{"id":17420,"date":"2013-03-15T15:59:44","date_gmt":"2013-03-15T19:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=17420"},"modified":"2013-03-15T15:59:45","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T19:59:45","slug":"house-republicans-and-democrats-spar-over-charter-school-bias-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/03\/15\/house-republicans-and-democrats-spar-over-charter-school-bias-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"House Republicans And Democrats Spar Over Charter School Bias Charge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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myfloridahouse.gov<\/p>

Rep. Dennis Baxley says opponents of the charter school bill may have an underlying bias against alternative forms of education.<\/p><\/div>\n

The fact that the House budget committee approved a charter school bill<\/a> Thursday\u00a0isn\u2019t nearly as interesting as the debate that took place.<\/p>\n

Rep. George Moraitis, <\/strong>R-Fort Lauderdale, said his bill is designed to increase accountability for charter schools – since they are using public dollars – and increase flexibility and growth.<\/p>\n

Rep. Mia Jones, D-Jacksonville, suggested a small change to an amendment that would require districts to turn former classrooms over to a charter school if requested. Jones wanted district schools to be able to continue using the buildings — if they were storing textbooks there, for instance — even if it was for a purpose other than teaching students.<\/p>\n

The great debate over Jones\u2019 proposal epitomizes the perceived rift between Democrat and Republican views of education.<\/p>\n

Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, started it with this sentence: \u201cThere\u2019s an underlying bias here that really concerns me.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a portion of the exchange:<\/p>\n

Rep. Baxley–<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hearing language like \u2018giving buildings away.\u2019 We\u2019re hearing language like \u2018not a public school.\u2019 These are public schools, and it\u2019s just an absolute bias against an alternative way of managing schools that keeps treating it as not part of our family.<\/em><\/p>\n

These are public schools. These are uses that are legitimate. These are creating real alternatives for ways to turn around situations. I\u2019ve seen triple F\u2019s, quadruple F\u2019s, five F\u2019s (referring to failing schools) \u2013 something has to change in those communities.<\/em><\/p>\n

So I object to this amendment to the amendment because it is expressing that – if there\u2019s any way, any way at all, we can keep a charter school from managing that school, then let\u2019s block it.<\/em><\/p>\n

That bothers me that we still have that bias when we\u2019ve seen so much success — sometimes choosing a different alternative and offering a different way to manage our public schools that\u2019s beneficial to those students. We serve all the students of our community, and there\u2019s no reason to treat that with bias.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve got empty schools sitting around, and we\u2019ve got charter schools ready to go to work and meet the needs of those students that want those charter schools and those communities that chose those charter schools, I think we need to open up and understand they\u2019re all our children, and we need to respond to that and quit being so parochial here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Baxley\u2019s comments brought a lot of response from members, mostly Democrats.<\/p>\n

Rep. Reggie Fullwood, D-Jacksonville—<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI do want to dispel the comments about this bias. I think a lot of us on this side of the aisle are very involved in charter schools and support charter schools.<\/em><\/p>\n

A lot of us are on advisory committees or boards of charter schools and volunteer. I\u2019m in an organization that goes into a charter school every week and volunteers and mentors a bunch of kids.<\/em><\/p>\n

So I think to say that there\u2019s a bias I think is unfounded.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee—<\/strong><\/p>\n

“To have charter schools take control of publicly used assets, I believe, is the wrong public policy for this Legislature to consider.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Rep. Perry Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale—<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talked about a bias against charter schools, I think that there are those of us who would say a simple amendment that the bill sponsor agreed to \u2013 the fact that we would have to debate it to this extent means that there may be a bias against public schools.\u00a0<\/em>And that\u2019s probably some underlying concern that most of us have.<\/em><\/p>\n

When you have to debate this much on an amendment that\u2019s this little, it means there are underlying concepts. Maybe there is some thought that we don\u2019t really want to support public schools if we can\u2019t accept this minor amendment. Certainly that doesn\u2019t bode well for the actual bill itself.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rep. Jones—<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I am not against charter schools. You\u2019re looking at a member of a board of a charter school.<\/em><\/p>\n

I support charter schools. I believe that there are charter schools that are doing great things.<\/em><\/p>\n

I believe in public schools, and I believe that school districts have a responsibility, and we need to allow them to do the job that they are there to do. And they have assets, and they are responsible for those assets. So I would ask you to support this amendment.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Jones\u2019 amendment was rejected along party lines.<\/p>\n

The committee approved the bill — again along party lines — and it now moves on to the House Education Committee, likely the last stop before it goes to the House floor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fact that the House budget committee approved a charter school bill Thursday\u00a0isn\u2019t nearly as interesting as the debate that took place. Rep. George Moraitis, R-Fort Lauderdale, said his bill is designed to increase accountability for charter schools – since they are using public dollars – and increase flexibility and growth. Rep. Mia Jones, D-Jacksonville, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[785,794,1009,1008],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17442,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17420\/revisions\/17442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}