Timeflyer
Timeflyer's JournalFlorida dems--follow and support FL House Rep. Anna Eskamani, dist. 42--inspirational.
She represents the Orlando area, but she's fighting for the whole state of FL, opposing DeSatan and his rabid supermajority of MAGA toadies. Follow her at AnnaforFlorida.com (Mark Hamill--yes, Luke Skywalker--is a supporter on her website). To get into the weeds of the latest legislative shenanigans, go to MyFloridaHouse.gov to track the progress of the many heinous bills being spewed out there.
Eskamani is smart, tough, very articulate and knowledgeable. And she's fighting for us, not the corporations or big money donors. She could be our future hope to replace R. "Voldemort" Scott or Marco R.
New College of Florida--other schools will be targeted
Regarding the takeover of New College of Florida by DeSantis--because I grew up in Sarasota and care about education, and still care about this place I often hate but still consider home, I’ve attended two rallies and the most recent Board of Trustees meeting, 2/28/23. I only stayed at the Board meeting to hear the public comments. The pain and anguish expressed by students, parents, teachers and community members was searing.
Many New College students thought they’d found a place where they could flourish academically and explore their identities fully without the adolescent societal pressures of high school. Now they can’t sleep, not because of the normal pressures of coursework, but because they’re being crushed by the weight of government authoritarianism. Parents are traveling back and forth to the school, and some parents are living in hotels near the campus, so they can support their child while trying to stop the wreckage of a school they thought would be the place their student would find acceptance and success.
The destruction of New College is taking place taking place both with blitzkrieg speed and by a death of a thousand cuts. Almost overnight handpicked political sycophants of DeSantis are appointed to the Board of Trustees, and the President is kicked out and a high-dollar replacement inserted. Meanwhile public meetings are held, to maintain a pretense of transparency, to discuss the pre-arranged dismantling of aspects of the college.
The students of New College of Florida are getting an education they never expected or wanted, in the power of authoritarianism and the influence of dark money, cronyism, and the use of religion as a disguise for the lust for power and money.
"The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World,"
by Jennifer Jacquet, 2022. Timely read, especially since the Ohio toxic train derailment. Written ironically as a playbook for every company executive who wants to make a fortune at any cost. It describes how corporations maximize profits when challenged by inconvenient truths about the harms the corporation is causing.
Tactics begun by Big Tobacco are still being used today, to keep money flowing in while denying and/or delaying anything that might negatively effect the business bottom line. Deny the problem, delay dealing with the problem, massage statistics to suit your needs, fund studies that support the company's desired results, hire greedy experts who'll shill for your company...the list is exhausting, and we've all seen them in use.
Regarding that train wreck--I believe it was carrying vinyl chloride.
"Other times, denial involves destroying and suppressing internally generated scientific knowledge that implicates the Corporation. The destruction or concealment of internal knowledge is easier than destroying or suppressing knowledge that was created outside the Corporation. Manufacturers of vinyl chloride conducted their own studies on animals that showed vinyl chloride caused cancer, which those manufacturers could (and did) prevent from being publicized. When independent research later showed potential harms associated with vinyl chloride, the manufacturers were not able to destroy outside results, but they could pose a challenge to them. The vinyl chloride manufacturers questioned the utility of animal studies, despite having conducted animal studies themselves, and insisted that long-term epidemiological studies on humans be conducted before regulations be considered. They suppressed internal knowledge, challenged external knowledge, and successfully postponed burdensome regulations." Ch. 1, "Denial: a Fiduciary Duty," pg. 10.
"The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World,"
by Jennifer Jacquet, 2022. Timely read, especially since the Ohio toxic train derailment. Written ironically as a playbook for every company executive who wants to make a fortune at any cost. It describes how corporations maximize profits when challenged by inconvenient truths about the harms the corporation is causing.
Tactics begun by Big Tobacco are still being used today, to keep money flowing in while denying and/or delaying anything that might negatively effect the business bottom line. Deny the problem, delay dealing with the problem, massage statistics to suit your needs, fund studies that support the company's desired results, hire greedy experts who'll shill for your company...the list is exhausting, and we've all seen them in use.
Regarding that train wreck--I believe it was carrying vinyl chloride.
