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Cons Of Charter Schools

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In 1996, then governor Jeb Bush co-founded the first charter school within the state of Florida, when most educators across the nation thought of charter schools as nothing more than a fad. Now, there are more than 350 charter schools within the state of Florida; there are 38 across the Tampa Bay area with several in the Tampa Schools area — private and public. The movement has mushroomed across Florida with charter school enrollment expected to top 100,000 students this year.

Yet, if you ask the average adult on the street, most have no idea what a charter school is. Though many charter schools are private businesses that operate under the guidelines of the state school board, many were traditional schools converted to public charter schools and still under the direction and control of the school districts, such as the Tampa schools.

Charter schools are given more flexibility from many of the regulations that apply to the traditional Tampa schools in exchange for greater accountability. Charter schools can be as different as day and night in their mission, vision for their students, approaches to curriculum and teaching methods, and administrative structures, as well as their overall philosophy.

Each charter within the Tampa schools area must prove that their students are continuously improving academically from year to year. If they fail (indicated by student test scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT)), they are closed.

Any individual or business that wishes to create a charter school can. Successful new approaches to education by some charter schools are copied by others. The primary philosophy of these schools, however, is that one curriculum and one way of doing things is not correct for every student.

The success of the charter schools within the Tampa schools' area has forced the Tampa schools' leadership and educators to re-evaluate their traditional schools, giving students and parents more educational choices from which to choose.

Clearly no longer just a fad, the Tampa schools lose many students (and the funding that goes with each student) to charter schools each year, and the numbers are on the increase. The Tampa schools now have 12 public charter schools converted from their traditional schools. Ten are lower grade levels and two are secondary. A few have middle school grades included.

Charter schools within the Tampa schools' area, as well as across the nation, continue to produce mixed results. Since their inception in Florida, 78 have closed, and nearly 30 percent were in the red financially a few years ago. Charters traditionally average 11 percent less funding per student, and their students generally score slightly lower on the FCAT, though they are improving.

Most charters within the Tampa schools' area have a greater proportion of minority students than the traditional schools. Many are located within the inner city communities, where all schools face their biggest challenges.

Cons Of Charter Schools

Superintendent of Instruction for the California schools, Jack O'Connell, initiated an audit more than a year ago into the fiscal concerns of the Options for Youth and Opportunities for Learning (OYO) schools. The OYO is a chain of independent study charter schools within the California schools system, which are privately run but funded by the state.

The OYO California schools serve students who have dropped out of the traditional high schools. They currently have about 15,000 students in 40 storefront locations across the state. These California schools students do most of their work at home, meeting with teachers twice a week. According to state records, student achievement test and high school exit exam scores are above average, as compared to other alternative high schools within the California schools system. According to a Los Angeles Times article of August 10th, only 11 percent of OYO students graduated during the 2003-2004 school year. The remainder of students that left school that year either dropped out, were expelled, or transferred to other schools.

The California schools' audit was conducted by the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, who concluded their analysis and presented their findings in a report that was released in August 2006. The audit cites accounting defects, overpayments by the state, conflicts of interest, nepotism, excessive compensation, and mixing private business concerns with public schools.

The OYO was founded and still operated by John and Joan Hall, former teachers from Hollywood High School. They have fully cooperated with the California schools' audit, but dispute most of the findings.

Some examples from the audit report are:

•Accounting Defects and Overpayments. The Halls count each of their teachers as 1.92 full-time positions. Their spokesperson, Stevan Allen, stated that this is a common practice for charter schools in the California schools system and is a legitimate method for compensating school staff for longer days and year-round schedules. California schools superintendent O'Connell believes teachers should be counted only as one full-time position each. The auditors disagreed, citing that traditional California schools teachers spend much less time working each year than those at OYO. However, the auditors believed the 1.92 amount is inflated. This example, alone, accounts for more than half of the $57 million overpayment.

Additionally, the report noted several questionable expenses. One example of unrestrained spending, given by the Times was an $18,000 staff party held at Disneyland. Allen defended that event as an attempt at relationship building between staff members, who are scattered across the state. He noted that the costs was less than $50 per staff member.

•Conflicts of Interest and Mixing Private Business with Public Schools. Besides the charter schools, the Halls own and operate several private businesses that sell materials and services to schools. The Times noted that the Options in OYO was the nonprofit part of the setup, with the Opportunities part being for-profit. The audit calls this practice and setup into question.

•Excessive Compensation. The audit also questions the combined salaries for the Halls, which is $600,000 annually. The report states that it may be excessive for the amount of time the couple actually works.

•Nepotism. The Halls created a separate charity with $10.8 million of the California schools' funding, called Pathways in Education. The charity is run by their daughter, Jamie Hall. Little money has been spent toward education thus far.

The Halls contend that they previously had requested guidance on their operation from the California schools many times, but never received any response. Thus, they tried to follow California schools requirements as best they could with their understanding of the policies. Even O'Connell conceded that none of the cited practices are illegal.

The audit recommends the California schools should attempt to recover the $57 million in overpayment from the OYO. O'Connell has sent the report to the state's attorney general's office for review and any necessary action.

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Patricia Hawke has sinced written about articles on various topics from Education, Food And Drink and Education Toys. Patrica Hawke is a staff writer for Schools K-12, providing free, in-depth reports on all U.S. public and private K-12 schools. For more information please visit. Patricia Hawke's top article generates over 246000 views. to your Favourites.

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