Broward County School DistrictRobert Runcie, the superintendent of the Broward County School District, wanted to help low-performing charter schools by partnering them with high-quality charter operators. He and his staff brought the idea to the school board and helped secure a $3.3 million grant from the state. But Runcie's bosses on the school board opted to turn the grant down. The reason defies logic.
“It’s not our job,” said board member Laurie Rich Levinson. Board member Patricia Good didn’t want to help either because, according to the Sun-Sentinel she believed, “it was up to individual schools to bring up their own grades.”
Laurie Rich Levinson
The apathetic approach to helping students in underperforming charter schools isn’t surprising given the Board’s history with charters. Repeated constantly by the Sun-Sentinel, board members claim charters are “easy to open but difficult to shutter if they fail,” and that this is entirely the state's fault.
Reality is more complicated. Broward shuts down a lot of charter schools. It also approves a lot of charters. According to the 2014 Authorizers Report, Broward recently approved 22 new charter schools, more than any other district in the state.
District staff say they are understaffed for charter school oversight, and the board grumbles about the proliferation of of poor-performing charter schools. But now the board is refusing money to help on both accounts.
