Florida 2023: Setting Lots of Fires and Watching Public Schools Burn

Start lots of fires.

Overwhelm the fire department and

Enjoy watching them burn.

This is the way of the arsonists and also a metaphor for the plans House Speaker Paul Renner and Governor Ron DeSantis have for education legislation attacking our public schools during the 2023 Legislative session. The attacks are relentless and on all fronts and they seem excited to see what damage they can cause.

Bills have been filed (or are rumored to be coming) which:

• Further address the banning of Library books, automatically removing obscene books without school board review
• More State mandates on reading instruction: Going all in on the Science of Reading and ensuring we’re not teaching “flawed methodologies”
• Mandate school start times, particularly for high schools.
• Get rid of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion programs in Higher Ed and K-12
• Mandate Charter Schools access to capital outlay and “charter parity”
• Reduce school board term limits to 8 years.
• Make school board elections partisan
• Make participation in the Guardian Program (arming school staff) a prerequisite to receiving Safe Schools funding
• Create a Teacher’s Bill of Rights, which will protect teachers “if their district is demanding they break state law”
• Restricting what kinds of flags can be displayed in classrooms, ensuring activism isn’t pushed into our classroom
• Responding to recent decisions by the FHSAA, such as banning prayer before athletic events and/or removing menstrual history questions on the pre-participation physical form
• Extending parental rights bills, specifically extending the ban on classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity through 6th grade, or so.
• Further restricting teachers unions, preventing payroll deductions for union dues
• More bills to switch appointed superintendents to elected superintendents, as was done to Lee County last session
• And the big one – HB1: Transforming tuition vouchers to ESAs and providing universal access, regardless of income, with the goal of privatizing not simply public education but the responsibility for education.

Next week, during the final committee week before session starts on March 7th,  both the House and Senate will hear their versions of the Universal ESA bill:

On Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 9:30am-11:30am, the Senate Education PreK-12 committee will hear SB202, their version of HB1. The Senate bill differs from the House bill primarily by adding the promise of reducing regulations on public schools in exchange for their defunding by the ESA privatization effort. The bill specifically mentions creating more flexibility in how to the distribute Teacher Salary Allocation, temporarily (until 7/1/2026) lifting the cost per student station construction limits, giving teachers five years instead of three to complete their certification and giving districts some flexibilities with student transportation services. It also continues this vague proposal:

What might they repeal or revise? Not the onerous high stakes standardized testing and calculated school grades, ensured former Senator Bill Montford, who is currently the CEO of the Florida Association of District School Superintendents. Private Schools are not subjected to school grades based on their students learning gains, of course.

On Thursday, February 23, 2023, 9a-11am, the House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee will hear HB1. Expect amendments to address the concerns of homeschoolers who have been involved in a letter writing campaign, concerned the bills would increase government oversight of home education programs and asking to be removed from the bill. Without homeschoolers, most of the ESA expansion, funds which could be spent on public schools, will primarily go to reimburse parents currently paying private school tuition.

The PreK-12 Appropriations subcommittee will also hear HB457 which temporarily lifts the cost per student station construction limits in language identical to SB 202.

Florida’s 2023 Legislative session begins March 7th. Just how much damage will these arsonists inflict?