It’s hard to overstate how much critics hate Florida’s ‘scam’ education bill. Will the governor veto it?
It’s being called legislation by “scam” — and that’s not the worst critique of the new education bill that the Republican-dominated Florida legislature has now approved. Will Republican Gov. Rick Scott veto it, as school superintendents, school boards, public school advocates and even some Republicans are advocating?
The legislation, known as House Bill 7069, was passed by both the Florida House and Senate at the end of their legislative sessions without time for serious consideration or debate, but rather this way, as a piece in the Orlando Sentinel explains:
Instead of carefully considering education proposals one at a time, Republican leaders went behind closed doors to cram 35 different proposals — rules on everything from sunscreen use to charter-schools incentives — into a single, 278-page, take-it-or-leave-it bill unveiled at the last minute. For me to simply reprint the bill, it would take 75 columns this size … and you still wouldn’t get to the part where legislators want to siphon money away from traditional schools until column No. 46.
Among other things, the legislation funds public education at levels that some superintendents say won’t support their public school districts, promotes public school privatization and expands a highly controversial multi-million-dollar program that rewards teachers who had high standardized test scores when they were in high school. (Really.) There are parts of the bill that a good deal of the public supports, such as mandatory recess for elementary school, but the bad parts as well as the legislative process, critics say, outweigh the good.
Scott has not said what he will do, but his office recently released information indicating that public response has been mostly negative. As the Miami Herald put it:
By a margin of at least 3-to-1 so far, Floridians are telling Gov. Rick Scott they want him to veto a controversial $419 million K-12 public schools bill House Republicans pushed through at the end of session, according to information requested from Scott’s office Thursday evening.
Legislative leaders still haven’t sent the bill over to Scott’s office, perhaps waiting to see what he will do with the state budget that just hit the governor’s desk. There is no love lost between Scott and Rep. Richard Corcoran, the speaker of the Florida House of It’s hard to overstate how much critics hate Florida’s ‘scam’ education bill. Will the governor veto it? - The Washington Post: