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Battle Over Florida Education System Ready For Ruling
April 10, 2016
A Leon County circuit judge heard closing arguments Friday in a potentially far-reaching lawsuit that challenges whether the state has met a constitutional requirement to provide a “high quality” system of public schools.
Judge George Reynolds, who heard four weeks of testimony and arguments, described the case as a “difficult issue.” He did not rule Friday and said lawyers have until April 25 to file written arguments.
The lawsuit, led by a group called Citizens for Strong Schools, is rooted in a 1998 constitutional amendment that says it is a “paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders.” The amendment fleshed that out, in part, by saying adequate provision will be made for a “uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system” of public schools.
Citizens for Strong Schools argues that Florida has not complied and that the court should require the state to take steps to carry out the constitutional amendment.
“The state has failed to make adequate provision by not allowing significant numbers of students to obtain a high-quality education,” Jodi Siegel, an attorney for Citizens for Strong Schools, said Friday during her closing argument. “This is not an insignificant matter. There’s over 1 million students that cannot read at grade level. There are half-a-million free-and-reduced lunch students who cannot read at grade level.”
But Rocco Testani, an attorney for the Florida Board of Education, argued that the state’s schools have made a huge amount of improvement and pointed to indicators such as scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a set of tests commonly used to compare students across the country.
“What we know is that Florida has had a remarkable journey from a state that was below average, well below average, 15, 16, 17 years ago, to a state that is now truly a leader, truly a leader, when it comes to national comparisons,” Testani said.
Issues of state education funding, standards and testing have drawn fierce debate during the past two decades, particularly because of changes that former Gov. Jeb Bush spearheaded. Those changes relied heavily on standardized testing, school grades and expanding school choice.
Before the closing arguments Friday, a video deposition of former Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan was presented in court. Brogan served as state education commissioner before becoming Bush’s lieutenant governor and helped usher in the changes.
Brogan, who is now the chancellor of the higher-education system in Pennsylvania, testified in the deposition that he is proud of progress Florida has made. He testified that Bush made education the highest priority of the administration and described Bush as a “wonk.”
“It was difficult to debate education issues with Gov. Bush if you didn’t know what you were talking about,” Brogan said.
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5 Responses to “Battle Over Florida Education System Ready For Ruling”
(Voilà)
REGARDING:
” “The state has failed to make adequate provision by not allowing significant numbers of students to obtain a high-quality education,” Jodi Siegel, an attorney for Citizens for Strong Schools, said Friday during her closing argument. “This is not an insignificant matter. There’s over 1 million students that cannot read at grade level. There are half-a-million free-and-reduced lunch students who cannot read at grade level.” ”
“Not allowing…students” means not that they failed, but that they purposely hindered. They will have a hard time proving that. Interesting that they point out where the points of failure seem especially tied to the children of people who have failed.
They know perfectly well that parents have the children in their most formative years, with 80% of brain development taking place in the first 3 years. Logically, the only way to assure success would be to take all the children from their parents and let our flawless government raise them from birth, anything else is bound to fail.
Problem is: that would also fail. Based on previous attempts, governments can’t properly raise children. Anything based on improved education will be on top of current heroic efforts and will only reach part of the remaining 20% at best.
Realizing this, it looks like they are just wanting more money. Nothing inherently wrong with higher pay, just with dishonesty.
David for possible goals
and honesty
First you must have students that are willing to learn and that starts at home. It seems most parents do not care and want to blame it all on the system. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. The desire to learn must be there and I do not believe that it is. America is being dumbed down.
Who would actually want to go into teaching with the way teachers are treated by the current Governor and legislature?
They value the greasing of their own pockets and relatives in the charter school industry.
I cannot speak for the the lower grades in public education, but I can speak for the higher grades. As a public Florida high school educator, I see exactly what is happening. We should not blame teachers for this situation. We all know that parents have as much of a responsibility educating their children as the teachers do; however, Florida is changing its standards because there are fewer and fewer qualified teachers to choose from. In the past, high school teachers had specified degrees in their fields. Now, that is not the case. Now a high school teacher can have a degree in hotel management and just go and get “certified” in a particular field. Then guess what? Walaa! That person is now your kid’s teacher.
The public education field needs to be revamped big time. What is the solution, however, when there are fewer and fewer qualified people to choose from? Oh, I know. Let’s make the stakes higher and get the best and the brightest WITH SPECIALIZED DEGREES IN THEIR FIELDS to want to teach our children. That means we need to make the jobs more attractive. Otherwise, we will loose these to big corporations.
Hmm. Over a million students that can’t read at grade level. I’ve got a $100.00 that says every last one of them can text though.