Florida’s Bright Future? A Legislative Session Review

The 2016 Florida Legislative session is over and once again for public education, many legislators wrote and voted for educational legislation against the expert advice of locally elected school boards, superintendents, teachers, and perhaps worst of all, parents and students. What is most upsetting is that some of those elected officials once again put their personal agendas before the needs of our local students and our local schools.  Ultimately, because of their refusal to listen to education’s stakeholders, these politicians blindly voted in support of poorly constructed education mandates and illogical laws.

Last year I would often say that when the Florida House left Tallahassee and adjourned early, they actually were giving Floridians a gift.  By leaving early, they essentially killed many bad bills. This year, the Florida House made up for it in spades by putting forth some of the worst educational legislation since the 2010 and 2011– years that then resulted in the controversially high high school graduation requirements, a substantial increase in state mandated punitive student testing, the introduction of Common Core (later renamed Florida Standards), teacher merit pay, and the removal of due process for teachers.

This session was filled again with some horrific, manipulative maneuvering which at the very least has been described as unethical.

Here are just a few of the new education laws our legislators passed this 2016 Florida Legislative Session:

• Ignored Senate Education Committee and added language to HB 7029 of bills not approved by Committee: One of the most controversial pieces of educational legislation to pass both the House and Senate occurred on the last day of the legislative session. HB 7029, described by many as a mega “Train Bill”, was originally a 12 page document about Florida Colleges.  However, in the last days of the legislature, many of the controversial and troubling educational bills that didn’t make it out of the Senate Education Committee were added as an amendment to HB 7029.  The bill grew to 160 pages before going back and forth between the two State bodies and ultimately passed.

• High School Athlete Free Agency: Permits students to choose to attend any high school they want, whether they are zoned for that school or not, for the purpose of participating in any athletic sport. This new law also permits starting at one school to play for one sport and then moving to another school for another sport, during the same school year.

• Students are no longer required by law to stand for the United States Pledge of Allegiance: School districts must now put in policy an exemption that explains that students are no longer required to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. Previously they could opt out of reciting the pledge and placing their hand over their heart, but still had to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance.

• Requirement of public schools to share Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) funding with charter schools: Public Schools must share half of the $150 million in PECO funds with the 640 charter schools (or 251,082 students, representing 10%) getting $75,000,000 in PECO funds, and the 3,629 public schools (or 2,587,554 students, representing 90%) would also get $75,000,000 in PECO funds. If you break this down per student that is $298 per student going to charter schools and $28 per student going to public schools.  Another issue that wasn’t addressed with this PECO funding to charter schools is the inequability when students don’t attend the school for the entire year like as in Citrus County, where the majority of students in one of our charter schools, attends the charter school for only half of the school year and then returns back to their zoned public school the other half of the year.  This means the School Board still will need to fund those students’ capital needs, but now will have to do it without being funded by PECO dollars.

• Best & Brightest Bonus: The highly controversial teacher bonus program gives teachers a bonus of up to $10,000 if they have qualifying ACT/SAT scores. Last year Florida funded $44 million for this program; this year Florida is funding $49 million—that is now a total of $93 million dollars spent on this program.

There were some positive education laws that were passed as well:

• Charter School Open Enrollment: Charter schools will no longer be able to pick only the best students to attend their schools. Beginning on July 1, 2016, for this coming school year the law will now state for charters that, “Admission or dismissal must not be based on a student’s academic performance.”

• Authority of School Boards to visit schools: New statutory language was added to the duties for School Board members. It will now state “VISITATION OF SCHOOLS. Visit the schools, observe the management and instruction, give suggestions for improvement, and advise citizens with the view of promoting interest in education and improving the school.” Why? While this is NOT an issue in Citrus County as Board Members regularly visit our schools and have full access to our schools, that is not the case in all Florida counties. What I do find humorous is when we do visit our schools and talk to our students, parents, teachers, and staff, who in the legislature can we trust to take action when we give them our feedback?

So one has to ask, “What do we have coming next legislative year”?

In Citrus County we will have a new Florida House Representative. Many parents, teachers, staff, and students in public education worry if our next Florida House Representative will be supportive of public schools. Or will that person vote to continue the expansion of charter schools? Will they value Citrus County Schools as one of the Highest Performing Districts in Florida? Will they value the critical economic role Citrus County Schools plays by being the largest public or private employer in the county, with over 2,400 employees? Or will they continue to support the ‘educational reform movement’ of the last many years that has supported the privatization of public schools and has given us these controversial high high school graduation requirements, substantial increase in state mandated punitive testing, the introduction of Common Core (Florida Standards), teacher merit pay, and the removal of due process for teachers?

We will also have a new State Senator representing us. It likely will be the Honorable Senator Wilton Simpson, who is tapped to be the next Senate President. I am very encouraged about Senator Simpson when it comes to education.  First, Senator Simpson’s daughter is a public school teacher in Pasco County. He seems to have a very appropriate and common sense approach to public education and the proper coexistence of charters within Florida. Senator Simpson seems to be very willing to work with local elected school leaders to continue to provide an outstanding school system that serves the next generation of Florida’s residents. He has already shown a willingness to visit our facilities in our community to better understand our local needs. But perhaps most importantly of all, Senator Simpson has “skin in the game” as his own children and grandchildren are a part of the school system.

So does Florida have a bright future?

I choose to look at the glass as half full and see how much potential we still have. It is my desire that we continue to do the work necessary to advocate for our students, to plan for our students’ and schools’ future needs, and to continue to provide the most outstanding school system we can, all while being good stewards who are mindful of our taxpayers’ resources. We do have a bright future!

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