The Senate Train Pulls out of the Station.

Last week several members of the Florida Senate Education Committee held a press conference where they presented their priorities for this session. The press conference was led by Senate Education Chair, school choice advocate and Academica employee, Manny Diaz Jr. You can watch the event here and read the press release here. The Senators’ stated priorities included:

1. Establishing yet another voucher program, this one called the “Family Empowerment Scholarship,” which funds vouchers to private, mostly religious, schools via the FEFP (the State’s per pupil funding formula), in part using your property taxes.
2. Recruitment, retention, & recognition bonuses for teachers & principals, in a rewrite of the much-maligned Best and Brightest Teacher Bonus program. This, also, is to be funded through the FEFP.
3. Remove barriers to teacher certification process (expand access to teacher certification exams, specifically, addressing concerns with the cost of certification exams, among other things).
4. Reduce regulations that impede school construction/improvements (this is something local districts have been fighting for ever since HB7029 passed in 2016. HB7029 was a train bill that included the language of HB873, which prohibited school districts from spending more than the statutory cost per student station on new construction from all available revenue sources. Such arbitrary limits, even on locally funded construction projects, making some new construction projects nearly impossible. For the record, the sponsor of both HB7029 and HB873 was then Representative, now Senate Education Chair, Manny Diaz, Jr.)
5. Enhance support for Community Schools/wraparound services as a way of providing extra services to schools serving low income children.
6. Improve safety and security for students/schools (The Senate Education Committee has already voted to move SB7030 forward).

Of course, the devil is in the details and details regarding these priorities are expected within the next week or so. Sadly, it looks like fully discussing those details is going to be difficult because Chair Diaz wants all of these ideas run, together in one massive omnibus (aka train) bill (watch at 14:30):

“Right now we are looking at this being the Senate Education package rolling out of the Education Committee…President Simmons, Chair Stargel and myself are on that committee and we have been working together, along with staff and other members of the Senate, to make sure the thoughts of the Senate are included in this bill and one of the thoughts that we had is to make sure that this bill has the opportunity, as one bill, to make it through the entire process and so there’s vetting.  And so, by starting that way, it will give most senators, who sit on these committees and then on the floor, the opportunity to vet and vote on the bill.”

So, they are planning to create a massive train bill… because it will allow vetting? By lumping all these ideas together, none of them will get the focused attention necessary to fully “vet” them. Hmmm… everyone seemed suspicious…

Chair Diaz knows that train bills represent poor legislative practice but are a great way to pass unpopular policy. Lumping multiple ideas in one bill, limits public input as citizens must choose the portion of the bill they most want to address during restricted time for individual comments. Senators must resign themselves to support questionable policy is order to support necessary change. In the House, Diaz and now Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran relied on train bills to push through unpalatable legislation (like HB7069’s Schools of Hope) by attaching it to popular concepts, like recess or scholarship funding for special needs children. We believe “transformative” education policies should be debated on their own merits.

Rather than giving senators a chance to fully vet each concept, Chair Diaz plans to require all of the Senate priorities to be “vetted as one” requiring Senators to vote up or down on the entire package. The train has left the station.

Once the train is rolling, expect it to grow. Legislators will be falling all over each other, trying to attach their bills to this train. Diaz will be the conductor, ensuring the train gets to the finish line intact, despite any public pushback.

Over the weekend, on Twitter, Chair Diaz demonstrated his disdain for other opinions:

For years, the Florida Legislature has worked to silence the voice of teachers, parents and school board members who have spoken out against privatization under the guise of “school choice.”  Is this what Diaz is referring to when he tweets “the critic is not in the arena?”

Does Senator Diaz consider himself the lion? Does he consider those of us who defend public education sheep? Regardless, it is unwise for elected officials to dismiss the concerns of the citizenry so publicly.

Another thought: just who is driving this train? Is the Chair really a lion or has he just been convinced he is? While in the legislature, he has carried lots of bills advancing the privatization of public education. Maybe he’s really a judas goat, leading the school choice sheep around for the real lions (ALEC, DeVos, Waltons, Kochs) who, in Florida, don’t even have to hunt anymore.

Stay tuned for more Senate Education shenanigans… Session formally starts March 5th.