WEST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made a South Florida stop to announce a new system of charter schools that will be opening in the state, starting in Miami-Dade County.
7News cameras on Thursday captured the governor at Florida International University in West Miami-Dade as he announced the expansion of school choice by opening a new charter school system called Success Academy.
“The sky’s going to be the limit for what they are going to be able to do in the state of Florida,” said DeSantis.
The charter schools were started in New York as their largest charter school system, and now they’re coming to Florida, thanks to a mix of state funding and private donations, including a $50 million from Ken Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, a hedge fund company that relocated its headquarters from New York to South Florida.
“We will pave the road for tens of thousands of students here in Florida to join all of us in living the American dream,” said Griffin.
Florida’s Lt. Gov Jay Collins said students will succeed under this model.
“When good people and good organizations step up beside us to help push forward and lead, everybody gets stronger because of it,” said Collins.
DeSantis said Success Academy will be opening some brand-new schools, but they will also be able to overtake underperforming public schools or empty spaces through Florida’s Schools of Hope program.
The move comes as several public schools see declining enrollments, aging facilities and post-pandemic student struggles.
“They are going into areas that have been more difficult to provide quality education. Here in Florida, they are going to be going in areas that have schools that have been very poor performers.
The governor said this will give students who may not have had great education a chance to do something different.
“We believe, regardless of where you’re from, regardless of how much money your parents have, regardless of your ethnic heritage, regardless of whether you’re male or female, that you have an ability to succeed, if you’re given the proper tools to have a really good education,” said DeSantis.
Eva Moskowitz, the president of Success Academy, also spoke at Thursday’s news conference.
“[These schools] are not only going to help poorest and most vulnerable children in Florida, but I think you’re going to set a national standard for the country,” she said.
Moskowitz touted Success Academy’s record of 100% college acceptance rate for their graduates. Many of these institutions, she said, are highly respected ones.
Public school advocates say this new law will allow charter networks to open Schools of Hope in an area that doesn’t serve any student at all from a low-performing school
The United Teachers of Dade, the union representing Miami-Dade teachers, said the governor’s plan is an experiment that will hurt teachers and strain public schools.
In a statement, UTD’s Antonio White said in part:
“Co-location proposals further strain our schools by forcing us to provide custodial, food, safety, nursing, and transportation services to charters for free, stretching already inadequate budgets even thinner. Our students deserve real investment in proven public-school solutions, not experiments that pull resources from the schools serving our communities.”
At the event, DeSantis called these new schools “public schools without teacher’s unions.”
“It’s not something that the teacher’s unions want to be successful. Why would that matter? Because they are the ones that really call a lot of the shots, unfortunately, in some of these states and one of the things that we did in Florida was say, no automatic deduction for teacher union dues,” said DeSantis.
Success Academy did not specify the location of its Miami-Dade location, which should be opening during the 2027-28 school year. Officials said 40 locations are expected to open throughout the state over a 10-year period.
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