Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Selective accountability on school safety
As Florida commissioner of education, and before that as speaker of the Florida House, Richard Corcoran has talked a lot about accountability. But he applied it selectively in the case of a charter school that failed to adequately protect its own students, in Broward, of all places.
The school failed to provide a safe environment for its more than 500 students on the opening day of school, as the law requires in this tense and troubling post-Parkland world.
As a result, the Broward school district took the unprecedented and correct step of seizing control of Championship Academy of Distinction in Davie after the district said the school ignored repeated warnings since April to comply with a state law and provide a school safety officer on Day One.
On Aug. 20, the day Broward took decisive action, Corcoran sent a letter to Superintendent Robert Runcie calling it “problematic for several reasons.” He recommended intermediate steps instead. Suddenly, accountability didn’t seem so urgent.
“I recommend that you audit this school for the first 60 days of the school year to ensure that they maintain safe schools coverage and ultimately implement a long term solution,” Corcoran wrote Runcie. Citing a new law passed by the 2019 Legislature, he added: “It is apparent from the statute that the legislative intent is for the district school board to work with charter school governing boards to facilitate access to all safe school options.”
Charter schools are public schools — often run by for-profit management companies — that get tax dollars.
Corcoran’s advice is troubling for two reasons.
First, it contradicted the advice he gave school districts in June, when he called it “imperative” that every charter school have at least one school safety officer at the school while in session.
As Corcoran told districts in that June 28 letter: “Our only option going forward will be to use the full extent of the law to ensure compliance.” Failure to follow the law, he said, will “present an immediate and serious danger” to students. That sounds more like it, Commissioner. Second, Corcoran’s go-easy stand on charters countermanded the position of Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission, one of the principal authors of the report that excoriated the school district’s response to the Parkland shooting.
In an interview this week, Gualtieri told the Sun Sentinel he fully supported Broward’s takeover of the Davie charter school, calling it “the right decision.” He added: “A message needs to be sent to these charters. They need to comply with the law.” He called their protests “a bunch of crap” and said he’s fed up with schools acting as though they can ignore school safety requirements without consequences.
The tough-talking Corcoran issued another ultimatum to school districts on Holocaust education, hinting at financial penalties, after a controversy at Spanish River High School in Boca Raton in which a former principal said there was debate over whether the Holocaust happened. The commissioner has also suggested a possible takeover of struggling public schools.
Corcoran is the undisputed political champion of school choice expansion in Florida, to the detriment of public education, and his affinity for charter schools is well known. On his watch as speaker, charter schools first became eligible for construction money previously earmarked for traditional public schools. His wife Anne founded a charter school in their home county of Pasco, north of Tampa.
A consummate political insider, Corcoran is a former Republican lawmaker from Pasco and a lawyer. After leaving the House last fall, he was Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hand-picked choice to run the Department of Education at a salary of $276,000, or more than twice what the governor earns.
In a leadership manifesto he co-wrote with House GOP members in 2012, called BluePrint Florida, Corcoran and his colleagues condemned a political culture of “self-preservation,” in which politicians use a current office as a stepping stone to more lucrative positions. He told the Sun Sentinel it would be unfair to accuse him of doing that in taking the education job, one of the most prestigious positions in state government that will enhance his taxpayer-funded state pension.
“Two different worlds,” Corcoran said, emphasizing that, while in office, he did not seek the DOE job and never campaigned for it. In fact, Corcoran supported DeSantis’ Republican opponent, Adam Putnam, in last year’s race for governor. But his credentials on school choice apparently were enough to overcome that problem.
Accountability works best when it’s applied equally. Corcoran did not adequately serve DeSantis or the field of education when he sought to let a charter school off the hook.