Ignore the Vultures: Let Us Get to Work Saving Our Schools.

While the privatization vultures are circling, dreaming of ways to funnel Covid recovery funds towards their pet projects and political agendas, Florida’s teachers are wrapping up the most remarkable quarter in Florida’s public education history, where they transformed their schools on a dime, allowing learning to continue while practicing the social distancing necessary to “crush the curve” during a global pandemic. Now, as educators look forward to a much deserved summer break, everyone anxiously wonders what education will look like in the fall. We need some help from Tallahassee. It is time for the Governor and the Legislature to make the hard decisions and take action on the bills and budget passed during the 2020 session, which now seems so very long ago.

On 3/13/2020, at 10:07 PM, on the last day of Regular Session, the Florida House approved the Senate’s language for raising teacher pay to a minimum of $47,500/yr, and passed HB641, creating a new, $500 million Teacher Salary Increase Allocation within the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP), the funding formula for K-12 public school operations. 

On 3/19/2020, lawmakers returned to Tallahassee to approve the $93.2 Billion 2020-21 Budget, based almost entirely on pre-pandemic revenue estimates, while the economy was in a Covid-induced freefall. It was clear to lawmakers at that time, that the budget would need significant rewriting.

Since then, the COVID pandemic has upended Florida and the world. On 3/13/2020, the FLDOE called for school campuses to close and prepare for distance learning. Floridians headed the call for social distancing, Disney closed its theme parks, unemployment skyrocketed, the curve flattened, the economy collapsed. There has been a lot going on, to say the least.

To date, the Florida legislature has only presented 16 bills to the Governor, with only 7 sent to his desk since the close of session. Critical bills for education still waiting to be presented to the Governor include:

• HB641: Repeals the Florida Best and Brightest bonus programs and establishes the Teacher Salary Increase Allocation. Increasing minimum teacher pay was one of the Governor’s priority issues this session.
• HB7067: Massive expansion of Florida’s voucher program, among other things, quadrupling the growth rate of the Family Empowerment Scholarship, the voucher which is funded directly from the public school funding formula. Why expand vouchers when budget cuts are needed?
• HB5007: Increases the employer contribution rates for the Florida Retirement system, at an increased cost of $232.7 million to school districts. (In the past, when similar adjustments were made, the State picked up the tab.) Vetoing this bill should be a no brainer.
• HB5001: General Appropriations Act, i.e. the Budget, including $22.7 Billion for the FEFP (which includes the $500 Million Teacher Salary Allocation), a $40 increase in the Base Student Allocation, a 2.4% increase ($184) in Total per pupil spending and over $125 million for state assessments and evaluation via the state Board.

Granted, the Covid pandemic response requires near constant attention, but the sooner the Governor accepts or rejects policies and makes preliminary budget decisions (expecting more line item vetoes than usual), the sooner districts can move forward. Questions regarding potential vetos and budget cuts are on everyone’s mind.

This week, Senator Kelli Stargel, Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, was the first speaker at an online education conference, “Innovat-ED: Education Success in the Age of Covid,” sponsored by The Southern Group. Formerly known as the Southern Strategy Group, The Southern Group is one of Florida’s top tier lobbying firms, representing companies like Apple and College Board, district school boards, local governments, and, even, former Florida Board of Education member, Gary Chartrand.

Senator Stargel’s session was titled “Let’s Talk About Education Funding.” Sadly, she was unable to provide any usable information on education funding.

“I can give the talking points of the increases that we gave to early learning, the allocation that we did for teacher pay, the increases in the FEFP, the increases for digital classrooms, mental health,” the Lakeland Republican said. “But honestly, right now, I don’t know where any of those stand.”

“We’ve had conversations. I’d like to say that we know exactly, clearly what our path is going to be, but honestly, we do not,” Stargel said. “We’re all just looking through multiple different scenarios of how we can change policy to benefit the common good of everybody.”

Stargel did express specific concerns that many of Florida’s private schools may not be coming back after COVID, saying “If those schools close, all of those students are going to have to look for another way of being educated, and I feel that many of them are going to come to the public school sector, which is going to be challenging.” Using public funds to prop up private schools must have been what she meant when she referred to benefiting “the common good of everyone.” If those concerns sound familiar, it is because USDOE Secretary Betsy DeVos, former Governor Jeb Bush (and his Foundation for Florida’s Future), and many other education “reformers” are all currently advocating for using federal COVID relief funding to advance their privatization agenda and use taxpayer funding to stabilize private and religious schools. [For the record, as private businesses, private schools and charter schools qualify for the COVID relief funds provided to small business. Public schools do not.] Currently less than 400,000 of Florida’s 3 MILLION students attend private schools.

In addition to propping up private schools, Jeb and his vulture friends are suggesting that Covid recovery money should NOT be used to fill the budget gaps left by the Covid Economy, but rather the funds should be used to advance the very same education “reforms” they have been shoving down our throats for the last 20 years but have “failed to get to the finish line”: expanding school choice, expanding the digital classroom – rapidly expanding Florida Virtual School and Virtual Charter Schools, advancing Competency Based Education (where students learn by algorithms and data collection is nonstop), etc. In his recent op-ed, Bush said “Rather than patching a one-year hole in the budget, funding these big ideas would create something new, something bold, and something lasting for our nation’s students, wherever and however they learn, long after this pandemic has passed.” Sigh…

We think we speak for Florida nearly 3 million public school children, whose school budgets are likely to be slashed by the Covid crisis, when we urge Governor DeSantis to use federal funds to patch the craters in our budgets and save the schools that the overwhelming majority of Florida’s families continue to choose. Regardless of global pandemics, it remains paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of our children.

It is time to start making the hard decisions. Finish the legislative session. Sign or veto the bills. Start by vetoing HB 5007. Use the veto pen and, then, sign the budget, or call a special session to address the issues. Give the districts the information they need to start planning for the uncertain future.

Ignore the vultures and let us get to work saving our schools.