Commentary: Time for Florida to take a closer look at charters

As Florida continues its slow recovery from the housing bubble, it is moving at lightning speed into a charter school bubble that’s expected to burst with many kids left behind.

Florida’s charter school movement had humble beginnings in the early 1990s as pioneers argued for and promised tailored programs to help students achieve. Since then, the movement exploded from a handful to just over 650 schools today.

Along the way, the powerful and lucrative for-profit industry was able to convince Florida’s Legislature and governor, through House Bill 7069, that their privately owned facilities should be funded at equal levels to Florida’s 4,200 traditional public schools. This all comes despite research showing charters have the highest closure rate in the nation with more than 300 closed.

One glaring example of lax accountability is that a foreign company runs one of the largest charter chains in the United States while using our tax dollars to fund an international religious movement. Some will remember accusations targeting Turkish exile Fethullah Gulen for backing a failed government overthrow in his home country a year ago. Many quickly became concerned that a network of approximately 170 American charter schools operated by his followers, a dozen in Florida, could be involved.

The Center for Public Integrity and various Florida media outlets have exposed how the state’s taxpayers may be unwittingly funding Gulen’s agenda. Florida has one of the country’s larger Gulen education networks. Twelve schools receive about $30 million in taxpayer funds to serve 4,500 students.

All the schools are run by Charter Educational Services & Resources, a company originally known as Grace Institute, a firm that exited Georgia after rampant abuses were uncovered.

And there is more that is familiar. Florida’s Gulen charter schools follow a national pattern of excessive use of “specialty occupation” visas, although the business-related roles filled by immigrants are far from specialized.

The Florida Constitution calls for a uniform, efficient, high-quality public school system. While charters schools are legally public schools, we need to see stronger school district management and oversight where conflict of interests and problems with transparency are not tolerated.

Due to HB 7069 and other laws, Florida is unable to protect itself against a Ponzi scheme operating in our school system. The most profitable enterprise is real estate. Gulen schools are required to rent or buy property from other Gulenist interests and hire associated construction firms. To see how this works, consider the case of River City Science Academy in Jacksonville.

Gulenist Yazan Khatib purchased two properties under the auspices of River City Plaza LLC, one for $100 at a foreclosure auction and the other for $340,000 in a regular sale. According to government records, Blue Ocean Construction, owned by a River City Plaza employee, was retained for renovations.

In the end, River City Plaza made a $10.5 million profit, Blue Ocean Construction earned nearly $2 million, and taxpayers spent nearly $30 million, including a public bond. This cannot be considered anything but a terrible deal for Florida, and meaningful fiduciary oversight by the local school board would have prevented it. But Gulen charters are set up to avoid such unbiased scrutiny.

That’s where Florida policymakers come in. We must follow the lead of our neighbor state to the north. Using forensic audits, Georgia exposed Gulen affiliates’ conflicts of interest, nepotism, self-dealing and improper use of public funds. The plot was thwarted, and no Gulen charter schools remain in that state.

For other charter networks, fiscal irresponsibility is undermining the entire charter industry. As they continue to go unchecked, the financial practices will fall apart, leading to even more charter school closures. Florida’s underfunded school system will be left to pick up the slack.

It’s time to protect taxpayers and children from potentially nefarious forces undermining the quality of our school choices.

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