{"id":3491,"date":"2011-12-12T11:12:31","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T16:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=3491"},"modified":"2012-01-04T17:27:18","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T22:27:18","slug":"inside-the-business-of-florida-charter-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/12\/12\/inside-the-business-of-florida-charter-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside The Business Of Florida Charter Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div id=\"attachment_3492\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Jeremy Rosende participates in his first-grade art class at the Renaissance Charter School in Coral Springs.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/12\/RenaissanceCharter.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3492\" title=\"RenaissanceCharter\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/12\/RenaissanceCharter-300x220.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/12\/RenaissanceCharter-300x220.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/12\/RenaissanceCharter-620x455.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/12\/RenaissanceCharter-220x161.jpg 220w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/12\/RenaissanceCharter.jpg 660w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Patrick Farrell \/ Miami Herald Staff<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jeremy Rosende participates in his first-grade art class at the Renaissance Charter School in Coral Springs.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Florida charter schools are a $400 million business operating with little oversight whose business interests occasionally conflict with their educational mission, according to the first story in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/2011\/09\/19\/2541051\/florida-charter-schools-big-money.html\"><em>Miami Herald<\/em> three-part investigation<\/a> published Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The story boils the issues down to these:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2022Some schools have ceded almost total control of their staff and finances to for-profit management companies that decide how the schools\u2019 money is spent.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022\u00a0Many management companies also control the land and buildings used by the schools \u2014 sometimes collecting more than 25 percent of a school\u2019s revenue in lease payments, in addition to management fees.<\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/10\/12\/loopholes-in-florida-law-leave-room-for-corruption-in-charter-schools\/\">Loopholes In Florida Law Mean Little Oversight of Charter Business Deals<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/09\/28\/from-minnesota-to-miami-the-history-of-florida-charter-schools\/\">From Minnesota to Miami: The History of Florida Charter Schools<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/09\/27\/the-three-types-of-florida-charter-schools\/\">The Three Types of Florida Charter Schools<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/09\/26\/a-stateimpact-florida-series-do-charter-schools-work\/\">A StateImpact Florida Series: Do Charter Schools Work?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/07\/studentsforstateimpact-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/topic\/charter-schools\/\">Everything You Need To Know About Charter Schools<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>\u2022\u00a0Charter schools often rely on loans from management companies or other insiders to stay afloat, making charter school governing boards beholden to the managers they oversee.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022\u00a0At some financially weak schools, tight budgets have forced administrators to cut corners. Schools have also been accused of using illegal tactics to bring in more money \u2014 charging students illegal fees for standard classes, or faking attendance records to earn more tax dollars, court records show.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022\u00a0Charter schools in Miami-Dade take a disproportionately lower share of black, poor and disabled children, records show.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The series authors, Scott Hiaasen and Kathleen McGrory, sat down with WLRN host Phil Latzman to discuss the first story, which focuses on the tangled business dealings of charter schools and their management companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Florida charter schools are a $400 million business operating with little oversight whose business interests occasionally conflict with their educational mission, according to the first story in a Miami Herald three-part investigation published Sunday. The story boils the issues down to these:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[1009,1091,1008,1100],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491"}],"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\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3503,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3491\/revisions\/3503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}