Ron DeSantis Has ‘Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals’ for Florida Education and That’s Bad

The new governor wants to arm teachers, undermine local school boards, and generally double down on decades of education reform efforts that have gutted the state’s public schools.

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For years, policy makers and pundits hyped Florida as a model for “education reform” that other states should follow. The claim was never true, but now with a green-light from new Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida lawmakers have been cut loose to prove that bad education policy can always be made substantially worse.

Since 1998, when Florida state government became a GOP trifecta controlling the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature, politicians have passed dense layers of public school “accountability” policies that former Governor Jeb Bush referred to as BHAGs or “Big Hairy Audacious Goals.”

These BHAGs include using high-stakes tests, assigning schools A-F grades (labeling impoverished kids and their public schools as “failing”), retaining third-graders who flunk the state reading test, spending billions in public funds on unregulated private and religious school vouchers, expanding corporate charters, busting unions, suppressing the teaching profession, silencing locally elected school boards and dismantling public school altogether.

During the current sixty-day 2019 Florida legislative session, which ends May 3, 2019, new bills revolve around a radical expansion of these policies. Despite public opposition, GOP legislators yielding to influencers like Jeb’s Foundation for Florida’s Future, Americans for Prosperity, the NRA, the Florida Chamber and a host of lobbyists, are earnestly voting “yes.”

Pay attention, because what happens in Florida usually shows up in the thirty or so other states under GOP control.

Step one for DeSantis was to stock the State Supreme Court with three conservative judges. Next, DeSantis charged the Board of Education with appointing Richard Corcoran as State Commissioner of Education. As the immediate past Speaker of the Florida House, Corcoran was the architect of the “school choice” expansions logrolled into multi-subject, opaque omnibus bills that became law over the past several sessions.

DeSantis, a known Trump ally, made it clear in his proposed education vision to legislators before the the start of the 2019 session that they should “send me a bill” for a new private school tax-funded voucher program. The DeSantis voucher became SB 7070/HB 7075, the radical Family Empowerment Scholarship Program. Funded through the Florida Education Finance Program from property taxes, this is a dangerous co-mingling of the already thin dollars designated for Florida’s district public schools.

In a state that prizes high-stakes accountability for its public-school students, these vouchers go to unregulated private schools that maintain their right to discriminate against certain students, charge more than the voucher for tuition, teach extreme curriculums, and are not required to ensure student safety or hire certified teachers. This dramatic expansion of private religious school vouchers, once meant for low-income recipients, is morphing into a middle-class entitlement program for families of four making close to $100,000 a year.

This is the precipice of the school reform endgame: Education Savings Accounts or universal vouchers. Speaker of the House Jose Oliva said of the bill, “I think we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of the first step toward an education savings account.” Because universal vouchers were deemed unconstitutional by the 2006 Bush v. Holmes decision, this latest attempt is destined for the state Supreme Court, where the outcome may be different thanks to DeSantis and his new conservative appointees.

The Family Empowerment Voucher joins four other voucher programs all managed by Step Up for Students—a nonprofit organization with a board that includes hedge funder and Jeb and Betsy DeVos ally John Kirtley. Step Up for Students earns three percent of its annual gross, roughly thirty million dollars per year. Step Up also solicits donations to pay voucher parents lost wages, airfare, food, lodging and gas in exchange for testifying in front of the legislature. Conversely, public school parents travel to Tallahassee on their own dime and are often cut short after a minute of testimony.

Another bill DeSantis backs, SB 7030/HB 7093, would arm teachers. In the aftermath of the tragic shooting in Parkland the state legislature rushed to pass the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Safety Act which deliberately did not arm teachers. The 2019 bills reverse last year’s rare bipartisan effort to keep guns out of the classroom by making money central. It costs $100,000 a year to put a sworn police officer in a school. So, over profound objections from teachers and parents, Florida will arm teachers after a few weeks training and a one-time stipend of $500.

On teacher pay, DeSantis wants to double down on the awful policy of providing bonuses instead of raises via SB7070. Teacher pay in Florida ranks 45th in the nation: $47,858 on average. The state is struggling with a massive teacher shortage projected by the Florida Department of Education to reach 10,000 vacancies by the start of next school year. Despite this, Florida legislators are determined to offer a financially reduced version of the “Best and Brightest” teacher bonus, which was previously tied to individual teacher’s personal high school ACT/SAT scores, in lieu of raising salaries this year. A one-time bonus never helped anyone buy a home. The bill does lower the cost of retakes for the teacher certification test, which was altered in 2015 to align with “rigorous student standards.” But this is little comfort: The test’s fail rate is so alarming that many Florida teachers have spent years attempting to pass it.

DeSantis supporter Representative Kim Daniels continues to insert religion into public schools this session by sponsoring HB 195. This is model legislation from ALEC-like Christian Nationalist Project Blitz. Daniels, a Democrat, passed a 2018 law requiring “In God We Trust” to be displayed in public schools. This year Daniels is pushing Blitz legislation requiring public high schools to offer a religion class that teaches only Christianity.

Another bill, HB 855/SB 1454, removes and bans instructional materials deemed morally offensive by the public from district schools. The first version spoke extensively about pornography and sex education. Bill proponents describe books such as Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt offensive.

Another bill, HB 330 by Senator Dennis Baxley, the original sponsor of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, seeks to revise curriculum standards and force public schools to teach “science” theories such as creationism and alternate views to subjects such as climate change. Florida might actually succeed in passing these policies if the political landscape remains the same.

Pay attention, because what happens in Florida usually shows up in the thirty or so other states under GOP control.

Finally, DeSantis seeks to undermine democratically governed schools in the state by placing term limits on local school board members. The bill, HB229/SJR274, limits elected members to two consecutive, four-year terms for a total of eight years. Upon passage, school board term limits will be placed on the 2020 ballot and put to a citizen vote. Florida has some of the largest school districts in the nation, making school board duties complex. But Florida legislators view school boards, which can deny charter school applications, as standing in the way of the “choice” agenda. They complain that school board incumbents are automatically re-elected, which is simply not true. Since School Boards are the heart of local voice, why not let local voters decide about term limits, instead of letting Collier County decide for Orange County in a statewide vote?

This is just a peek at the hundreds of education policies presented during the 2019 Florida Legislature. Since this is about a political agenda, never fear, as long as the current slate of Republicans hold power, the ideas that don’t pass will resurface until they do.