Florida Contemplates Putting Fox In Charge of Hen House

As a legislator in Florida (Motto: Why sell swampland when you can just rob schools), Richard Corcoran was determined to make sure that public tax dollars were directed to enriching private school operators at public school expense.

Sorry about your future, kid

Corcoran pushed the Schools of Hope program, a program that allows charters to prey directly on public schools. And after asking charter operators how exactly they'd like this gift wrapped, he gave them the power to tap into public school tax dollars for building expenses. And he put the whole crappy mess in a legislative package designed to hide the smell of his money-grab. Corcoran has been at the front of the pack opening up Florida to all manner of profiteering with not just charters but vouchers, tax credit scholarships-- you name it and Florida not only has it, but has more of it than any other state. Meanwhile, his wife is a charter school operator.

Corcoran tried running for governor and failed, so he could use a job, and it looks as if he might have one lined up-- state high commissioner of education.

This comes on the heels of the announcement that the House education committee will be headed by Jennifer Sullivan, a woman who is spectacularly unqualified even by Florida standards. The 27-year-old was homeschooled and may or may not have picked up a few credits at a Christian college. That's right-- the head of the House committee that oversees Florida's schools has never actually attended one. And she loves choice.

So why not give Corcoran the top spot? Florida's legislature seems determined to completely dismantle public education, and Corcoran is just the guy for the job. Don't raise taxes, he says-- just redistribute the money we have. Florida continues to be a case study in how you cannot effectively run multiple parallel school systems with the money you used to run just one. But then, Florida has also excelled in "saving" school dollars by just not giving them to schools that serve black students.

It is possible that the beloved-by-racists governor-elect could be convinced to drop the idea of appointing Corcoran, and if I lived in Florida I would certainly make a lot of noise about it. Putting Corcoran in charge of education is worse than putting a fox in charge of the henhouse because the fox will at least stop when he's satisfied his hunger. There's no reason to believe that there are any limits to the appetites of the privatizers and profiteers that roam Florida these days, and Corcoran is not going to do anything except keep them well-supplied with plates and silverware.