ICYMI SB1028 Is Actually a Radical Charter School Bill
This morning, surrounded by young female athletes at a private Christian Academy in Jacksonville, Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB1028 into law. DeSantis stood behind a lectern celebrating “The FAIRNESS in Women’s Sports Act.” “In Florida,” DeSantis said, “girls are going to play girls’ sports, and boys are going to play boys’ sports.” After signing the bill, DeSantis’ preschool-aged daughter passed out commemorative pens. You can watch the 20 minute ceremony here.
The bill takes effect July 1. It says a transgender girl student athlete can’t participate in girls sports without first showing a birth certificate saying she was a girl when she was born. It’s not clear whether all females must show their birth certificates, or only those whose gender is questioned. The proposal allows another student to sue if a school allows a transgender girl or woman to play on a team intended for biological females. The bill does not address athletic participation of transgender boys.
Much will be written about this ban on transgender girls from competing in girls’ and women’s sports… especially given that the bill was passed on April 28th but they waited until today, June 1st, the first day of LGBTQ Pride Month, to sign it. You can read more about the controversial bill signing here, here and here.
Believe it or not, THIS blog post isn’t about transgender athletes at all… or at least very little… because SB1028 wasn’t really about transgender athletes… or at least very little…
SB1028 was a massive Charter School train bill which, on the very last day of session, was amended to add the transgender athlete language. Before the addition of the controversial language, SB1028 was controversial enough. Funny thing… at today’s bill signing, charter schools weren’t mentioned even once…
The most egregious charter school language in SB1028 has to do with establishing an alternate charter school authorizer within the state college or university system (though it also included expanded flexibilities to charter schools, especially those run by so-called “Hope Operators”). Proving that the third time’s a charm, SB1028 allows state universities & Florida College System institutions to sponsor publicly funded charter schools, which currently falls under the Constitutional responsibility of local, duly elected school boards: Article IX Section 4 (b) :
“The school board shall operate, control and supervise all free public schools within the school district and determine the rate of school district taxes within the limits prescribed herein.”
During Florida’s last three legislative sessions, this bill was brought before the Legislature. It never had visible support from the state college or university system which will be asked to become the new charter authorizers. They did not ask for this. Who did? I’m guessing the big charter chains…
Creating a state wide, alternate charter school authorizer has been the holy grail of charter school lobbyists for years. Earlier attempts by then Rep. Manny Diaz Jr. (in 2016) and Constitution Revision Commissioner Erika Donalds (in 2017) were to amend the Constitution. In 2016 and 2017, they clearly understood the local school board’s constitutional authority to “operate, control and supervise” all the “free public schools” in their district. When their attempts to bring a constitutional amendment to the ballot failed, efforts shifted to ignoring the pesky constitution and legislatively creating a statewide authorizer within the college/university system. With today’s successful signing of SB1028, new charter schools (like the Hilsdale College Barney Classical charter schools Erika Donalds establishes through her Optima Foundation or the charter schools run by Manny Diaz’s for-profit employer, Academica, perhaps?) will be able to shop around for an university/college authorizer, avoiding the oversight of their elected school boards, and choose the authorizer, funding source and accountability system, that “best suits their needs,” creating yet another parallel system of publicly funded schools, despite the constitutional mandate for a “uniform system of free public K-12 schools.”
By creating an alternate charter school authorizer, SB1028 violates the Florida Constitution and strips away the constitutional authority of duly elected school boards. It is a HUGE win for the corporate charter school industry. This blog serves as a reminder that SB1028 was controversial and unconstitutional before it added the banning of transgender athletes. ICYMI.
And go figure, all of the anti-DeSantis accounts I follow on Twitter are only talking about the transgender sports thing. This includes one who filed papers to run for governor today.
When DeSantis signed the voucher consolidation bill, the only thing they mentioned was how some reporters were blocked out of the South Florida press conference.
When will FL Democrats throw their full support behind the strengthening of our traditional public schools and stop tiptoeing around the charter/voucher programs? Is the choice machine here that strong and scary? Or did the buy into the lie that it is okay for the poorest students?
It is interesting that this bill was signed at a private Christian Academy (which reportedly has written anti-gay policies) and not at the corporate charters it was designed to enrich.
I think it could be because it is assumed that “school choice” is just a done deal here, with the most significant legislation in that vector being the voucher consolidation bill, which received plenty of publicity in the news. The transgender issue is a nod to the base.