Jeb's charter could close

   When it opened in 1996, the Liberty City Charter School sparked a movement.

Headed by Jeb Bush , not yet governor, and T. Willard Fair , not yet State Board of Education chairman, the school in an impoverished section of Miami signaled the beginning of Florida's new initiative in which private groups would get public funds to run schools and be held to state accountability measures.

''Our opening had national implications,'' principal Katrina Wilson-Davis recalled to the Miami Herald. "I remember CNN and MSNBC coming down to our school site. Everybody wanted to see what accountability was all about. We were leading the charge.''

Hundreds of other charters followed, as did the rise in state politics for Bush and Fair.

Today, the charter movement continues. But the Miami-Dade School Board will consider shutting down Liberty City Charter, the Miami Herald reports. The school has faced a "financial emergency" for two years.

"I understand the position that the School Board is in, but I wish they would give us a little more time to get our finances in order,'' Wilson-Davis told the Herald. "We've done enough good work over the last 12 years to merit a second look.''

If not, the school's 200 or so students will be transferred to other schools in the district.