"Other times, denial involves destroying and suppressing internally generated scientific knowledge that implicates the Corporation. The destruction or concealment of internal knowledge is easier than destroying or suppressing knowledge that was created outside the Corporation. Manufacturers of vinyl chloride conducted their own studies on animals that showed vinyl chloride caused cancer, which those manufacturers could (and did) prevent from being publicized. When independent research later showed potential harms associated with vinyl chloride, the manufacturers were not able to destroy outside results, but they could pose a challenge to them. The vinyl chloride manufacturers questioned the utility of animal studies, despite having conducted animal studies themselves, and insisted that long-term epidemiological studies on humans be conducted before regulations be considered. They suppressed internal knowledge, challenged external knowledge, and successfully postponed burdensome regulations." Ch. 1, "Denial: a Fiduciary Duty," pg. 10.
DeSantis toady Corcoran lands big payday at New College
https://lbus6do-cdn.newsmemory.com?selDate=20230217&goTo=C14&artid=0(Link doesn't work--working on it)
From Nate Monroe commentary, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union
The politicized ruination of Florida public education and public colleges includes a huge financial payoff, $700,000 a year, for Richard Corcoran.
"Once a churlish budget hawk in the Florida Legislature — whose favorite targets included the state’s higher-education institutions for their alleged 'lavish' salaries — Corcoran has spent his years since brazenly trawling for a job leading a Florida university, a role he has never previously held. In fact, Corcoran, a charter school evangelist, has no education background whatsoever, save for his appointment as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ education commissioner — a few sorry years during which he courted ideological zealots, got ensnared in a bid-rigging scandal, and threatened local public school officials across the state. But one go at the public trough wasn’t enough. In his post-legislative career, Corcoran morphed into a familiar Florida character: an avowed small-government conservative turned big-government bureaucrat with an unslakable desire to cash taxpayer paychecks.
His was the name that serially surfaced when presidential search committees, run by increasingly politicized college boards, got to work, and it was the name that caused much puckering of nether regions and knotting of stomachs in Florida’s higher-education ranks. Who would be left with Richard Corcoran when the music stopped?
After setting his sights on more ambitious job prospects but coming up short, the nomadic Corcoran finally found his dream job: on Monday, a recently remade New College of Florida board of trustees named Corcoran its interim president — the second such time in recent weeks the board, which is supposed to operate exclusively in the sunshine, appeared to coalesce quickly around a highly controversial decision despite an absence of any real debate.
New College is one of Florida’s smaller schools, filling a space for students in search of a more intimate experience while pursuing a liberal arts education. New College’s mission appealed to an opportunistic governor looking to make an example of a liberal arts squish, its size was suited to engineer a quick hostile takeover, and its modest footprint limited the risk of handing the keys over to a neophyte like Corcoran (his previous pursuit of the top job at Florida State University may have simply proven too high stakes for state leaders to swallow).
For his temporary leadership of New College, which has an enrollment of about 700 students, Corcoran will be paid big money: about $700,000, more than double the salary of his predecessor, whom the board ran off, plus an $84,000 yearly housing allowance, a $12,000 yearly car allowance, and the possibility of a 15 percent bonus if he meets performance benchmarks that have not yet been set. One does not need to understand the contract in context — that it’s high judged even by the standards of universities with multiple times the number of students — to see that it is a sickening amount of money, indefensible in the extreme, disgraceful to the maximum, so much so that even DeSantis’ horde of choleric online defenders were unusually quiet. What is there to say, after all? Far more than $1,000 in compensation per student.
It’s possible he could net about $1 million by the time the college hires a permanent president.
So far, DeSantis’ decimation of New College has been understood in ideological terms: that he installed a gang of conservative dilettantes on the board of trustees to strip down the small liberal arts school and turn it into a Florida satellite of Hillsdale College, a private Christian conservative school in Michigan that has become a beachhead in the war on public education."
...
Florida House Bill 1 (again, more, very long, but public ed is worth saving, so...)
FLORIDA, House Bill 1 (from Support Our Schools organization)House bill 1 (HB 1) "School Choice," a Florida House and Senate bill that dramatically expands enrollment in private schools at public expense is called "historic" by its supporters, who claim that FL students will no longer be locked into "failing schools." The say that "ESAs", Educational Savings Accounts, central to BH 1, provide parents with educational options and flexibility. But critics fire back that HB 1 will destroy public education by eventually bankrupting public school districts.
What is HB 1?
This bill is modeled on Arizona legislation that passed in June 2022. It takes an existing school voucher program, the FES, Family Empowerment Scholarship, and make it universal. This means that all parents of students who live in Florida and and are eligible to enroll in K-12 public schools can receive close to $8K per year to attend a private school. It also opens the $8K payment to hundreds of thousands of students already enrolled in private school, including children of millionaires and even billionaires, as there are no longer any income caps. A Florida Senate companion bill, SB 202, was filed on Feb. 10, 2023.
