Tomorrow, Tomorrow...

Tomorrow opens the Florida legislative session, which will see voting on SB 736, linking teacher pay to student test scores, and a bill that will require Florida public employees to contribute 5% of their salaries to their pension plans. This session will also consider the budget proposed by Governor Rick Scott, which promises to cut 3.3 billion from public school funding. Oh, and let's not forget the revival of the voucher program, which was already deemed unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court.

To say that I'm discouraged would be an understatement. Last year, school teachers and employees offered such a backlash against SB 6 (predecessor to SB 736) that then-Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the bill after it passed through several committees and the Florida Senate. This year, the bill, which is scheduled for voting on Wednesday, the second day of the legislative session, has raised barely a blip on the radar compared to last year. I find this troubling for a number of reasons.

First, the bill contains mandates that are grossly and irresponsibly unfunded. First, teacher pay is facing drastic cuts under this year's budget shortfalls, yet SB 736 promises (yet fails to enumerate) significant increases in pay for teachers whose students show academic improvement. Where is that money coming from?

Second, and most troubling, is the egregious amount of additional testing that must take place to see SB 736 in effect. The only areas that currently have state-mandated test are reading, math, and science. We already spend millions of dollars every year administering and maintaining these testing mechanisms for just 3 subject areas. (Really, it's 2, because Reading is NOT a core content area--Language Arts or English is NOT the same as reading, and should not be considered its equivalent.) What about social studies, foreign language, physical education, agriculture, music, visual arts, performing arts, and all of the other areas that don't already have state-mandated tests? Sure, a few of them have end-of-course exams in place. But the larger part of them don't, and guess what that means? Those tests must be created.

And guess what that means? Someone has to create them.

Guess who has to create them? The district.

And guess what that means? We've got to spend money. Millions of dollars district wide, possibly billions of dollars statewide.

How much money? I have no idea, and I'd venture to guess that these legislators don't know either. Where is this money coming from? Creating, maintaining, and administration of 3 subject area tests is already a huge drain on our education budget--how much will that increase when we add some sort of measurable testing goal for every subject taught in the state of Florida? Our governor wants to CUT money from the education budget, while the Senate wants to mandate untold addtional expenses with not a word about where the funds will come from. I'm not great at math, but these numbers don't seem to add up.

And...that's just at the district level. After these student assessments are created, along with the teacher assessments that the district must create, everything gets sent to the Department of Education for approval! Who, you might ask, is going to approve all of these extra mandates? Certainly not the employees whose jobs have been on the line since Scott took office. The DoE is going to have to hire MORE people to complete these tasks, which--you got it--is MORE government and MORE tax dollars being spent. From where? No clue.

We've seen unfunded educational mandates before. Remember the Class Size Amendment? The all-knowing legislators were SO sure that would be a good idea that we voted it into our Constitution...and this year, when it went into effect on the classroom level, we saw what happened. There weren't enough teachers, schedules were disrupted, students weren't able to get the classes they wanted and needed, and in November, we saw an...amendment to the amendment? Not sure what it was, but it was right there on the ballot, boldly asking us to fix the mistakes that the legislature made those many years ago. Oops, it said, our bad, we pushed this through and it's not working and we want you, the voter and taxpayer, to fix our mistake. Luckily, we said no, and held those lawmakers accountable. I hope that in the next few days we will do the same thing.

Please be informed. Please contact your state legistlator and ask them to vote "no" on SB 736 and its unfunded mandates. I refuse to believe that anyone actively wants to see our education system go down the drain, but that's where it's headed if we don't speak up. Go to http://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/Find and find your state Senator. Write a letter, send an email, make a phone call. Speak up in favor of Florida's students!