Perspective: Education and profit make a poor mix

The excellent Sept. 15 article on corporate charter schools was chilling. Advocates of these schools claim that accountability is achieved through parents "voting with their feet" and taking their children out of a school they do not like. They paint a false picture of unfettered consumer choice, and the all-knowing invisible hand of market forces working only for the betterment of mankind.

Instead, imagine this scenario of the future: Due to underfunding and neglect, the public schools have atrophied. Hence, parents reject the public schools in favor of the superior corporate education "product." The result is that the public schools only serve children who are rejected by the corporate charter schools. (And these children can be rejected for any reason. As the person in charge of one of these schools admitted in the article: "We have ways of asking people not to comeback. We really operate like a private school.") Hence the public schools are turned into receptacles for the corporations' rejects; and parents wanting a good education for their children would "choose" the seemingly superior education "product" -- a corporate charter school.

Corporations have no motive other than profit. This is not a suitable raison d'etre for educational institutions. If corporatized charter schools are allowed to proliferate at the expense of public schools, our children will be captive to and at the mercy of a corporatized school system in which there is no accountability apart from the bottom line. The question must be asked: Is this the true agenda of the Bushes and their ilk?

Our public school systems must answer directly to the public at election time. And although our public schools have problems, there is an awful lot of good to be found there. As a purely practical matter, doesn't it make sense to find what is good and working now, instead of tearing down our public schools?
-- Davanna Cimino Kilgore, Ozona

Predictable results

Re: Public School Inc., Sept. 15.

So everybody says they are shocked! shocked! that profitmaking businesses are opening charter schools. "Charter schools are evolving into something radically different from what lawmakers intended," read the headline.

But I remember predicting what would happen. School chains would sprout up, I said, offering cookie-cutter education to mainstream (not-too-smart, not-too-slow, not-too-athletic, not-too-sedentary, not-too-anything) children. There would be TV commercials, billboards, junk mail ads and campaign contributions to Florida legislators. Coke and Pepsi would buy in so they could encourage brand loyalty among students, while "nonmainstream" churches would sue for the right to run charter schools. This being Florida, shady operators would run seedy "academies" with the same high standards that make our nursing homes famous. Lobbyists who have already persuaded the Legislature to exempt charter schools from uniform testing would persuade the Legislature to free them from onerous standards on their buildings, equipment, cafeteria food and accounting practices -- and, more important, to free them from those irritating school boards.

This is a multimillion-dollar business in Florida alone. Gov. Jeb Bush thinks it should be in responsible hands, generating profits for his friends. What in blazes did people think would happen?
-- Greg McColm, Temple Terrace

A double standard

Re: Gore's son is ticketed, accused of DUI, Sept. 15.

There appears to be something unfair about the way you report any negative news about the children of either Jeb Bush or George W. Bush on the front page with huge headlines and pictures, while Albert Gore III, the 19-year-old son of the former vice president and probable Democratic candidate in the next presidential race, barely gets mentioned on Page 8 when he exhibits the same (a DUI may be worse) type of behavior.
-- Al Sandefur, St. Petersburg

A ridiculous charge

Re: Foreclosure anti-Semitic, landlord says, Sept. 18.

The claims of landlord Steven Green that his legal and financial difficulties stem from anti-Semitic attitudes at SunTrust are, in a word, ridiculous. Green's difficulties stem directly from his own failure to live up to his responsibilities and commitments. His attempt to use his Judaism as the vehicle for shifting the blame away from himself is despicable.

It would be difficult to find a bank that has been more supportive of the Tampa Jewish Community or more generous to its charitable organizations than SunTrust. It is most unfortunate that the Times chose to participate in this ugly smear tactic by giving headline weight to the charge.

We hope you will return to the responsible journalism for which you are known.
-- Anne Thal, executive director/CEO, Tampa Jewish Federation, Tampa

Misplaced blame

Re: Another Florida election, by Martin Dyckman, Sept. 15.

I am always amused by Martin Dyckman's columns. No matter what bad thing happens he never fails to find some tortured rationale to blame it on Republicans. This time, it's the Republican-controlled Legislature's fault that two Democratic elections supervisors in Broward and Miami-Dade counties went beyond mere incompetence and demonstrated gross negligence in the execution of their duties. In Dyckman's view everything would have been fine if the Legislature hadn't abolished runoff primaries. Huh? If the incompetent elections supervisors couldn't be ready for an election in September, how would things have run smoother if the first primary had been held a month earlier, in August, as Dyckman suggested?

Despite the Democrats' attempts to blame the 2000 election fiasco on Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris, it was a Democratic elections supervisor in Palm Beach County that created the butterfly ballot, and it was Democratic-controlled South Florida that allegedly couldn't count the ballots properly. In the aftermath both the governor and the Legislature showed decisive leadership by providing $32-million in funding to ensure that another election debacle didn't occur. Now this.

So now Dyckman is blaming the Legislature, and Democratic Party chairman Bob Poe is blaming the governor for the latest election disaster.

This would all be very funny if so much wasn't at stake. Isn't it about time the Florida Democratic Party accepted responsibility for their failures to nominate and oversee qualified candidates and finally do something to correct the problems within their ranks so this doesn't happen again?
-- Roland St. Marie, Oldsmar

A job for Reno

Re: The Florida election.

Now that Janet Reno is no longer a candidate, but a "private citizen," she should volunteer to be a poll worker in Miami-Dade County. Better yet, the governor should dismiss the present supervisor of elections in that county and appoint Janet Reno to the post.
-- Stanley C. Shaver, St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg will benefit

Re: Why the St. Pete Times Forum?, by Paul Tash, Sept. 15.

Residents of St, Petersburg should appreciate that their local paper named a popular sports arena situated in downtown Tampa the St. Pete Times Forum.

There should be little dispute that Tampa Bay is synonymous with the city of Tampa and not Tampa/St. Petersburg. The naming of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays with its arena in downtown St. Petersburg has proven this.

Anyone who has been an avid reader of the Times must know that, as Paul C. Tash, editor and president of the St. Petersburg Times, reiterated in his column, the Times policy has been "to base coverage on the readers interest and not on our business interests."

Although it may not be the underlying reason for the Times, the naming does have a collateral benefit for the city of St. Petersburg.
-- Russell Lee Johnson, St. Petersburg

Keep sports in its place

On Sept. 16, you once again have put a large sports picture on Page 1 of Section A. Aren't 16 pages of sports inside enough? All of Section A and B total only 18 pages! How about keeping sports in their own section.

It is doubtful there were many, if any, articles in those 16 pages of sports dealing with President Bush, or al-Qaida, or security, or election news. Not everyone in Tampa Bay wants to read about the Bucs.
-- Jean L. Willson, Seminole

Hope for the future

Thank you for the Newspaper in Education page (Sept. 16). Those of us who are concerned about the lack of political interest in our young people can take hope. Sarah Wheaton, particularly, shows me that our future can be in good hands.

The interviews of the six students in the Poynter Institute program were certainly of interest to senior citizens as well as all citizens.
-- Dorothy Wylie, New Port Richey

Back to Perspective

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

From the Times
Opinion page