LWVFL President Pamela Goodman‘s op-ed was published today in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
Florida’s charter school movement had humble beginnings in the early 1990s as pioneers promised tailored, successful programs. Since then the movement exploded from a handful to just over 652 schools today.
Along the way, the lucrative for-profit industry convinced Florida’s Legislature and governor, through House Bill 7069, that their privately-owned facilities should be funded at equal levels to Florida’s 4,200 public schools. This all comes despite research showing charters have the highest closure rate in the nation with over 300 closed charters and worse academic performance than similar publicly run schools in Florida’s major cities.