Jac Wilder VerSteeg: Make charter schools pay the money they owe

You always hear that charter schools can innovate because they are freed from some of the stupid bureaucratic rules that plague traditional public schools.

A couple of charter schools in Broward County are taking advantage of a “rule break” that truly appears “innovative.”

They don’t have to pay their bills.

That’s right, according to reporter Scott Travis’ story in Saturday’s South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Obama Academy for Boys and the Red Shoe Charter for Girls have “agreed to close after frequent disputes with the district” that stretched on for three years.

The schools couldn’t prove how many students they had enrolled in 2013-14 or 2014-2015. As a result, they should be on the hook for about $1.8 million they received in payments from the state.

But the schools can’t pay the money. They don’t have it.

Want to take a guess who will?

It is likely that the Broward County School District will have to pay. The money, if the state decides to go ahead with this farce, will be deducted from future payments that would have been due to the Broward District.

Why? According to the Sun Sentinel article, a state Department of Education spokeswoman explained that, “School districts are accountable for monitoring their charter schools. Therefore, any audit finding affecting a charter school is ultimately the responsibility of the sponsoring school district.”

Talk about unfair. The Florida Legislature and state DOE have gone out their way time and again to make it easier for charter schools to start up and harder for locally elected school boards to refuse to grant charters.

That produces a double-whammy. Not only can charter schools start drawing down state money without guarantees they have the financial savvy to fulfill their obligations, there is such an explosion of charter schools that districts are hard-pressed to keep up with all the shenanigans.

And then when a district does what it’s supposed to do – as Broward did in going after the two failed charters – the school district ends up having to pay the penalty.

For those who say charter schools don’t cost traditional public schools any money – and therefore aren’t robbing money from traditional public education – this case provides clear evidence of the harm done.

Not only will the public schools have to absorb students from the failed charters – unless those students take corporate “vouchers” to attend religious private schools, which is another issue – the public schools will have to scrimp or cut programs to absorb the nearly $2 million the charter schools squandered.

In this case, the state clearly should hold the Broward County School District harmless. And the Legislature should enact reforms to make this kind of thing less likely to happen.

For one thing, it should shorten the process for closing malfunctioning charter schools. And Broward Board member Robin Bartleman suggested that, “They need to put something in place where the schools are personally liable for their own fines. They don’t govern appropriately, they waste money and now the state is withholding money from us? It’s deplorable.”

He’s right. Paying money that you owe is one rule that even charter schools should not be able to skip.

Jac Wilder VerSteeg is a columnist for The South Florida Sun Sentinel, former deputy editorial page editor for The Palm Beach Post and former editor of Context Florida. Column courtesy of Context Florida.