Court strikes down charter school law
TALLAHASSEE (AP) – It may be harder for charter schools to get approval in Florida after an appellate court decision Tuesday.
A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal struck down a 2006 law that lets applicants sidestep the state’s 67 county school boards by getting their charters instead from a state commission.
The law creating the Schools of Excellence Commission is in “total and fatal conflict” with the Florida Constitution, which gives the local boards – not the state – authority over public schools, Judge Edward T. Barfield wrote in the unanimous opinion.
“This statute permits and encourages the creation of a parallel system of free public education escaping the operation and control of local elected school boards,” Barfield wrote.
He noted the commission is appointed by the State Board of Education, itself appointed by the governor, from recommendations by the governor, Senate president and House speaker.
That means charter schools again will have to be approved by school boards, many of which are cool to the charter concept. Charter schools get public money but are run by private individuals, groups and organizations or in some cases public agencies.
The ruling came in an appeal by the Duval County School District, one of 14 that challenged the law after the State Board of Education denied their requests to retain exclusive jurisdiction over charter schools. The law allowed such exceptions, but the state board denied a total of 28 requests while granting only three to local boards in Orange, Polk and Sarasota counties.
Education Commissioner Eric Smith said no decision has yet been made on whether to appeal the decision to the Florida Supreme Court.
“It reaffirms the importance of school boards,” said Ron Meyer, a lawyer for Duval board. “The people have said we want an elected school board.”
Meyer, whose other clients include the Florida Education Association, the statewide teachers union, called the ruling “far-reaching” but said he didn’t know that it portends challenges to other parallel systems.
In a landmark case that Meyer argued on behalf of the union, the Florida Supreme Court used similar language in 2006 when it struck down a voucher program that sent students from failing public schools to private schools at taxpayer expense. The state has two other voucher programs for disabled and low-income students that so far have gone unchallenged.
Schools of Excellence Commission chairwoman Liza McFadden said she wasn’t surprised by the decision.
She told the state board at a meeting in Orlando that her panel is considering a new approach focusing on chronically failing schools, although that would require new legislation.
With an appeal, the state could get a stay of the court ruling and that would keep the commission going until a new law can be passed.
“As the constitution says, students deserve a fair and equitable education,” McFadden said.
In its new role, the commission could seek a third-party study of 13 identified schools or school districts not meeting that criteria, McFadden said. She said the study might recommend setting up new charter schools or reusing existing facilities.
The Center for Education Reform, a school choice advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., issued a statement calling the ruling “a political opinion rather than a judicial opinion” and arguing school districts “do not have exclusive franchise over schools they do not create.”