Protect Our Public Schools (POPS) held its first public forum at the Fogartyville Peace and Action Center. Presenters included Sarasota School Board member, Shirley Brown; Opt Out Florida Network Manatee leader, Bridget Heffernan Mendel and POPS leader, Carol Lerner. POPS leaders, Sandra Danu moderated and Rhana Bazzini gave the welcoming and opening remarks. The forum focused on the growing threat of school privatization, nationally, statewide and locally.
Carol Lerner opened the forum providing an overview of the history of school privatization and showing how so called school reformers are implementing the agenda of large corporations and billionaire hedge funders who see school privatization as a key part of their economic game plan and a good way to extract billions of dollars from the 1.5 trillion dollar education industry. She explained that the two primary vehicles for school privatization have been the rapid expansion of corporate-managed charter schools and education vouchers or tax credit scholarships to private schools. Florida, Lerner explained, is the most advanced state in the nation in terms of school privatization, having both the highest percentage of students attending charter schools and the most students attending private schools with vouchers or tax credit scholarships. As Florida Governor, Jeb Bush made school privatization a central part of his agenda. This effort continues with his ExcelinEd Foundation. Betsy DeVos served on its Board before becoming U.S. Secretary of Education. In addition, most of the leadership of the Florida State legislature has direct personal ties to the charter school industry. They have pushed through draconian legislation, such as the recently passed HB-7069, that will rapidly expand corporate-managed charter schools and voucher-supported private schools at the expense of public school districts.
Shirley Brown, Sarasota School Board member and former Democratic member of the Florida House of Representatives, further discussed the impact that privatization has on schools districts, including the Sarasota School District. Because of HB-7069, over 10% of the capital budget paid by taxpayer dollars in Sarasota will now go yearly to charter schools whether needed or not. Brown particularly sees the tax credit scholarship dollars where corporations and businesses can divert corporate taxes to a nonprofit “scholarship” fund as dangerous and a major threat to public education. She explained how the program is now funneling $1-billion to often inadequate and sometimes scandal-ridden private schools, 70% of them religiously based, and often no more than a storefront at an aging strip mall, with zero accountability. The truly frightening aspect of this is that the tax credit scholarships program is growing at a legislatively driven 25% annual rate, Brown reported. This could obliterate public education in decade or two, she said.
Bridget Heffernan Mendel of Opt Out Florida Network, Manatee, began her presentation with personal stories about how as a former teacher and current parent, she became distressed by the effects of high stakes testing on her children. She explained how high stakes testing is used punitively against children, teachers, individual schools and entire school districts. Low performing schools based on standardized testing are labeled as “failing schools” and can be shutdown and replaced by corporate charter schools. Teachers are punished or even fired based on student test scores without any consideration of the effects of poverty and inadequate resources.
A lively discussion followed. One former teacher described how, based on test scores alone, she would have been viewed as an
inadequate teacher when she taught in an urban setting but when she moved to an extremely high achieving school district with high parent income and educational attainment levels, she was suddenly considered
highly effective. Many in the audience reacted negatively to the dominance of high-stake testing and how it has harmed education in the U.S.
