Governor Rick Scott setting the stage to decimate Florida public schools

[erodriguez]

Far-right conservatives have been pushing vouchers for years as a way to dismantle public schools and fund parochial schools. But Scott's proposal may be the first to propose using vouchers as a way of also cutting taxes...

As soon as the state starts handing families $5500 a year, it's virtually assured that enterprising thieves will devise various schemes to help them part with those funds, including by starting "independent" for-profit virtual schools, charter schools, and other predatory "educational" institutions...putting that much taxpayer money out there without adequate oversight (i.e. bureaucracy) is a formula for disaster.

It's not just a hypothetical harm, as charter schools in many states have demonstrated. Charter schools get paid by the number of kids they enroll, and they are free from much of the bureaucracy Republicans like to bash so much. All that money mixed with all that freedom hasn't produced much in the way of an education boost: Charter schools perform no better and often much worse than traditional ones. But they have produced a bumper crop of fraudsters.

Even so, Scott appears ready to liberate public school parents to take their money anywhere they like, especially to online schools—a new cause célèbre for Jeb Bush, who recently launched an advocacy project called Digital Learning Now! to lobby against barriers to online public schools.

One of the hallmarks of Scott's education reform plan is the idea that many kids don't need to go to school at all; they can learn everything they need to in virtual classrooms. Online schools offer many cost-saving advantages, but unfortunately many of them are so bad that even the military won't take people who graduate from them. Online schools also seem even more vulnerable to fraud than regular old charter schools.



http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/12/rick-scott-florida-education-jeb-bush

[MrModerate]

1. Fraud, in Florida? Surely you jest. n/t

[madfloridian]

2. And he has the legislators to back him up.

There are no checks and balances in Florida at all now.

[erodriguez]

4. Sad state of affairs in Florida

[Mojorabbit]

9. It is rather frightening.

I dread what they may do in the coming year.

[midnight armadillo]

3. This comment really sticks with me

(from the article's comment section)
The great thing is that once you've emptied the schools the communities associated with them and in fact the entire culture of community dissolves, making it difficult or impossible for people to organize any sort of response. Our kids grow up without the experienced of being part of a community or institution and are thus easier to control and manipulate since their isolated, at the mercy of Corporations and the large right wing organizations conservatives favor. No football team, no cheerleading, no chorus and no gay straight student alliance. Just people staring at computers making choices by themselves.

No society in history has ever attempted this. We've had village churches, the Spartan barracks, the frontier school, the structured common life of jungle villages and other endless varieties of ways to teach people to work together, from the Peace Corps to the Hitler Youth, but nobody, religious, communist or industrial democracy has ever attempted to omit teaching how to participate in an organized community from the way they raise their youth.

This is the most radical possible suggestion for reorganizing our society possible. It ignores history and the totality of the last 20 thousand years of human experience.

Hear, hear. Florida is embarking on a radical experiment from which there is no return. After a few years of underfunded vouchers they will not be able to afford to rebuild their public school system. Then where will that state be?

[Angry Dragon]

6. It will be a state of lost children

retired old folks, oranges, tourists, golf courses,
the republican leaders will be gone with the cash
and the rest will beg the feds for more money
and the feds will not have any because the fed
republicans will have all the money in their pockets

[SugarShack]

5. Florida suffers from very weak paper ballot/counting laws and won't change unless there's reform

Just the way it is in that state...

[bluestateguy]

7. Just wait until a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists start up their own school

and demanding voucher money.

[Hannah Bell]

11. biggest charter school chain in the us = islamic.

[TARAmisu80]

8. I live in florida =(

When my daughter was ready to go to VPK (voluntary pre-k), we chose a catholic church/school. When it came time to start Kindergarten, we couldn't afford the tuition to keep her at that amazing school. We did a lot of research with the public schools (I was in a FL public school from 6th grade, on til graduation and despised the school system) and the local charter school. The charter school was amazing. The teachers were beyond qualified and polite to the brink! The method they use for their classes is also a great plus, along with class size. The local elementary classes are approximately 28 students from what I'm told. My daughter's class has 20. She is learning so much at the school.
The school system here is ridiculous in many aspects and leaves pretty much everything to be desired!
I do agree that Florida legislature here pretty much sucks to it's fullest extent! Not my real choice to be stuck here at the present time, though I cannot really think of a state where the legislature really does have the "average american" in mind.

[TARAmisu80]

13. And this $5500...

I've never seen it. We can either put our children in the public school system, or pay the tuition at a private school. If we are very lucky and there is a charter school nearby, we can chose to go that route. I am very lucky and my daughter goes to the charter school (much better education than the local public schools) but it is approximately a 20 minute drive to school. One great thing about the charter school is that they let the parents get very hands-on with their child's education. I've been to the classroom a few times to help out during the day with various activities and also some after school activities. They never leave the kindergarteners out like many other schools do, either.

[erodriguez]

15. Your class size statement says it all

28 students per class in a traditional public school
20 students per class in a charter school


Our country is continuing to divest in public education. It is great that you found a school with such small class sizes. However, the end game is to turn all public schools over to private industry. They'll be no small classes then, unless we wind up with a New Orleans style two-tiered system. There will be the few haves that are strong enough academically to stay in schools with small classes. Then there will be the rest, packed like sardines in shitty schools.

[TARAmisu80]

17. Don't get me wrong...

The area that I'm in has some decent "A" schools, but after research, etc, it was the right choice for me. I by all means am against the FL school system; my husband and I had planned on moving out of FL before our daughter started school, but that didn't pan out. We did the best with what we had to chose from. I just wish that the public schools could get their butts in gear, but with budget cuts all over, it's hard if not impossible! So much for no kid getting left behind- it's obvious many are, after seeing how many 3rd graders here cannot even read. BUT, I believe that also falls partly on the parent as well for not reinforcing what is being taught at school.

[Hannah Bell]

10. I know two kids who go to school online. it's crap.

[Dappleganger]

12. Know what I would do with that $5500??

Give it to our county school superintendent and tell him to do whatever he wants with it (Dr. Joseph Joyner, who runs one of the top-performing school districts in the state). And I would encourage all of our friends to do the same. No-strings attached and the dumbass convict governor can't tell him how to spend it or to give it back.

Because you see, now that the republicons are completely in charge it is the better for them to stay OUT of our public schools and education entirely. When I think of big, bad terrible government I think of Florida's disgusting state legislature, Jacksonville's farce of a mayor and city council (all republicons), Jim Thrasher who has his hand in every back-room deal in the state. And behind them all is none other than Jebbie Bush, still pulling the puppet strings after all these years.

This is the government that should make our skin crawl!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

14. Michelle Rhee, the former superintendent for D.C. public schools,

is now in Florida to destroy those public schools.

She created a major firestorm here in D.C. when she fired a slew of teachers and engaged in other activities that promoted charter schools, for instance.

Fenty lost reelection, in some part, due to Rhee's actions.

The city is divided, mostly along race and class lines.

Fenty had the overwhelming support of whites and upper-income blacks.
Gray had the overwhelming support of most blacks and working class families.

[Vickers]

16. That's about as useful to me as $500 off a new Rolex.

This is really just a way to give rich people an extra $5500 per school-age kid (they are already in private schools).

[TARAmisu80]

18. i hear that!