Charter school operators are bigfooting their way into public K-12 classrooms across Florida, with plans to grab taxpayer-funded buildings and other amenities. No one should be rolling out the welcome mat
A new law passed earlier this year greatly expands Florida’s Schools Of Hope program, which lets charter-school operators move into “underused” public-school classrooms while still qualifying as charter schools. That law took effect on July 31, and the march is on: Miami-based Mater Academy has put Broward County on notice that it plans on moving into 27 public school campuses. In Orange County, another provider has set its sights on a region in the northwest corner of the county. In its application, it described plans to move onto the campuses of two as-yet-unidentified schools, and expand from there.
Is it ‘hope’ or ‘nope?’
This is about more than free space. Once a charter is in a public school, the Department of Education requires districts to pick up the tab for charter school expenses, including transportation, gyms, school safety, cafeterias, nursing and more.
Legislation expanding the ability of charter schools to take underused public school space reached the governor’s desk through a political sleight of hand, tucked inside Senate Bill 2510, a budget-related bill.
There’s something deeply cynical about Florida charter schools siphoning students from public schools, then rapaciously demanding to set up shop in the same schools’ emptied classrooms. And it only gets worse when the performance of these “Hope” schools often lags behind the schools they are trying to rescue. For example, the company that wants to move into Orange County — known as KIPP TEAM & Family — already operates four charters in Jacksonville. Two of them recieved a “D” grade in the state’s annual assesment of school quality. That puts them in the bottom 4% of schools in the state. The other two schools were graded B and C. In its application to Orange County, KIPP did not mention the Jacksonville schools at all — but boasted about rising test scores at a KIPP school in Miami’s Liberty City rhat earned a “C” for the past three years, but received an “F” in 2021.
Curious.
The Orange County School Board approved the KIPP application Sept. 30. They had no choice, says School Board Member Stephanie Vanos: Districts that reject School of Hope applications could lose critical state funding. “We have to let them squat rent-free.” And local officials expect to see more, she said.
Dealing schoolrooms in the backrooms
Politically connected companies worked behind the scenes in Tallahassee to secure this new arrangement, says independent reporter Jason Garcia whose site, Seeking Rents, dove into the late-session machinations. The result is a boon to multimillion-dollar private education businesses and a slap in the face to taxpayers who pay to enrich education, not corporations.
Lawmakers first authorized charter schools in the 1990s, hoping to develop new teaching methods that could be shared with public schools. Charters operate under more restrictions than the private schools that accept state-funded vouchers, but can still hire uncertified teachers and deviate in other ways from the standards expected of public schools.
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Funded by taxpayers, the schools are nonprofits, but the businesses running them aren’t. Today, many schools are lucrative revenue streams for those businesses. Among them is Academica, a Miami-based powerhouse reaping millions from deals to operate charter schools, including Mater Academy.
Academica and other companies showered lawmakers’ with more than $13 million in campaign contributions beginning in 1998, Integrity Florida found.
Charter school interests spent millions more on lobbyists. But charters have more than money. They have political friends, too.
Empire-building with our money
The original 2017 “Schools of Hope” law provided millions in incentives to charter schools. It was spearheaded by former state Education Commissioner Manny Diaz when he was a Miami-Dade state lawmaker while also drawing a paycheck from a charter college.
New College president Richard Corcoran pushed for charter school expansion as House speaker. His wife founded a charter school, and his brother was a charter school lobbyist. And U.S. Rep Byron Donalds, a frontrunner in the governor’s race, is married to charter school businesswoman Erika Donalds, whose income from her charter school company was not fully disclosed for months.
Garcia reported that this year’s charter legislation was influenced, if not written, by lobbyists for billionaire donor and charter school backer Ken Griffin and New York’s Success Academy charter school.
But this legislation does much more than allow charter schools to take over parts of public schools.
It allows charter schools to drop certain troublesome students, as Success Academy was criticized for doing in New York. Keeping only high achievers can create a better overall academic ranking. Schools of Hope government money is available to charter school chains that operate near “persistently low performing” public schools.
The new law broadens that definition, creating opportunities for more charters to sweep in.
Florida DOE board Vice Chair Esther Byrd isn’t swayed by opponents of charter expansion, or the relocation into public schools. “Schools of Hope wouldn’t be necessary if our public school system had done its job along the way,” she told a critic.
In fact, Schools of Hope would not be necessary if a succession of governors and legislators had done their jobs. Siphoning money from public schools to pay big businesses running charter schools, for instance, might not have been necessary if charter schools had been held to their mission of sharing innovative educational practices with public schools instead of trying to supplant them.
Instead, Tallahassee has for years washed its hands of the hard work of real reform in favor of handing off public education to private interests.
It is done under the banner of parental rights. But allowing charter schools to muscle into public schools on the taxpayers’ dime is not the work of legislators expanding choice. It’s one more example of politicians abdicating responsibility.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/10/18/schools-of-hope-are-also-schools-of-profit-editorial-2/
