Bill Update: Halfway through Session
We are halfway through Florida’s 2021 legislative session. Here’s a quick look at some of the bills we are following and what to watch this week:
Voucher Expansion
Last week, edu-blogger, Peter Greene, wrote a fantastic piece titled “Vouchers Are About Abandoning Public Education, Not Freeing Parents.” Please read it. He explains how vouchers don’t free or empower parents, they empower private interests to profit off of public tax dollars:
“Vouchers are the tail, not the dog. They are the public-facing image of privatization– and not just privatization of the “delivery” of education. Voucherization is also about privatizing the responsibility for educating children, about telling parents that education is their problem, not the community’s.”
This session, the Florida House and Senate are looking to expand vouchers in two very different ways – neither will benefit our public schools.
SB48, Manny Diaz’s radical transformation of Florida’s voucher programs, converting the tuition vouchers to Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) while rapidly expanding access, sailed through its committee stops and has been ready for a floor vote for over a month now. ESAs unbundle the components of a public education and rely on parents to reassemble their child’s education on a private marketplace. They are the ultimate in school privatization, lacking academic accountability and fiscal transparency. SB48 appears to be in a holding pattern, waiting for the House companion to move forward. You can read more about SB48 here, here and here.
The House companion, HB7045, first appeared as a proposed committee bill from the House Education and Employment Committee, PCB-EEC 21-01, where it was heard on 3/24/21. The bill is significantly different from SB48. HB7045 repeals the Gardiner and McKay vouchers (the programs specifically created for children with special education needs) and transitions those students into the State’s Family Empowerment Scholarship. HB7045 expands access to vouchers but does NOT convert them to ESAs. Perhaps the House understands that ESA programs can be fraught with waste, fraud and abuse? HB7045 is ready to be heard in House Appropriations, which does not have a meeting scheduled this week.
Defunding Bright Futures
Senator Baxley’s SB86 places Florida’s merit-based Bright Future Scholarships’ funding at risk, removing the statutory requirements ensured by 2018’s SB4, a bill cosponsored and championed as “permanently funding Bright Futures” by many of the same senators supporting SB86 today. Current law mandates 100% funding for tuition and fees for Bright Futures Florida Academic Scholars (f.s.1009.534(2)) and 75% funding for Bright Futures Florida Medallion Scholars (f.s.1009.535(2)). SB48 removes those assurances, placing the values of each scholarship at risk during the annual legislative appropriations process. This bill has been overwhelmingly opposed by students and parents across the state and across the political spectrum. Bright Futures scholarships are fully funded by Florida’s lottery proceeds. It appears Dennis Baxley and his legislative colleagues want to use those lottery funds “to improve education overall” (I’m guessing they want it for voucher funding…).
SB86 has undergone significant amending as it sails through senate committees along party line votes. The original bill called for limiting full funding to those students whose majors would “lead directly to employment” and diminished the award values to students who earned college credit during high school, through Advanced Placement and other acceleration programs. Those features are now gone, replaced by the development of a dashboard highlighting university graduates’ employment data and requiring the annual publishing of a list of degree programs that “do not lead directly to employment.” Baxley has resisted attempts by democratic colleagues to prevent that list from impacting Bright Futures funding in the future.
In its final committee stop, GOP Appropriations committee members seemed incredulous that there was still significant pushback to Baxley’s bill. Senator Hutson celebrated the dashboard as transformational and Senator Mayfield agreed, saying parents were going to love it. What parents don’t love, of course, is the threat of future defunding of Bright Futures that SB48 portends.
SB86 is headed to the Senate Floor for a vote on Wednesday, 4/7/21. Of note, there is currently no House companion but the bills continues to have the support of Senate President Simpson.
