Recently, proposals to help charter schools have been released to the public, and they have sparked various debates amongst parents, educators, and government officials. These proposals could potentially help with operational flexibility, increased funding, promotion of transitions of public schools into charter schools, and more towards the charter education system.
According to South Florida’s Sun Sentinel, “Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature is moving forward with a series of proposals that would help charter schools, while Democrats argue the measures would chip away at traditional public schools.” So far, five bills have been passed through the House or the Senate, but due to this ongoing debate and disagreement towards the charter school proposal, they haven’t reached approval from both legislatures throughout all proposals.
The Republicans essentially argue that passing and getting these proposals approved will help support charter schools while transitioning low-performing public schools, or just public schools in general, to charter schools. On the other hand, the Democrats argue that these public schools or “schools of hope” will be essentially destroyed by passing these various bills to help charter schools.
HB 1267, or the Hope Bill, has officially been passed and focuses on expanding Charter Schools statewide. This is due to underperforming public schools that don’t provide the highest quality education that people seek. Not only do most public schools provide a low quality of education, but they also tend to be overcrowded, so this bill will allow for more comfortable, less overcrowded schools as well as a higher quality of education.
Additionally, HB 1115 is a proposal that focuses on the funding of charter schools as well as the functionality of charter schools. This proposal calls for increased equity, stronger teacher qualifications, as well as increased transparency. This proposal also addresses and raises questions about the balance between public and charter schools.
Moreover, SB 140 is a Senate bill that is similar to HB 111.5, as they both seek increased accountability, funding, and transparency in charter schools. The difference between these two bills is that SB 140 seeks expansion of charter schools. SB 140 sets a goal of 50 new charter schools to open in low-income communities in order to provide a higher quality education than the public schools in the area.
HB 569 is mainly focused on one thing: “development-related changes that could help with charter-school facilities.” More developers will be able to aid in the development of these charter schools, which could involve various aspects that “involve money or other things such as land, site planning, or construction.”
As a whole, these proposals introduced into Florida Education will help charter schools with expansion, better quality education, and higher accessibility learning; however, Public Schools will be slowly destroyed due to the rapid and encouraged introduction of these proposals aimed at aiding charter system development.
