‘A full-throttled takeover’: Dems decry charter school conversion bill in last House committee

A bill that would make it easier for public schools to be converted into charter schools is one vote from passing in the House after clearing its final committee hurdle.

Members of the House Education and Employment Committee voted 11-4 for an amended version of HB 123, which would change the standard by which municipalities can turn over public school property to private education companies.

The bill, sponsored by Pensacola Republican Rep. Alex Andrade, would exclude School Boards, teachers and school administrators from voting on the matter. Rather, the decision would fall solely to parents of a given school, provided their children were enrolled there for at least two years. Approval would require 50% support.

The charter school would have to be a “job engine,” meaning it would train students to fill local workforce needs and attract related businesses to the area. Municipalities could also apply to convert a public school within their jurisdiction into a job engine charter if the public school earned a grade below an “A” from the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) for five consecutive years.

The Florida Citizens Alliance, Foundation for Florida’s Future and Americans for Prosperity signaled support for HB 123, which Andrade amended to remove proposed limitations on land bankingby school districts.

Andrade said in the bill’s prior committee stop that his proposal shifts decisions about a school’s future from its employees and administrators to those he considered its most important stakeholders. “Who cares more about that child than that child’s parents?” he said.

More than 40 people, including representatives from the Florida AFL-CIO and State Innovation Exchange, attended Tuesday’s committee meeting to oppose the measure.

Jude Bruno of the Florida PTA said the bill creates a “troubling framework” that could doubly tax residents while relying on a state-set grading model that is subject to the potentially capricious whims of FDOE policymakers handpicked by the Governor.

“A school’s fate could rest on shifting metrics, not actual student success,” she said, adding that if passed, HB 123 would also “hand over power” to charter schools “without any accountability metrics that school districts and our parents fight for.”

The bill, as currently written, would also give people with a short-term interest in a school — parents whose kids will eventually graduate — the ability to impose long-term changes on it, lobbyist Nancy Lawther noted.

“This is a permanent solution to a potential temporary situation for those particular parents,” said Lawther, who serves as Executive Director of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party. “At the very least, (there should be) a referendum of the residents of the municipality, whose property values would be affected by the conversion.”

Through a series of questions and answers with Andrade, Gainesville Democratic Rep. Yvonne Hinsonclarified that Florida law today enables municipalities to seek the development of new charter schools within their bounds. She described HB 123 as the latest in a yearslong effort to privatize public education resources.

“What we’re watching in real time is a full-throttled takeover of our public schools,” she said. “Every year, it gets deeper and deeper, and here we are now.”

Hinson and fellow Democratic Reps. Wallace Aristide of Miami, Tae Edmonds of West Palm Beach and Rita Harris of Orlando voted “no” on the bill.

Its upper-chamber companion (SB 140) by Pensacola Republican Sen.Don Gaetzawaits a hearing before the last of three committees to which it was referred.