What else is included in HB 1?
HB1 is a comprehensive bill that radically restructures and transforms the current voucher-based FL scholarship programs into ESAs, Educational Savings Accounts that can be spent on a variety of programs, goods and services. Along with paying for private school, HB 1 legislation:
· expands the use of FES to include the purchase of instructional materials, curriculum, contracted services, including part-time attendance at a public or private school, and other approved expenditures,
· allows up to $24K to accumulate in an ESA, which upon graduation can be used for higher education costs,
· includes homeschooled students--up to 10,000 of the 150,000 Florida homeschooled students in the first year, increasing to 20,00 in subsequent years and leaving to an eventual removal of the cap,
· expands the number of students with disabilities receiving FES-Unique Abilities, already utilizing ESA, from 1% to 3% of Florida ESE student population to eliminate the current FES-UA wait list.
Who supports HB1?
Gov. Ron DeSantis has made HB 1 a top priority of his "education freedom" agenda that also includes attacking teacher unions, furthering cultural war attacks, and making school board races partisan. HB 1 has the enthusiastic backing of both Speaker of the Fl House Paul Renner and Senate President K. Passidomo. The legislation is supported by Charles Koch, who has been pushing for ESAs for many years through his Americans for Prosperity organization. It also has the support of Betsy Devos' American Federation for Children, and Jeb Bush's ExcelinEd.
Who opposes HB 1?
HB 1 is opposed by the Florida Education Association, the Florida League of Women Voters, Support Our Schools, the Florida Democratic Public Education Caucus, and many other grassroots groups. Sally Butzin of the Florida League of Women Voters said of HB 1, “it takes a sledgehammer to education,” thereby attacking the “bedrock of democracy.”
Is an ESA (Educational Savings Account) the same as a voucher?
Some people call ESAs “super vouchers,” but, while they have many things in common, like lack of transparency and accountability, a voucher and an ESA are structurally different. Vouchers are a narrow mechanism that fund private schools, while ESAs fund an array of programs, products and services. In Florida all the ESA options are placed on a marketplace models after Amazon.
In some states an actual ESA debit card is provided, but in Florida the educational savings accounts are managed by a nonprofit, called “Step Up for Students”, and “purchases” are debited from the account. An ESA allows the money to follow the child. If done on a broad, system-wide scale, as many supporters of ESAs envision, all “public” schools and programs could be placed on the marketplace as a separate entity, thus destroying public education. Since the funding follows the student, it makes constitutional legal challenges much harder.
If ESA create options and flexibility for students, isn’t that a good thing?
Quality education is student centered and individualized. While there are some excellent private schools that do this, many of the private schools that accept vouchers are more hype than educational substance, and are often undercapitalized. For example: in Sarasota County, of the 37 private schools that accept vouchers, more than half are religious schools, and some of these schools teach a highly rote biblical curriculum. Some, like the Sarasota Classical Academy, which is affiliated with Hillsdale College, use curricula filled with historical distortions and untruths. Some of the schools discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community. Private schools have few regulations and can hire teachers with no formal education if they can demonstrate a “special skill.”
A series of articles entitled Schools Without Rules in the Orlando Sentinel exposed many shortcomings, and charged that these schools were neither transparent nor accountable. Other studies on school privatization document how public schools consistently outperform private schools. Even the best of the voucher-funded private schools generally perform no better than public schools, frequently performing worse, and on average students return to public schools within 2 years.
How much will it cost to fund HB 1?
The Florida Policy Institute (FPI) and the Education Law Center (ELS) analyzed the bill’s economics. They determined that HB1 will cost a staggering $4 billion in its initial year of implementation. That is more than 17% of the current education budget, a huge reduction, made worse by Florida’s already bottom-of-the-barrel spending. The cost to taxpayers breaks down as follows:
· $1.1 billion for 124,063 students currently receiving FES vouchers,
· $890 million for 104,477 new FES enrollees once the family income cap is lifted,
· $1.9 billion for 219,017 new FES ESAs for current private school students newly eligible for ESAs,
· $85 million for 10,000 new FES ESAs for homeschooled students newly eligible for ESAs.
Where will the money come from?
Currently the legislators are mum on this. The Florida House staff analysis says, “the bill would have an indeterminate fiscal impact,” depending on the participation rate and additional state funding. When asked how HB 1 would be funded, the bill’s sponsor, Representative Kaylee Tuck, (R, district 55) said the bill would be “revenue neutral.”
