A charter school conundrum

So here's a question that's been floating around for years: Why does Pinellas County have so relatively few charter schools?

Sunday's St. Petersburg Times story didn't try to answer that question, but it did note that the Hillsborough school district – a district that isn't much bigger, student-wise – has four times as many charters.

Among the state's seven big urban districts, only Duval County, with five charter schools, has fewer than Pinellas' six. Miami-Dade has 63, Broward has 49, Palm Beach has 35 and Orange has 18. And plenty of smaller districts have more than Pinellas: Polk, for example, has 23. See for yourself here.

State Rep. John Legg, R-Port Richey, offered this possibility to The Gradebook: "One school of thought is that Pinellas County is doing a decent job of providing school choice in its existing schools," said Legg, who co-founded a charter school in Pasco, Dayspring Academy , that was modeled in part on the Academie Da Vinci charter school in Dunedin.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter