Teacher Kim Cook on Andrew Gillum & saving Florida public education
Florida has been under single party rule for more than 20 years. This complete lack of checks and balances has normalized an unrelenting assault on our most precious asset: public education. With each year, the destructive political intent behind the “school reform” agenda has grown bolder and more extreme. We are at a place where politicians make little attempt to hide their contempt for teachers, students, parents and districts
Alachua teacher, Kim Cook shares her views on just how important the current governors’ race and upcoming 2018 election is to Florida public education
“I’ve seen some educators saying on social media that they won’t vote for Andrew Gillum. Here is my response.
For those of you who are saying you won’t vote for Gillum, please consider the following (from a teacher):
The Florida legislature and governor’s office has been Republican for 20+ years. In that 20 years, we have seen nothing but bill after bill with the sole intent of destroying public education. The vast majority of those bills have been signed into law by the governor. Here is a review of the legislation (please add anything I forget):
- The Republican legislature and Jeb Bush introduced the FCAT in order to track student “progress” ignoring the fact teachers are entirely capable of assessing their own students.
- The Republican legislature and Jeb Bush then started using FCAT results to grade schools, falsely equating low socioeconomic schools with “bad teaching.”
- The Republican legislature and Jeb Bush linked passing the third grade FCAT with retention and the 10th grade FCAT with high school graduation–despite research that clearly demonstrated this would be detrimental to students and communities.
- The Republican legislature and Jeb Bush linked school grades to money–awarding “A” schools with Continue Reading: Teacher Kim Cook on Andrew Gillum & saving Florida public education | The Edvocate Blog
