The
New York Times tells the sad story of
the life and death of Jeb Bush’s charter school. Bush now recalls his
involvement in the school to demonstrate his prowess as an education reformer.
But the actual experience of the school shows the perils of Bush’s free-market
ideology.
In
1996, Jeb Bush co-founded Florida’s first charter school, called Liberty City
Charter School, in an impoverished black neighborhood in Miami. His co-founder
was head of the city’s Urban League.
Two years earlier, he had narrowly lost
the governor’s race. When asked what he would do for blacks if elected, he
responded, “Probably nothing.” Looking ahead to the next election, he needed to
“soften” his image. The founding of a charter school for poor black children
was his vehicle.
After
he was elected governor in 1998, Jeb Bush created a model of tough
accountability, pre-dating his brother George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind
law. Among other things, Jeb graded every school, A-F. His charter school won
an A in 2006, and he was very proud.
However,
the school sunk into financial trouble, and its grade plummeted to D. Bush’s
second term as governor ended in 2007, and he did not do much to help the
school as it struggled with debt. In 2008, it closed.
Nonetheless,
the now defunct school still remains valuable to Presidential candidate Jeb
Bush.
Times’
reporter Jason Horowitz writes:
“But
with Mr. Bush all but certain to be running for office again, this time for the
White House, the school he once championed is again useful. As he tries to sell
himself to the conservative Republicans wary of his support for the testing
standards they consider emblematic of government overreach, he can speak with
authority on charter schools, funded largely by taxpayers but run by private
companies, as a free-market antidote to liberal teachers’ unions and low
performance.
“And
his firsthand experience in the education of underprivileged urban grade-schoolers
lends him credibility in a party that has suddenly seized upon the gap between
the rich and poor as politically promising terrain. In his first speech as a
likely presidential candidate in Detroit last month, Mr. Bush credited Liberty
City Charter School with helping “change education in Florida”
“But
Mr. Bush’s uplifting story of achievement and reform avoided mentioning the
school by name or its unhappy ending. For all his early and vital involvement
during his 1998 campaign for governor, and for all the help he offered from
afar in the governor’s office, Mr. Bush’s commitment to his school project was
not as enduring as some students and teachers might have hoped.”
Others
might view Liberty City Charter School as a symbol not of “achievement and
reform,” but of the impermanence and empty promises of charter schools.