhaps the nation. This abruptly sent over 12,000 students and their families scrambling to find new schools midyear. The school, an online charter called the Electronic School of Tomorrow (ECOT), owed the state nearly $80 million for inflating its enrollment numbers and overcharging the state for thousands of students that never attended full-time. Similar events have occurred in the South Florida area where, part way through the year,  charter school parents found doors locked, the building empty, and their children needing a new school.

       For years, Florida politicians have trashed public schools, describing them as “failures.” “Traditional public schools get it wrong”, they say. “Charter schools get it right”, they say. “We need to take money away from “failing” traditional schools and give more of it to charter schools”, they say.

        Yet when school grades were released in the spring of 2017, not a single traditional Public school in Orange County received an F. However, five charter schools did. Every single “failing” school in Orange County was a charter school and the numbers looked similar statewide. Less than 1 percent of traditional public schools earned F’s. But 3.4 percent of charter schools did. That means charter schools were more than three times as likely to fail. For two decades, politicians in this state have trashed teachers, underfunded education and bogged down schools with testing mandates and cumbersome regulations.

        Private operators wanted a piece of the taxpayer pie. So, they lobbied the politicians, who portrayed traditional schools as failures — and then slapped so many mandates on them that parents would flee. It worked. Now they have a friend in the Governor’s mansion.

        I used to call the building Skeletor’s Castle, but Rick Scott is gone, and Ron DeSantis at least appears human, so maybe I’ll re-christen it the “Den of Dumb.”