But that is not the case, as children already attending private schools or being homeschooled are not in the system. In addition, children who leave public schools for private schools, or to be homeschooled, are being removed by ones and twos, from multiple classrooms, grades, and schools throughout the district, so little is gained in economy of scale. That the Florida Department of Education did not compensate schools when FES vouchers were paid out of general revenue last year, costing Sarasota $17.3 million in reduced state aid. This fact provides a clue that this might be repeated, even though the increase this coming year is expected to be more than three-fold higher.
How will HB 1 effect the funding of public education in Sarasota County?
The FPI and ELC did a county-by-county analysis of the costs, assuming no additional state funds. The figure for Sarasota County is quite startling, with researchers estimating that it will cost Sarasota $60.1 million next year (2023-24). That is 70% of the state aid that Sarasota receives—one of the highest percentages in the state. And that amount is nearly 16% of Sarasota County Schools operating budget. And that is just for the first year of implementation.
What are the implications of HB 1 for the future of public education in Florida?
Public education supporters view universal ESAs as the death knell of Florida public education. Since 1999, when Gov. Jeb Bush began implementing privatization policies, Florida has been the nation’s leader in privatization, occasionally bested by Arizona.
Gov. DeSantis’ education commissioners, both previous commissioner Richard Corcoran and current commissioner Manny Diaz, have set up a full-fledged privatizing apparatus. Corcoran worked with the legislature to create an outside authorizer, located with the Florida DOE, to by-pass local school boards, which allows easy approval for largely for-profit managed charter schools. This year, Diaz transformed the voucher system into universal ESAs. With those two reforms, Florida can now easily ramp up to full education privatization.
For more information and resources:
HB 1: https://edlawcenter.org/news/archives/school-funding-national/hb1-universal-voucher-program-would-cost-billions.html
Public Education: https://networkforpubliceducation.org/privatization-toolkit/
ESAs: https://networkforpubliceducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Do-Education-Savings-Accounts-lead-to-better-results-for-families-.pdf
School Privatization: https://networkforpubliceducation.org/fight-privatization/
Chartered for Profit: https://networkforpubliceducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Charted-for-Profit-II.pdf
Public Ed in Florida under attack from HB 1. Ultimate goal--ed. privatization.
This is long, but important. Info from "Support Our Schools," Sarasota, organization that advocates for PUBLIC education.
House bill 1 (HB 1) "School Choice," a Florida House and Senate bill that dramatically expands enrollment in private schools at public expense is called "historic" by its supporters who claim that FL students will no longer be locked into "failing schools." The say that "ESAs", Educational Savings Accounts, central to BH 1, provide parents with educational options and flexibility. But critics fire back that HB 1 will destroy public education by eventually bankrupting public school districts.
This bill is modeled on Arizona legislation that passed in June 2022. It takes an existing school voucher program, the FES, Family Empowerment Scholarship, and make it universal. This means that all parents of students who live in Florida and and are eligible to enroll in K-12 public schools can receive close to $8K per year to attend a private school. It also opens the $8K payment to hundreds of thousands of students already enrolled in private school, including children of millionaires and even billionaires, as there are no longer any income caps. A Florida Senate companion bill, SB 202, was filed on Feb. 10, 2023.
HB1 is a comprehensive bill that radically restructures and transforms the current voucher-based FL scholarship programs into ESAs, Educational Savings Accounts that can be spent on a variety of programs, goods and services. Along with paying for private school, HB 1 legislation:
---expands the use of FES to include the purchase of instructional materials, curriculum, contracted services including part-time attendance at a public or private school and other approved expenditures,
---allows up to $24K to accumulate in an ESA which upon graduation can be used for higher education costs,
---includes homeschooled students--up to 10,000 of the 150,000 Florida homeschooled students in the first year, increasing to 20,00 in subsequent years and leaving to an eventual removal of the cap,
---expands the number of students with disabilities receiving FES-Unique Abilities, already utilizing ESA, from 1% to 3% of Florida ESE student population to eliminate the current FES-UA wait list.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has made HB 1 a top priority of his "education freedom" agenda that also includes attacking teacher unions, furthering cultural war attacks, and making school board races partisan. HB 1 has the enthusiastic backing of both Speaker of the Fl House Paul Renner and Senate President K. Passidomo. The legislation is supported by Charles Koch, who has been pushing for ESAs for many years through his Americans for Prosperity organization. It also has the support of Betsy Devos' American Federation for Children, and Jeb Bush's ExcelinEd.
...
