Lucas Green
In a recent edition of the Monitor, an interesting case has been brought forth in reference to the Board of Education of Miami-Dade County approving the inclusion of the charter in the Miami-Dade County schools. In the opinion of the panel of judges writing the opinion for the court, the “overbroad” definition of the phrase “charter school” was used to justify the board’s decision to deny a request by the Miami-Dade County school board to add charter schools to the list of the Florida public school systems that are governed by the State Department of Education. The opinion stated that the “overbroad” phrase was a statutory term that made it “unwise and unnecessary to regulate the operation of charter schools.” The opinion went on to state that the phrase should not be interpreted to mean that the charter is treated any differently than other public schools.
However, it should be noted: That the State’s Office of the Charter School Curator has specifically stated that the Florida Constitution requires that the charter board make provisions in the charter which mirror the provision that the state legislature has made for public schools. That provision is Article 11 of the constitution. As the Monitor noted, this “vague” language is “designed to allow charter schools to become a model for other districts,” yet it does not provide a definition for “substantial educational benefit.” Obviously, the provision must be read to include “a meaningful educational benefit.”
According to the Miami-Dade County Public school board: The Florida Constitution “does not define ‘substantial educational benefit’ as a minimum requirement for a charter school to receive a certificate.” Further, the opinion continued, “the Florida legislature has specifically addressed the issue of ‘equity,’ but the court cannot find that the General Assembly intended to include the word ‘substantial’ in the phrase ‘establish the character of the public school.’ ” According to the opinion, the court’s attempt to distinguish Brown v. board of education is “deeply problematic.” The court referred to a case from the Appestat case in which the Supreme Court rejected a contention that the school had no reasonable accommodations for disabled students and, in a related decision, held that the Florida constitution contained an adequate guarantee of equal protection.
In the recent Florida case: The Florida Supreme Court refused to review a case concerning the appropriateness of charter school regulation when it was found that the board had failed to make a reasonable accommodation for the special needs of the children represented by the plaintiffs. In the prior case, the Florida Supreme Court had found that the charter had operated to violate the constitutional guarantee of equality of access. In the new decision, the court found that the charter school did not operate in violation of the guarantee of equality of access because it had established different enrollment percentages based on the race of the students rather than the proportion of the minority population. Further, the court concluded that the State could sustain its requirement that the proportion of minority students in each charter school represent a minority percentage of the total population of Florida students as set forth in the Florida constitution. Thus, the Florida Supreme Court found no reason to remove the provision in the state constitution requiring the representation of the minority group in all Florida public schools.
The Florida Supreme Court’s refusal to review: The Brown case is legally problematic for the State of Florida and the Florida Board of Education, for there are well-established reasons that the Board must obtain a court order in order to ensure that the provisions of the Florida constitution or the Florida statute are implemented. If the provisions of the Florida constitution or the Florida statute were not implemented, the courts will never have the option of mandating that the board of education adopt certain policies or procedures in order to comply with the decision in Brown v. board of education. For these reasons, the State will likely never lose any point if it does not seek a writ of mandamus from the courts against the Board.
The fact that the Florida Supreme Court refused to review: The case of the Brown vs. Board of Education also represents a profound lack of respect for the lower court’s opinion in this matter. Hopefully, the lower court decision in Brown v. Board of Education will be revisited by the Florida Supreme Court and the lower court is ordered to correct their mistake and restore the original public school system to its prior condition. In the mean time, the Florida citizens are left with the only option of accepting whatever the court decides and standing for the school district that they believe should be the educational hub of the state.
The citizens of Florida deserve better than this.
