CO-LOCATION IS JUST ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO REPLACE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ONE SQUARE FOOT AT A TIME

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In case the article is behind a firewall, I’ve posted it below. I’m responding to the latest Florida scheme for replacing public schools. It’s called the Schools of Hope Initiative and it allows Charter Schools, registered as Schools of Hope, to use public school resources and physical plant without reimbursement. In other words, this is an attempt to replace public schools one square foot at a time. In this brief essay I show that this absurdity is consistent with the last thirty-years of neoliberal, market-based education reforms that continue to fail.

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Against School Co-Location

For the last thirty years or so the country has been engaged in a failed experiment in education reform. This reform movement was sold based on a false premise. The problem with public schools we were told is that they are public schools. Everyone knows the private sector can do everything better than the public sector. Therefore, if you want to improve public schools you must make them act like private sector businesses. Shills like the Bush Brothers promised to bring the rigor of the free market to public schools. Public schools will improve the quality of their “product” if forced to compete with each other and with private and charter schools.

This was lie from the start. The goal was to replace public schools with a two-tiered private school system in which the more you can pay, the better your kids’ education. Public schools were set up to fail. The only sand in the gears running this machine was the so-called lazy teachers. It turned out, they weren’t so lazy. They were so competent, in fact, that every attempt to make public schools fail came up against an unyielding wall of teachers who refused to do so. The response from private school lobbyists was to keep dumping more requirements and restrictions on public schools until the system breaks. Requirements and restrictions that private and charter schools do not have to satisfy.

The latest tactic in this war against public schools is the co-location scam as part of Florida’s Schools of Hope program. In summary, co-location allows charter schools, publicly funded schools that are designed to operate on a business model, to use public school facilities and resources free of charge.

Let’s put this in context of the so called “market-based” premise of this entire movement. Say you own a business. Co-location would mean that your competitors will be allowed by law to use your resources and your physical plant without reimbursing you. How do you suppose the Chamber of Commerce would respond to such a law? And yet, this is exactly what your public schools may be required to do for privately run charters. The state and community will pay these charters to run schools, then allow these privately run charters to use public resources the taxpayers have already provided to public schools.

If the scam has not yet been revealed, this absurd co-location policy makes it crystal clear. The goal is to replace public schools with private institutions. It took them almost thirty years to push the system to the point of collapse. The public-school teachers who remain are putting in a Herculean effort to provide a quality education against the unrelenting onslaught of lobbyists, politicians and board members dedicated to their failure. Now private investors are losing patience. If dedicated teachers will not allow the system to collapse, then public schools will be replaced one square foot at a time.

According to Dave Elias at Gulf Coast, two schools in Lee County have received letters requesting space for charter school use (see Charter schools want free access to Florida public school spaces, November 17, 2025). In the same article, School Board member Debbie Jordan is quoted as saying, “We’re seeing tons of these requests coming in.” Charter schools are already being funded by the taxpayers on the premise that they can provide a better-quality education at lower cost than public schools. Now the taxpayer is expected to foot the bill for even more resources at the expense of their public schools.

The record of Charter Schools is spotty at best. What little benefit charters bring to a school district is attested to their ability to be more “innovative” and “flexible” than public schools. Meanwhile, the state and district continue to pile on inflexible requirements that stultify innovation on the part of public schools. If public schools are to compete with charters and private schools, let them compete. Create a level playing field and take the cinder block from around the necks of public-school teachers, and see what happens. Contact your School Board Member and let them know that we the taxpayers have given charter schools enough. If they can’t compete with what they have, then they are not worth the investment.

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