There's much more to say about the problems with this bill, but consider the implications of HB 1 for the future of public education in Florida--public education supporters view universal ESA as the death knell of public education and a ramp up to full education privatization.
Public education is under attack in FLorida from House Bill #1. Oppose it now!
This is long, but important. Info from "Support Our Schools," Sarasota, organization that advocates for PUBLIC education.
House bill 1 (HB 1) "School Choice," a Florida House and Senate bill that dramatically expands enrollment in private schools at public expense is called "historic" by its supporters who claim that FL students will no longer be locked into "failing schools." The say that "ESAs", Educational Savings Accounts, central to BH 1, provide parents with educational options and flexibility. But critics fire back that HB 1 will destroy public education by eventually bankrupting public school districts.
This bill is modeled on Arizona legislation that passed in June 2022. It takes an existing school voucher program, the FES, Family Empowerment Scholarship, and make it universal. This means that all parents of students who live in Florida and and are eligible to enroll in K-12 public schools can receive close to $8K per year to attend a private school. It also opens the $8K payment to hundreds of thousands of students already enrolled in private school, including children of millionaires and even billionaires, as there are no longer any income caps. A Florida Senate companion bill, SB 202, was filed on Feb. 10, 2023.
HB1 is a comprehensive bill that radically restructures and transforms the current voucher-based FL scholarship programs into ESAs, Educational Savings Accounts that can be spent on a variety of programs, goods and services. Along with paying for private school, HB 1 legislation:
---expands the use of FES to include the purchase of instructional materials, curriculum, contracted services including part-time attendance at a public or private school and other approved expenditures,
---allows up to $24K to accumulate in an ESA which upon graduation can be used for higher education costs,
---includes homeschooled students--up to 10,000 of the 150,000 Florida homeschooled students in the first year, increasing to 20,00 in subsequent years and leaving to an eventual removal of the cap,
---expands the number of students with disabilities receiving FES-Unique Abilities, already utilizing ESA, from 1% to 3% of Florida ESE student population to eliminate the current FES-UA wait list.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has made HB 1 a top priority of his "education freedom" agenda that also includes attacking teacher unions, furthering cultural war attacks, and making school board races partisan. HB 1 has the enthusiastic backing of both Speaker of the Fl House Paul Renner and Senate President K. Passidomo. The legislation is supported by Charles Koch, who has been pushing for ESAs for many years through his Americans for Prosperity organization. It also has the support of Betsy Devos' American Federation for Children, and Jeb Bush's ExcelinEd.
...
There's much more to say about the problems with this bill, but consider the implications of HB 1 for the future of public education in Florida--public education supporters view universal ESA as the death knell of public education and a ramp up to full education privatization.
Answer to a prayer--Satanic Temple sells "Sam Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic" t-shirts.
If one Florida public school library book is "challenged" for CRT...
If one Florida public school library book is "challenged" and the challenger appeals the decision, it costs the school district thousands of dollars.
On Feb. 7, the Sarasota County School Board voted to require parental consent for some students to check out an anti-racism book. The challenged book, "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You" by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, discusses racism and systemic racism in the U.S. It's a YA adaptation of an adult book by Kendi.
In Sarasota a mom (for liberty?) challenged Stamped, which was available to any 6th through 12th grader, but wasn't used as instructional material. She wanted it removed from all district PUBLIC school libraries because CRT, woke, indoctrination, controversial, violates state standards established by the anointed FL legislators, blah, blah, vulnerable children.
There is a long-established procedure in place if a parent objects to a book or other school library material--her child's record is flagged and that particular child cannot check out that particular item. But--nope, not good enough--she appealed, so the entire middle school got involved for a special hearing on this book. The school didn't agree to remove the book from her child's school library. So she appealed again, and a district wide meeting was held. The whole process involved legal fees. If the board lawyer takes six hours to read and review a book, research statutes and prepare a opinion, etc., cha-ching$$$. Not to mention the education professionals and administrators and staff involved in the process.
At a public hearing on the challenge before the Sarasota School Board, the woman presented her case. And more than 20 citizens spoke in public comments objecting to her attempted book ban. In the end the board voted to make parents of children grades 6-8 opt in if their child tries to check the book out, but it can stay available without parental permission for check out to grades 9-12.
One book challenged. Thousands of dollars, (which could purchase how many books?) and staff hours spent, because this is DeSadist's Florida. Our tax dollars, weaponized to starve and destroy PUBLIC education, so privatization of schools can suck up the $.
https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/education/2023/02/07/sarasota-school-board-requires-parent-permission-for-anti-racism-book/69880152007/
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