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USF Charter School Doomed By Poor Planning And Blind Oversight

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 1, 2008

On paper, the USF-Patel Charter School appeared a perfect marriage.

What better place for a charter school than on a university campus, where innovative methods could be used to help impoverished children meet their potential?

Yet two weeks before the start of school, the venture has come crashing down, leaving the Hillsborough County School District to pick up the pieces.

Equally troubling is the grade given USF's charter school - "F." Such performance is hardly what you'd expect from a school under the auspices of a university that brags about having one of the best graduate-education programs in the country.

As it turns out, poor planning and a troubling lack of oversight doomed the USF-Patel Charter School from the start.

When the school opened in 1998, university leaders called it a new concept in education, an alternative for at-risk students living in the impoverished neighborhoods around USF. They promised students would have access to the latest training and that the school would be a teaching laboratory for students majoring in education.

But USF educators and administrators failed to account for the limited funding formula for charter schools. Neither did they anticipate state prohibitions against spending state money on an independent entity.

As a result, the school suffered a ridiculous amount of turnover. Principals came and went. So did teachers. The school couldn't afford the veteran teachers needed to help students who have trouble learning. Neither could it pay for the after-school programs that can make a difference in student performance.

In 2006, Hillsborough Superintendent MaryEllen Elia moved to cancel the charter school's contract due to poor performance, but USF made more big promises.

The school stumbled along until this summer, when the state issued its failing grade. This week, its principal abruptly retired and its board dumped its responsibilities back on the public-school district, saying there was little chance the charter school would improve in the upcoming school year.

The university should have planned an orderly exit. Instead, its last-minute announcement put the school district in a mad scramble to find a principal, hire teachers and organize classes before students return Aug. 18.

The 225 children who attend this school deserved better from USF.

At the very least, they deserved a learning environment free of chaos and disorganization - especially since many of its students struggle with chaos in their homes and neighborhoods.
USF leaders would have you believe they didn't know the school was failing students, particularly those in the fourth and fifth grades who posted dismal scores. That claim is perhaps the most shameful.

Not knowing that students are failing is the ultimate act of negligence, for it is the job of educators to know how their students are doing.

The sad saga of the USF-Patel school is a black eye for the university.

Worse, this debacle is an injustice to the children USF promised to serve.

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