Florida students head back to school in the heat of August. A Tampa Bay Times column notes some of them suffer in sweltering buildings with worn-out air conditioners.
This problem has many causes. Temperatures routinely break 90 degrees. School officials disagree on the best way to manage the heat. And, for a variety of reasons we'll get to in a minute, the district is strapped for building maintenance money.
The Times points to a different culprit: Charter schools.
The nutshell version is that the bulk of Hillsborough's more than 230 public schools are older buildings with cooling units that have reached the end of their usefulness. Your Florida Legislature keeps funneling public school dollars into private charter schools, so money to fix or replace failing systems is disappearing.
Fun fact: Hillsborough schools receive $145 million less from the state funds for routine maintenance than seven years ago. Thank your Legislature for that.
The basis for this "fun fact" is not clear. The state budget seven years ago allocated $122.1 million for building maintenance at non-charter public schools. That's total, statewide. The Hillsborough County school district received $8.7 million of that. (See page 30.) The Times does not explain how the district could have lost $145 million in state maintenance funding since 2010. (Update: See below.) (more…)
Tamara Switken chose to send her children to Mason Classical Academy, a charter school in Collier County, Fla. She was drawn to the well-rounded curriculum. The school requires children to read the classics. It emphasizes good character. "There's nowhere else I would send my children," she said.
That's despite some of the hardships. The school was founded by parents. (Two of them later won seats on the local school board and one was elected to the state Legislature.) It doesn't have its own buses and, at least for now, it doesn't have its own athletic fields. That means parents have to shuttle their kids back and forth to practice.
"It creates a struggle for the parents, not having on-site facilities," she said. But those parents pay taxes to support local public schools. Collier County is home to one of the most lucrative tax bases in the state, thanks in part to the million-dollar homes that dot its coastline.
Switken said those tax dollars should follow children to whatever school they choose. That would allow her school to pay for upgrades parents want.
For that reason, she was one of the thousands of parents who contacted Gov. Rick Scott to support a contentious bill that, for the first time, will require school districts to send a proportional share of the property taxes earmarked for school construction with local charter schools. That bill has now been law for more than a month.
"I wanted equality," Switken said.
Next school year, Florida's school districts are expected to raise a combined $2.5 billion dollars from property taxes to pay for school facilities. Some will raise millions more from other local revenue sources they won't be required to share.
Numbers crunched by the Florida House show charters will receive an estimated $96 million statewide, on top of the $50 million they receive from the state. That combined total — $146 million — would nearly double what they received last year.
The actual amounts each charter receives will vary substantially.
A fair share?
To help preserve districts' credit ratings, the law subtracts districts' debt payments from the amount they're required to share. (more…)
An under-the-radar tussle over a Florida plan to raise the academic bar for charter schools that get state facilities funding isn't over.
A fresh legal fight began recently, as a group representing mostly mom-and-pop charter schools challenged a new Department of Education rule that would deny funding to charters that earned consecutive D's from the state.
The rule was re-drafted and approved last month by the Florida Board of Education after a previous legal challenge by the Florida Association of Independent Public Schools.
The state has the authority to limit capital funding to schools with "satisfactory student achievement." Right now, it denies funding only to charter schools rated "F." Charters that receive consecutive F's typically close automatically. (more…)
For years, Florida lawmakers have floated proposals to steer school district property taxes to charter schools. Those measures have never reached the governor's desk. They tend to get bogged down in lobbying slugfests between charters, which clamor for equitable funding, and districts, which argue they can't afford to share limited local revenue.
At first, this year's debate in the Florida House seemed no different. That changed this morning in the Appropriations Committee.
The only person who addressed HB 5103 was charter school advocate who had concerns.
The measure requiring districts to share property taxes would nearly double funding for charter school facilities statewide, from $75 million to an estimated $147.9 million. But Chris Moya, a lobbyist representing Charter Schools USA, said some charter schools might actually receive less funding under the proposal. (more…)
The Florida House and Senate appropriations committees will debate competing budget proposals today, reviving an annual back-and-forth over charter school facilities.
The Senate proposes setting aside $75 million for charter school facilities in its 2017-18 spending plan — the same amount 540 charter schools are splitting this year. The House wants to hike the funding to $100 million.
Charter school critics might try to make hay out of two other figures. The Senate has proposed $75 million in capital funding for district-run public schools. The House has proposed spending $20 million. (more…)
The Florida Board of Education this morning approved a higher academic bar for charter schools that receive state facilities funding.
The rule would deny capital funding to charters that earn multiple D's through the state's A-F accountability system.
The state Department of Education revised the proposal after groups like the Florida Association of Independent Public Schools challenged it before the state's administrative law court.
