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Joint Statement: Equity Issues and the Parent
Trigger Bill
LULAC Florida and the Florida Conference of the NAACP oppose the Parent
Empowerment in Education bill as unnecessary legislation that fails to
address the persistence of educational inequity in Florida’s charter
schools. We affirm the importance and positive impact of parent empowerment and
engagement on student achievement. However, the Florida Parent Trigger bill
misleads by asserting that legislation will provide parents an
"empowerment" over school policy input; the truth is they already
have it. There is no substance to the claim that Parent Trigger legislation
empowers parents and no evidence that the parent trigger process leads to
improvements in parent engagement, student achievement, or narrowing the
achievement gap.
Florida civil rights organizations want solutions to civil rights
problems before bills are adopted that lead to further expansion of the charter
school network. These problems include segregated school environments and targeted
denial of access.
Racial and Ethnic Segregation
Recent studies have revealed that more than half of
the state's charters, 54 percent, enroll two-thirds or more of a single race or
ethnicity, compared with 44 percent for traditional public schools (http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-04-30/news/os-charter-schools-segregation). As noted by a 2010 National NAACP resolution
on charter schools, segregation is not innovation. Applicants for charters are
required to state their plans to foster racial balance. Clearly, this
requirement has not solved the problem. Policy makers must craft other
solutions before we are ready for too-rapid expansion of a model that brings
back past errors.
Exclusion, Suspension, and Expulsion
Civil rights advocates are
concerned about the impact of charter school policies on students’ due process
rights in these semi-private schools and on their potential impact on the
school-to-prison pipeline. What happens when working parents cannot meet
charter school requirements for volunteer service in the schools as a condition
of their children’s continued enrollment?
What choice is available to parents of children whose average
comportment does not meet exacting discipline codes? As Dr. Bruce Baker stated, “Traditional public
schools cannot shed students who do not meet academic standards, comply with
more general behavioral codes or social standards, such as parental obligations.”(http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/charter-schools-are-public-private-neither-both/
)
The
extent to which our most vulnerable disabled students in Exceptional Student
Education (ESE) programs are excluded from charter schools is striking. According to a StateImpact Florida/Miami Herald investigation of 14
school districts representing more than three-quarters of Florida’s total charter enrollment, most charter schools
in Florida are failing to serve students with severe disabilities. According to
the Florida Department of Education (FDOE), 86 percent of charter schools
statewide do not have any students classified as severely disabled. Students
with severe disabilities served by charter schools are concentrated in a few
specialized schools located in the state’s largest counties. As a result,
severely disabled students in these charter schools are segregated from other
students. Disabled students have no charter option in other parts of the state (http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2011/12/14/no-choice-florida-charter-schools-failing-to-serve-students-with-disabilities/).
The Parent
Trigger bill would do nothing to bring about access to charter school choice
for Florida’s half a million ESE students.
Miami-Dade School Board member Raquel Regalado is an attorney, an
elected official, the daughter of the City of Miami Mayor, and a broadcast
journalist. It’s hard to imagine a more empowered parent. Nevertheless, when
her daughter was diagnosed with autism, she was no longer permitted to continue
to attend a charter school in Miami. As Regalado noted, “And
if this happened to someone with influence, what happens to everyone else?”
The StateImpact Florida/Miami Herald investigation found that less
than 3 percent of Miami-Dade’s charter schools enroll students with severe
disabilities. Regalado adds that
charters also exclude “students with mild disabilities,
like ADD, and students with behavioral issues” (http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2011/12/23/school-board-member-says-her-special-needs-daughter-was-forced-to-leave-a-charter-school/).
Data on the numbers of students who apply for
admission to charter schools, along with the number denied admission and the
reasons for exclusion, are not presented in the Florida Department of
Education’s annual report on charter schools. Neither are data for the number
and subgroup membership of students who are suspended, or expelled (or
withdrawn after being counseled to go elsewhere), compared to traditional
public schools. Such data should be
collected and made public to foster policy development that ensures the civil
rights of Florida’s students.
Rights of English Language Learners (ELLs)
Does
the Florida charter school law secure the rights of ELL students in Florida to
attend and participate equally with other students?
This
question was posed to Roger Rice, Esq., Executive Director, Multicultural
Education, Training, and Advocacy (META).
His
response:
No, it falls
short. The Florida law does say that ELL student have an equal
opportunity to enrollment but doesn’t provide that they will receive the
services they need if they do enroll. We know that many parents will not
seek to enroll their student in a charter school that can’t serve them. For
example, Oregon’s charter school law is similar to Florida’s but is much
clearer and stronger in protecting ELL students by requiring that: “Consistent
with federal civil rights laws, public charter schools shall provide limited
English proficient students with appropriate services designed to teach them
English and the general curriculum”. The Florida law should include
similar ‘appropriate services consistent with federal civil rights laws’ type
language. Otherwise equal enrollment opportunity means opportunity to
receive a program that doesn’t meet the needs of ELL students.
Florida’s
quarter million ELLs should have the benefit and assurance in Florida law that
public charters will provide appropriate services before there is further
expansion of the state’s charter school network.
Conclusion
These inequities in charter school policy have existed
for far too long, for almost two decades now since the first school was
chartered in 1996. The Parent Trigger bill, and any others that could
prematurely expand the number of charter schools in the state, should be voted
down. To do otherwise would be to continue to perpetuate injustice and constitute
a disservice to our students, their parents, taxpayers, and the state.
Contact Information:
Rosa Castro Feinberg, PH.D., LULAC Florida State
Commissioner for Education Policy and Special Populations, rcf2012@att.net;
Shirley B. Johnson, Ph. D., Education Committee Chair,
NAACP Florida State Conference, S2Jesus@aol.com
Reprint and distribution rights granted.
