Three large school districts along Florida's I-4 corridor are angling for grants that could help them draw nationally recognized charter school networks to low-income neighborhoods.

The Orange, Polk and Hillsborough County school districts applied this month for $2.5 million in funding from round two of the Florida Department of Education's district-charter collaboration program.

The three districts are among the ten largest school systems in the Florida, and the top 30 in the country. Their proposals, published here for the first time, describe how they would use chartering to combat persistent academic struggles in high-poverty areas.

The potential collaborations break from the charged politics that often dominate the headlines. They represent an approach to charter schools that's still new for many Florida school districts.

As Polk County schools officials write in their proposal:

The Polk Charter Compact will turn charter school management in Polk from a compliance and coping exercise to purposeful tool for improved student performance in high-need areas where students are not currently receiving adequate educational services.

The department earlier this year awarded grants to Miami-Dade, Duval, and Broward Counties, but Broward's school board rejected the money, creating an opening for other districts to apply.

Three other districts — Palm Beach, Pinellas, and Pasco — were eligible to apply, but didn't. Pinellas is the only district that was eligible to apply for a grant in both rounds, but showed no interest.

Around the country, education reformers trying to help more districts and charters work together. They're also looking at the factors that can draw top-performing charter schools to low-income neighborhoods. With that in mind, the three latest collaboration proposals are worth a closer look.

Bridging the gap in Hillsborough

Hillsborough officials say they want to bring a new high-impact charter school to Tampa's urban core, where middle school proficiency rates are roughly 40 percent lower than elsewhere in the district.

The district says it wants to share know-how with the charter organization, and help with teacher recruitment and facilities, in a collaboration that could "serve as a replicable model for other districts around the nation." (more…)

Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court justice, might never have blossomed in the Bronx without the help of a faith-based school, a Catholic oasis called Blessed Sacrament. Sotomayor herself says so. Asked by Anderson Cooper if she would have become who she is without the school, Sotomayor said, “Doubtful.”

Sadly, Blessed Sacrament is closing this year, felled by the same social and economic forces – and education policies - that contributed to the shuttering of 1,300 Catholic schools in the past 20 years. There is tragedy and irony in its passing. You don’t have to be religious to feel it.

For most of this country’s history, faith-based schools have been a fundamental part of the American experience. But now, as the nation continues to wrestle with how best to get academic traction with poor and minority kids, its 21,000 religious schools continue to shrink, and continue to be mostly overlooked as a potential piece of the solution.

Here’s the tragic part. Eleven of 12 gold standard research studies find positive academic outcomes for students using vouchers to attend private schools, the vast majority of them religious schools. More recently, William Jeynes, a researcher at California State University, Long Beach, found via a meta-analysis of 90 studies that students in religious schools were on average seven months ahead of their peers in traditional public and charter schools. This was after controlling for race, gender, poverty and parental involvement.

Faith-based schools are a financial bargain, too – for all of us. Average tuition is thousands of dollars less than per-pupil funding for public schools, so collectively, taxpayers are saving tens of billions of dollars a year.

All this isn’t to say faith-based schools are the end-all, be-all. They range in quality just as charter and virtual and traditional public schools do. But in this era of customization, they offer more options, and in this time of desperation, more hands on deck. There is no good reason to bar them from the mix of educational alternatives that is helping parents and educators find the best fit for each and every child. (more…)

Florida: Tony Bennett is selected the state's new education commissioner (redefinED). He tells reporters afterwards that he champions school choice first and foremost because of the social justice component (redefinED). A new group headed by T. Willard Fair,  co-founder of the state's first charter school, aims to create a pipeline of black executives and entrepreneurs to help lead private and charter schools (redefinED). The Miami-Dade school district ranks No. 10 in the country for school choice, according to a new report from Brookings (redefinED). A Catholic school in Tampa is at the heart of a University of Notre Dame project to revitalize Catholic schools, particularly for Hispanic students. (redefinED).

Louisiana: Voucher parents are worried in the wake of the legal ruling that puts the program in limbo (advertiser.com). Gov. Bobby Jindal makes a pitch for vouchers at a Brookings Institution event in Washington D.C. (Huffington Post).

Washington: More than 150 teachers, parents and administrators attend a charter school conference in the wake of the successful passage of a charter school ballot initiative (Tacoma News Tribune). (Full disclosure: The conference was sponsored by the Washington Charter School Research Center, which was founded by Jim and Fawn Spady. Fawn Spady chairs the board of directors at the American Center for School Choice, which co-hosts this blog.)

Michigan: The education adviser to Gov. Rick Snyder presents the governor's sweeping public school choice proposal to business and education leaders (Grand Rapids Business Journal). (more…)