Proposed Education Budgets May Force Cost Cutting Again

Once again what looks like more money is not. The House and Senate 2020-21 budgets provide Alachua County with $50 or $40 more per student. The mandated increased cost for the Florida Retirement System is $80 more per student (in Alachua County). The districts must also pay for new students and the Teacher Salary Supplement. The district must cut its budget for 2020-21. The total reduction for Alachua County in the House bill is $3,487,197 and the Senate total is $2,564,352

The House (HB 5001) and Senate (SB 2500) budgets differ in priorities. The House budget includes more funding for teacher salary supplements but less than the Senate’s allocation for turnaround schools, students with disabilities, digital technology, and support for poorer districts. Both chambers include the mandate for districts to fund increased costs for the Florida Retirement System (FRS). The two bills must be reconciled in a joint conference.

The FRS increased cost is due to an auditor’s analysis that the FRS estimated rate of return on its investments should be lowered. While the current income on investments exceeds expectations, it has not completely recovered from the 2007 recession, see kic restoration. The FRS includes 643,00 state, local, and school district employees. Their contributions support pensions for 416,000 retirees. Teachers and other district employees are nearly one-half of all participants.

Florida Education Budget Good News

There will be a significant bump of $241 in per student funding next year. Yes, the Best and Brightest funding was rolled into per student funding and that is not new money. About $160 of the increase is in discretionary funding which will give districts flexibility in allocating funds for programs.

There are still differences to iron out in facility funding for public schools and charters. In addition, the House passed a bill requiring districts to share funds generated by a local district referendum with charters. It is not clear how the Senate sill respond. If passed, this bill could negate any funding gains for many districts. Keep tuned.

Making Sense of the Session to Come

Ideas are swirling around. It sounds a lot like guns for money. Diaz wants guns in schools. Districts want to fix holes in buildings. The governor wants bonuses for teachers. Many want an escape hatch from Jeb Bush’s A + Plan that supported Common Core. I wonder about that. It will not change the testing mania simply because the federal government requires annual testing. It will create more havoc to change once again. I did a count of all the curriculum changes in the last twenty years. It is unbelievable. How teachers are supposed to know what and how to teach and students are to know what is important from one year to the next is a mystery to me.

I did another check on the Bush A+ Plan with which our legislature is enamored. When competition among teachers and schools for bonuses don’t work to raise achievement, it is a problem for the legislature. Did you realize that now that the legislature knows that students are graduating from high school and need remediation in community colleges that the legislature changed the law? Remediation is no longer required. Simple fix that?

This year’s simple fix to Florida’s relatively low graduation rate is to reduce the number of credits required. Some students may be redirected to vocational/trade certification programs that require fewer credits. Actually, many of those certification programs are quite rigorous. So, it is worth considering alternatives if they are not dumbed down. Instead students need a lift up, but that does cost money.

The discussion comes down to the usual smoke and mirrors. The governor would move the bonuses into a different pot of money…the per student allocation schools have to operate. It would look like schools were getting more money. The House does not want even the appearance of a tax increase, so schools will not get the benefit of the increase in property values. But, those holes in the buildings leak. Something must be done.

From what I hear, it will be a tradeoff…guns for money with some whispers about a little religion thrown in by extending the personal learning accounts for private schools. Remember that about 83% of the children attending private schools on tax credit scholarships are going to small, poorly staffed religious schools.
Those schools are getting more economically and racially segregated. Children do not learn well in those settings, and hiding that fact in private schools is unfair to children and their families.

What a world!

The Drum Beat Rolls On

Representative Byron Donalds was named Chair of the Florida House PreK-12 Education Quality subcommittee. Donalds is married to Erika Donalds from Collier County. She was the organizer of the alternative Florida school board association whose members represent charter school interest. She was also sponsor of portions of the Constitutional Revision Commission’s Amendment 8 to create an independent school system. Since that amendment was removed from the November ballot, forms of it will no doubt emerge from the upcoming legislative session. The Donalds also helped found a Classical Academy charter school and are starting another one. These charters focus on ‘Christian values’.

