TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A charter school network backed by a billionaire hedge fund manager announced Thursday that it is expanding in Miami, after they successfully lobbied Florida’s GOP-controlled Legislature to pass a new state law easing restrictions on the privately run schools and freeing up more state subsidies for the operators.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has overseen a major expansion in state funding for school choice, presided over Thursday’s announcement in Miami alongside Success Academy Charter Schools CEO Eva Moskowitz and Citadel investment firm founder Ken Griffin, a GOP megadonor who has pledged $50 million toward the charter school network’s Florida expansion.
“I think Miami’s just the beginning,” DeSantis said Thursday.
Success Academy, a major charter network in New York City, and Griffin’s firm pushed for the new state law, which Florida legislators slipped into a budget package on the 105th and final day of what was supposed to be a 60-day session.
The measure clears the way for charter schools known as “schools of hope” to “co-locate” inside traditional public schools and qualify for millions of dollars in additional state funding.
Lawmakers created the schools of hope program in 2017 to encourage more publicly funded, privately run schools to open in areas where traditional public schools had been failing for years, giving students and families in those neighborhoods a way to bail out of a struggling school.
This year’s law loosens restrictions on where schools of hope can operate, allowing them to set up within the walls of a public school — even a high-performing one — if the campus has underused or vacant facilities.
Traditional schools across the state are struggling with declining enrollments, including in some of Florida’s largest metro areas, where school districts manage sprawling real estate holdings in prime locations.
Success Academy prides itself on high-performing schools that boost test scores and college preparedness among its students, many of whom come from low-income communities of color. But it has also been plagued by allegations of cherry-picking the families it admits and pushing out hard-to-serve students, according to reporting by the New York Times and others.
At Thursday’s announcement, DeSantis touted the school choice “ecosystem” created by the legislation he signed, which he predicted would open the door for the charter network to open new campuses across Florida and move into traditional schools in some of the state’s largest public districts, including those serving Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando and West Palm Beach.
“We also, with schools of hope, do have an ability when some perform poorly, where that can basically be taken over by a charter operator,” DeSantis added.
Moskowitz thanked the governor, saying she is expanding her schools in Florida because of the new legislation her network helped shape, a move she said will help some of the state’s neediest students.
“I’m not used to being welcomed. I’m not used to people liking high standards,” Moskowitz said, referring to the more adversarial environment for charter schools in New York City.
By contrast, under Florida’s new law, public school districts now have to provide the same facilities-related services to schools of hope as they do their own campuses, including custodial work, maintenance, school safety, food service, nursing and student transportation — “without limitation” and “at no cost” to the charters.
Mina Hosseini, executive director of the Miami public education advocacy group P.S. 305, called the move a “corporate takeover.”
“Miami’s public schools are community lifelines, not corporate assets,” she said in a statement.
___ Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
