Will fight to save public education spread?

Last week the Broward County School Board approved a lawsuit against House Bill 7069. Though legislators crammed more than 50 bills into HB 7069, the Legislature passed it with almost no debate. House leaders, including those with ties to charter schools, crafted HB 7069 in the last days of the session. Despite protests from superintendents and school boards, Gov. Rick Scott signed the legislation.

A memo from Barbara Myrick, the board’s general counsel, lists five grounds for a case that the law violates the Florida Constitution:

Legislation must cover one subject. HB 7069 changes 69 state statutes;

The law restricts school district from carrying out their duty to oversee contracts with charter schools;

The program that allocates $140 million to so-called “Schools of Hope” sets no standard for how charter schools could spend that money and thus illegally circumvents local school boards;

The law seeks to create a second, private system of public education;

Under current law, schools can share public money with charter schools for construction. Under HB 7069, districts would have to share it.

Supporters of the law, which became House Speaker Richard Corcoran’s priority, stuck the controversial provisions into a must-pass budget bill because most couldn’t have passed on their own. Some of the potential damage already is clear. Depriving school districts of construction money could harm their credit rating.

Given that prospect, the Broward County School Board acted correctly in approving $25,000 to recruit an outside law firm. Next week, the Palm Beach County School Board will decide whether to file a lawsuit. The Miami-Dade County School Board is scheduled to hold a workshop on the issue this month.

Broward County Superintendent Robert Runcie told the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board that HB 7069 would create “a parallel school system that could be privately managed without the requisite accountability. It would be a shadow, private system that runs on public dollars.”

Example: The new rule that school districts share money for construction. The source of that revenue is a property tax dedicated to capital projects. There’s oversight when school districts spend that money, but nothing in HB 7069 requires charter schools to spend the money on construction and/or maintenance. There’s no oversight.

Runcie also notes that the district has shared capital projects money when appropriate. One goal of the district’s 2014 general obligation bond was to reduce the ratio of students to computers, which at the time was six to one. It is now two to one.

The district gave some of the new computers to charter schools but kept track of the equipment. When the district has had to close some of those schools, the district was able to recover the computers, which are public property.

Now consider the “Schools of Hope” program. Supposedly, the state would use that $140 million to attract charter school operators that would set up near low-performing traditional public schools and give those students a better alternative.

Nothing in the law, however, requires charter companies to take just students from those schools. Nor is there language to ensure that new operators would produce better results. No school board approval is required. Again, there is no oversight of public money.

Supporters of HB 7069 wondered why the teachers union joined superintendents and school boards in opposition, since the bill contained a provision for teacher bonuses. Easy. Teachers wanted raises, not more one-time bonuses that add nothing to their pensions. And the state would continue to base bonuses on teachers’ SAT or ACT scores from years ago, not current performance. There could be no changes to the bonus program until 2021.

Legislative leaders claim to support local control. HB 7069, however, strips control of local tax revenue from school boards and seeks to undermine Florida’s system of free public schools. The law is terrible public policy done in secret. More important, for the purpose of the lawsuit, HB 7069 is illegal.

The Broward, Palm Beach and MiamiDade school districts estimate that the property tax provision of HB 7069 could cost them a combined $500 million over 10 years. Add the potential cost of higher borrowing rates and the case for a lawsuit is obvious. With luck, every school board in Florida will fight to overturn HB 7069 and protect public education.

“It would be a shadow, private system that runs on public dollars.” Robert Runcie, Broward County superintendent