Will Florida’s Education Leadership Be A ‘One Trick Pony’?

Pam Stewart has resigned as of the date Governor DeSantis is inaugurated. Rumors abound that DeSantis has fingered former House Speaker and school privatization advocate Richard Corcoran for the job. Do you hire someone to run Florida’s public schools who wants to end public schools? Corcoran’s bio tells a lot about him. He graduated from St. Leo and earned his law degree from Regents University (RU). RU was founded by Pat Robertson as the Christian Broadcasting Network University whose goal is to foster Christian leaders. While Corcoran was a bankruptcy attorney, he soon became career politician. He first ran for office in 2008. He has now term limited out of the House and is job hunting.

The law states that the State Board of Education (SBE) appoints the State Superintendent, not the Governor The SBE typically does national searches. Florida needs qualified education leaders who have training and experience. Who we have so far is Rep. Jennifer Sullivan as House Education Chair.  Sullivan wrote the curriculum for TeenPact on the proper role of government.  TeenPact is sponsored by Americans for Prosperity.  She was home schooled and a college drop out from a private Christian college. She says her ignorance could be an asset.

Senate Education Committee Chair, Manny Diaz, graduated from St. Thomas and earned a masters degree from Nova which may account for his support for online education. He does have experience in public schools. He also has joined the for-profit Academica charter management firm as Chief Operating Officer of Doral College, an online non accreditated school created to offer dual enrollment to high school students taught by their teachers. The credit does not transfer to any other college, but it does provide a six figure salary to Diaz.

Now are Floridians to be offered Richard Corcoran, career politician and school privatization advocate to implement legislative policy? Granted the Governomr appoints members to the State Board of Education, but are they simply to rubber stamp the Governor’s agenda? Is there any room in the policy leadership for the interests of the 80% of children who attend Florida’s traditional public schools? Will anyone have an interest in curbing the abuses of the unregulated charter and private tax credit scholarship schools? See the Tampa Bay Times’ take on the issue.

Getting to know Manny Diaz: Senate Education Chair

Politico interviewed Senator Diaz about his priorities for education policy. He wants to expand school choice and to review the guardian program that is intended to provide security assistants for schools. The interview also refers to Diaz’s support for a state level charter school institute. Such an institute would centralize the preparation of charter school proposals that must then be authorized by local school boards. This is an idea that has taken many forms over the past several years. It includes advocacy for a High Impact Charter Network to allow charters to expand in new areas without local board approval. Another unstated form was behind the 2018 Amendment 8 constitutional revision proposal that Florida’s Supreme Court took off the ballot. The ballot language referred to state control of schools not established by local school boards. Informed educators would recognize the intent of the language, but voters in general would not. Thus, the proposal was removed from the November 2018 ballot, but it is likely to reappear in some form in the 2019 legislative session.

Florida Senate Education Leadership Named

So,,,,newly elevated from the Florida House, Manny Diaz will head the Senate Education Policy committee. Vice Chair is Senator Bill Montford D Tallahassee. Diaz was appointed in 2013 by Academica to head Doral College. This is the college that the Miami Herald skewered. It had no students and was created to provide online dual enrollment credit taught by Academica high school teachers. Remember that former Representative Erik Fresen, the brother-in-law of Academica’s CEO and a consultant to Academica, was convicted of tax evasion in 2018 for the eight year he served in the Florida House. We really do not need to have Academica lead educational policy for the state of Florida.

It will be interesting to see how Diaz and Senate Pro Tempore David Simmons will work together. Simmons lost his chairmanship of the education committee last year when he opposed HB 7069. Montford and Simmons are supportive of public school funding. Of course, the House leadership will continue to push school choice. How will any serious review of the impact of choice be conducted?

It is time for a statewide push in support of public schools. To see the other education committee members, click on STATE NEWS.