How Steve Wise is almost single handily ruining public education

I wrote this before his bill that would require districts to pay for maintence and upkeep of charter schools.

You got to hand it to Steve Wise the term-limited representative from the Westside. He is determined to go without a bang. He wants to put his stamp on education whatever the cost and sadly it is our children who will pay it.

Still smarting from the rebuke of senate bill six, his teacher merit pay bill and not content that the even more draconian senate bill 736, 2011’s version of his bill, passed he has been introducing education based legislation at a fast and furious pace.

Sadly none of his proposed legislation has to do with reforming the FCAT to make it more realistic or manageable, repeal the unfunded merit pay bill which has stripped teachers of due process, reverse of all the charter school legislation, which treats them like the bells of the ball that public schools aren’t invited to, or was it to give teachers back the three percent of their salaries that was stolen from them. No he continues his anti-teacher, anti-public, religious dogma driven education blueprint.

First he wants to change winter break to Christmas break. I celebrate Christmas too but to legislate it makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Muslims, Jews, African Americans and others who celebrate holidays around the same time may also be feeling a little disenfranchised by his plan.

He has then proposed a bill called the Teacher protection act. Sadly the facts that no teachers asked for protection and the F.E.A. came out against it have not deterred him at all. The bill, which should be called, the thinly veiled attempt to erode teacher’s union’s power act, directs the Attorney General’s office to supply legal assistance to teachers.

He then offered an amendment telling local school districts how they must spend any money they receive from bills enabling them to sell advertisements on busses and the naming rights for cafeterias (yes friends that is a real bill). He obviously doesn’t think local leaders are capable of making fiduciary decisions for their children and he doesn’t even blink at the prospect that this further usurps home rule, which I long thought was a tenant of the Republican Party.

Now he wants to control high school athletics. His latest bill calls for a playoff system between private and high schools that also requires public schools to allow private school kids to play on public school sports teams. He has offered this bill despite the fact the FSHAA rejected this proposal last year. Why he thinks he knows better than the body charged with regulating high school sports is beyond me.

Steve Wise, who once said, “if we come from apes why do we still have apes”, when proposing some creative design legislation and who routinely attempts to usurp local control like he did last year when he proposed school boards go unpaid, proves time and time again that his ideologically driven agenda trumps what is best for our children, public schools and teachers. It’s time he went quietly into that good night (retirement) before he did any more damage to education.