For more than two decades, Florida lawmakers have been ratcheting up requirements on the state’s public schools. The original effort, led by former Gov. Jeb Bush, led to the widespread expansion of standardized testing and the introduction of school grades with penalties attached. Now lawmakers are trying to roll back some of those rules.
Senate Pre-K-12 committee chairman Corey Simon is positioning the bills as an effort to shore up local control of public schools and generate more parental involvement in key education decisions regarding children. Simon draws on his own personal experience with his son when discussing why he’s placed some of the more controversial provisions in the bill.
My son wasn’t a magna cum laude,'" said Simon. "He wasn’t a summa cum laude, he was a Thank-you-Lordy. He was happy to get to the end of high school so he could go do the thing he wanted to do. Now he’s in his second year at Lively [Technical College] in Welding.”
Many kids in Florida are “Thank-you-Lord-ies.” Not all of them are bound for college. The legislature's proposed list of regulation rollbacks is long: like bringing back multi-year contracts for teachers, giving parents a say in whether third-graders should be retained or whether a student should get a GED [Grade Equivalent Degree]; and allowing the 10th grade English-language arts and Algebra 1 tests to count toward a student’s grade, instead of must-pass requirements for graduation.
Low-performing schools would get more time to improve and the much-praised community school model would be added as an intervention for those that are struggling. The proposal could mean the world for students who, despite their best efforts, are prevented from graduating due to a test score.
“I’m praying and hoping this will pass and these children who’ve missed it by a little bit will be able to be successful in the future," said Baker Superintendent Sherrie Raulerson, during the first hearing on the proposals back in December.
Her sentiments toward the de-regulation bills echo many of the opinions of education watchers who say these measures are a long time coming. Over the past two decades, the legislature has steadily added more and more requirements on public schools, without requiring the same of their charter and private counterparts. It’s made for a patchwork of increasingly complex rules and regulations public schools have struggled to comply with. While putting more testing pressure on students, and their parents, said Bay School Superintendent Mark McQueen.
“When I became Superintendent of Bay Schools everyone said you need to run it like a business. Well, I know how to run a business. But the constraints that are in the realm of education are more complex than I’ve ever seen, even in the United States Army.”
The plans are part of a trio of bills that impact everything from state and federal reporting requirements to teacher evaluations and classroom materials. The praise for the legislature on this issue is strong and widespread but not universal.
Opposed to some of the measures is the Foundation for Florida’s Future, former Gov. Jeb Bush’s education advocacy organization which has managed to carry school choice and accountability to other states. Florida is a pioneer in the school accountability movement, and the group’s Nathan Hoffman said changing the rules around student graduation and third grade retention is a step backward.
“Florida’s employers frequently cite difficulties in finding talent and filling workforce needs that also have with basic reading writing and math skills," he told a committee. "We’d ask, what are we saying to these employers and institutions if we’re not going to guarantee some basic level of proficiency in these areas prior to receiving a diploma?”
Lawmakers are also tweaking school building rules and making changes to the always thorny issue of class sizes. There are also provisions around how teachers get certified and employed. The measures are already moving ahead of the start of the lawmaking session.
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