After the revisions, charter schools would still have to meet the higher academic standard to get access to the Charter School Capital Outlay, but it won't take effect until the 2017-18 school year.
Members of the advocacy group indicated they still opposed the new rule.
"This seems like Deja Vu All over again," said Mark Gotz, the president of School Development Group, which helped finance Miami Community Charter School in Florida City. "Charter schools are public schools and need to be treated equally and equitably."
That argument piqued the interest of state board members who signed off on the previous version of the rule. (more…)
Top Florida senators say they're prepared to create a stable, predictable funding source for charter school facilities.
But the road to get there remains uncertain, even after a second Senate panel voted today to advance a measure that would require school districts to share local property tax revenue with charters.
Charter schools in Florida receive the same operational funding as traditional public schools. But when it comes to money for facilities, they rely on annual appropriations from the Legislature. That funding has stagnated even as charters continue to grow, and it's far below what traditional public schools receive.
On Tuesday, Senate President Joe Negron told reporters that's unacceptable.
Education funding should follow the child to whatever public school they attend, he said. And the era of funding charter school construction through annual appropriations in the state budget — primarily through the dwindling Public Education Capital Outlay — must end.
"It's competing with other dollars that, to me, should be for universities and community colleges and schools in other areas," he said.
Senate bill 376, approved this morning by the panel in charge of education spending, would require school districts to give charter schools a proportionate share of their local property tax revenue reserved for capital projects. (more…)
A Florida Senate panel this morning approved a bill that, for the first time, would distribute local tax revenue evenly to charter and traditional public schools.
But it also stalled a measure that would increase districts' local taxing authority. And school districts argue that measure must be connected to the charter funding proposal.
The ensuing debate raised new questions over how Florida lawmakers plan to overhaul school facilities funding for both charter and traditional public schools.
Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, sponsor of both bills and chair of the education budget subcommittee, said school districts had reached a desperate point. Property values haven't fully covered from the Great Recession, and school districts have lost a quarter of their pre-recession taxing authority since 2008. But the state population is growing again, and so are districts' construction needs.
Simmons cited the testimony of district leaders, who visited his subcommittee a few weeks ago. They described grim rituals like "bucket day," when they rush to different campuses to catch rainwater leaking from their roofs.
"I believe very strongly ... that we are in a crisis situation regarding the capital expenditures in our districts," he said. (more…)
KIPP Jacksonville became Florida's first successful attempt to lure a nationally recognized charter school organization thanks, in large part, to local benefactors.
Jacksonville Greyhound Racing donated a dog track, and the charter organization gradually converted the clubhouse into classrooms. Wealthy board members helped fund the renovation, and today they're financing a second building at far below the market rate. The small collection of schools enrolls close to 1,000 students and is still growing, adding as many as 200 a year. It has 1,400 children on its waiting list.
But the largess of its wealthy donors is running thin. And it's out of dog tracks to renovate.
On Wednesday, Tom Majdanics, KIPP Jacksonville's executive director, told state lawmakers he hopes the national charter school organization can bring "sibling" schools to more Florida cities. For that to happen, they'll need to address the barrier his schools already butt up against: A shortage of funding for charter school facilities.
While lawmakers have increased funding for public schools in recent years, Florida remains ranked near the bottom for per-student spending. Combine that with eroding facilities funds, and the state may start to look inhospitable to national charter school organizations with a reputation for getting results in underserved communities. State officials have long sought to attract more of them.
This graph, prepared for Wednesday's Senate Education Appropriations Subcommittee meeting by the state Department of Education, illustrates what Majdanics described as a key problem.
Charter schools rely on an annual appropriations from the state Legislature. That funding has fluctuated between $50 million and $100 million in recent years. But Florida's charter schools enroll more students each year. That means the same pool of money is being spread across more students and schools. Majdanics told the panel that the roughly $300 per student KIPP Jacksonville receives from the state "barely covers the interest on our loans" for capital expenses.
Later this morning, the Florida Senate's education budget panel is set to take up one of our favorite topics: School facilities funding.
It's one of our favorite topics because it's often misconstrued.
And it's become an increasingly important, and fraught, issue for the state's 653 charter schools. Over the years, they have watched their funding erode, faced constant uncertainty while relying on annual appropriations from the Legislature to pay for buildings, and, ironically, faced accusations that they are the ones getting lavish treatment from lawmakers while their district counterparts get short-changed.
The state Department of Education has prepared a series of charts that shed light on this issue.
The reality is that in the years since the Great Recession, facilities funding has been no picnic for districts or charters.
For starters, facilities funding still hasn't returned to pre-recession levels. (more…)