Expect a Charter School Train
Rumor has it that a Charter School “train bill” will begin to develop. In my humble opinion, train (or omnibus) bills represent poor legislative practice but are a great way to pass unpopular policy. Historically, Florida’s Legislators love to attach controversial education policy to popular programs, forcing opponents of the really bad stuff to vote against the good stuff, or vice versa. Get ready for the charter train to pull out of the station. Here are the bills we’ve been watching that might catch a ride on that train:
HB51/SB1028 Alternate Charter Authorizer – This is the third year this bill has been brought forward. It would allow state universities & Florida College System institutions to sponsor publicly funded charter schools, which currently falls under the Constitutional responsibility of local, duly elected school boards: Article IX Section 4 (b) – “The school board shall operate, control and supervise all free public schools within the school district and determine the rate of school district taxes within the limits prescribed herein.” During the three sessions this bill has been brought before the Legislature, it has never had support from the state college or university system. They are not asking for this. The goal here is to create a state wide, alternate charter school authorizer, something that has been attempted (and failed) many times. Earlier attempts by then Rep. Manny Diaz Jr. (in 2016) and Constitution Revision Commissioner Erika Donalds (in 2017) were to amend the Constitution. Now the goal appears to create a statewide authorizer via the university system. If these bills pass, new charter schools (like the Hilsdale College Barney Classical charter schools Erika Donalds establishes through her Optima Foundation or the charter schools run by Manny Diaz’s for-profit employer, Academica, perhaps?) could shop around for an authorizer, avoiding the oversight of their elected school boards, and choose the authorizer, funding source and accountability system, that “best suits their needs,” creating yet another parallel system of publicly funded school, despite the constitutional mandate for a “uniform system of free public K-12 schools.”
When HB51 (McClain, R-23) sailed through its first 2 committee stops and then was amended in Early Learning & Elementary Education Subcommittee to allow more flexibilities to ALL charter schools. The bill is waiting to be heard in the Education and Employment Committee.
SB1028 (Hutson, R-7) passed the Education Committee along party lines and is scheduled to be heard in Education Appropriations, on Thursday, 4/8/21.
HB1031 (Rodriguez, R-118) creates a “Charter School Review Commission” (CSRC), with members appointed by the Commissioner of Education, which could review and approve charter school applications. School districts would be required to sponsor and supervise charter schools approved by the commission. It would also allow charter schools to share their unrestricted current and capital assets with other charter schools, in other districts, across the state. (Of note, and not surprising, Rep. Rodriquez’s campaign donations include a “Who’s Who” of corporate charter chains: Zuletas, Charter Schools USA, Red Apple Development, etc.). HB1031 has passed its first two committee stops and is now in House PreK-12 Appropriations, which is not scheduled to meet this week.
Other Charter School bills – SB1468 (Gruters, R-23) and SB1300 (Diaz, R-36) have yet to be heard in committee.
School Board Term Limits/Salaries
Another perennial challenge has been School Board Term Limits. Elected school boards are seen as an impediment to privatization and, frankly, would be completely unnecessary in a fully privatized public education system where individuals made all the decisions for their families. Chipping away at elected school board authority has been a relentless pursuit of the privatizers. Instituting school board term limits, however, would require a Constitutional Amendment. So far, neither Rep. Sabatini’s HJR 11 and Sen. Gruters’ SJR1642 have been heard in committee. Gruters is Chair of the Education Committee so we felt sure it would find its way onto his agenda but at the end of their 3/30/2021 meeting, Gruters announced it was their final meeting of the session.
An interesting twist this year is Rep. Garrison’s HJR1461 . HJR1461 eliminates school board compensation, making elected school board members the only uncompensated constitutional officers. During compelling testimony by Polk County’s Wendy Dodge (watch her at 27:45), she pointed out that while County Commissions are composed of 72% men, School Boards are compose of 64% women. She said HJR1461 would make them “elected volunteers.” This appears to be an end around term limits. Garrison’s bill has passed through two committees along party lines. When opponents argued that eliminating school board salaries would impact the diversity of members, making it more difficult for lower income, working people to serve, Garrison dismissed their concerns, comparing school board service to parent participation in their school’s PTA. The bill is waiting to be heard in House Education and Employment.
Rodrigues’ SB1180, is a possible senate companion to HJR1461, but it has not been heard in Education which has already held its last meeting.
