Finally Unmasking a Two-Year Deception: Florida Republicans Never Intended to Fund Merit Pay | Scathing Purple Musings

Finally Unmasking a Two-Year Deception: Florida Republicans Never Intended to Fund Merit Pay | Scathing Purple Musings:

Finally Unmasking a Two-Year Deception: Florida Republicans Never Intended to Fund Merit Pay

by Bob Sikes

The Palm Beach Post’s editorial page editor, Randy Schultz, has joined the drum line  across the state in excoriating Florida’s republican policy-makers on just about every issue on education. But Schultz is onto to the fact that state republicans never intended to fund its own merit pay program.

Last Monday, though, Florida Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson met with The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board. We asked who would pay for merit pay. The state? Nope. “It will be up to local school districts,” Mr. Robinson said. “It always was going to be state and local.”
In other words, school districts that already face budget cuts for next year – about $53 million, in Palm Beach County’s case – will have to find money for a program they didn’t want. If the districts