Testing, Testing and More Testing
State mandated FSA spring testing begins today (April 5th). Last week, in a 3/31/21 press conference, Governor DeSantis and Commissioner Corcoran said an announcement was “imminent” regarding how those test scores would be used this year. Last spring, when testing was cancelled due to state mandated campus closures, retention and graduation decisions were made without the need for test scores. Will the same “compassion and grace” be offered to students sitting for this year’s assessments? SB886 (Thurston, D-33) and SB7070 (a committee bill from Senate Education) have been heard in Education and address detaching the high stakes from this year’s state assessments. The House companion to SB886, HB359 (Bartleman, D-104), was assigned to 5 committee stops and has not been heard once. It appears the Legislature will be allowing the executive branch to make all decisions regarding spring testing this year.
Other bills are being heard which expand the amount of standardized testing in schools, even for our littlest learners:
- HB419 (Grall, R-54)/ SB1282 (Harrell, R-25). HB419 is waiting to be heard in its final stop in Education and Employment. SB1282 was finally heard in Education on 3/23/21 and is on Education Appropriations‘ agenda on Thursday, 4/8/21. Both bills provide much needed attention to Florida’s neglected VPK and Early Learning programs. Unfortunately, they also expand high stakes standardized testing into VPK. We wrote extensively about the bills last year (the bills are identical this year).
- SB1898 (Rodriguez,R-39) and HB7011 (a committee bill by Early Learning and Elementary Education) will mandate, beginning in the 2022-23 school year, that all VPK providers and public schools must regularly assess all of their VPK-8th grade students using a “coordinated screening and progress monitoring system” developed by the state. Participation in these progress monitoring assessments will be mandatory. The progress monitoring data will then be used to assess kindergarten readiness, calculate learning gains, and identify students as young as pre-school as having “substantial deficiencies.” These bills are priorities of Commissioner Corcoran who believes progress monitoring will propel Florida to have the very best test scores in the nation (sigh…). Both bills are on the move. SB1898 was sailed through Education and Education Appropriations and is waiting to be heard by the full Appropriations committee. HB7011 has passed two subcommittees and is waiting to be heard in the House Education and Employment committee.
Meetings to Watch This Week
House Education and Employment, Tuesday, April 06, 2021, 9:00 a.m. – noon.
Several “interesting” bill are being heard. If you want to testify before House committees you must preregister 3 hours before the meeting (info here)
- HB545 – requires parents formally, and in writing, opt-IN to required reproductive health education.
- HB1475: Bans participation of Transgender athletes.
- HB7035 – this year’s Marjorie Stoneman Douglas School Safety Bill (there is no Senate companion).
Senate Rules, Tuesday, April 6, 2021, 9:30 a.m.—3:30 p.m.
Public testimony can be given from room A3 at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center. There are LOTS of controversial bills on the Rules agenda, including:
- CS/SB 78 by Judiciary / Rodrigues—Dues and Uniform Assessments; this is a union busting bill.
- HB 529 by Fine—Moments of Silence in Public Schools; mandates a daily 1-2 minute moment of silence in k-12 public schools.
- CS/CS/SB 582 by Education / Judiciary / Rodrigues—Parental Rights; creates the controversial “Parents Bill of Rights.”
- CS/SB 1014 by Governmental Oversight and Accountability / Baxley—Employee Organizations; more union busting
Senate Floor: Bright Futures (SB86) is headed to the Senate Floor for a vote on Wednesday, April 7, 2021.
NOW is the time to let your senator (or every senator) know you are opposed to SB86 and its threats to full Bright Futures funding. (Find Senate contact information here.)
Senate Appropriations, Thursday, April 8, 2021, 11:30 am- 1:30pm
Public testimony can be given from room A3 at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center. On the agenda:
Follow the links to the committees to find contact information for committee members and give them a call prior to their meetings, asking them to oppose these bills. If there are other bills that you believe we should be following, please identify them in the comments below.
Remember, all proceedings can be watched on thefloridachannel.org.