For the past 8 years Tallahassee has been fighting tooth and nail against a lawsuit that says the state has abdicated its paramount duty to properly fund education. They have done so despite the fact Florida has been consistently near or at the bottom when i comes to funding education.
Well the lawsuit has finally made it to the state supreme court and the state's lawyers had a very interesting and troubling argument and that's what the framers of the constitution thought when they wrote that part of the constitution which said the states paramount duty was to properly fund education, is irrelevant.
Oy vey
From the Tampa Times:
In a brief filed Friday, the state lawyers contend that input from the "framers" of the language in question is "irrelevant" to the issue at hand in the Citizens for Strong Schoolscase.
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/2018/06/01/framers-views-irrelevant-in-florida-education-funding-case-state-lawyers-argue/
Did I mention, oy vey!
It should come as no surprise that Tallahassee is disregarding the will of the people and the state constitution.
Despite also calling for a uniform education system they have created three tracks, one charter schools that they have given away the store to, then there are voucher schools that have practically no accountability and the third public schools that Tallahassee has done all they can to harm.
Then there is the class size amendment that the citizens of Florida voted for twice which has been gutted so bad it is practically unrecognizable.
The republicans, who have been in complete charge of the state government for over twenty years, have repeatedly ignored the constitution and the will of the people, so it should come as no surprise they call the framers irrelevant, but that doesn't make it any less detestable.
Below is the part of the state constitution in question. I will let you decide if Tallahassee has fulfilled their obligations or not.
SECTION 1. Public education.—
Well the lawsuit has finally made it to the state supreme court and the state's lawyers had a very interesting and troubling argument and that's what the framers of the constitution thought when they wrote that part of the constitution which said the states paramount duty was to properly fund education, is irrelevant.
Oy vey
From the Tampa Times:
In a brief filed Friday, the state lawyers contend that input from the "framers" of the language in question is "irrelevant" to the issue at hand in the Citizens for Strong Schoolscase.
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/2018/06/01/framers-views-irrelevant-in-florida-education-funding-case-state-lawyers-argue/
Did I mention, oy vey!
It should come as no surprise that Tallahassee is disregarding the will of the people and the state constitution.
Despite also calling for a uniform education system they have created three tracks, one charter schools that they have given away the store to, then there are voucher schools that have practically no accountability and the third public schools that Tallahassee has done all they can to harm.
Then there is the class size amendment that the citizens of Florida voted for twice which has been gutted so bad it is practically unrecognizable.
The republicans, who have been in complete charge of the state government for over twenty years, have repeatedly ignored the constitution and the will of the people, so it should come as no surprise they call the framers irrelevant, but that doesn't make it any less detestable.
Below is the part of the state constitution in question. I will let you decide if Tallahassee has fulfilled their obligations or not.
SECTION 1. Public education.—
(a) The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require.
Framers of the Constitution? These were not framers of the State Constitution that the State of Florida is protesting that should not testify before the State Supreme Court (the current Constitution of Florida was ratified on November 5, 1968). The state is protesting that the members of the 1998 Constitution Revision Commision (CRC) should not testify before the State Supreme Court. The 37 members of the 1998 CRC placed 13 amendments on the ballot for the public to vote on during the November 1998 election. One of those 13 amendments was the amendment in question on education: “Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education…”
ReplyDeleteCitizens for Strong Schools, Inc. (they are the plaintiffs before the State Supreme Court) wants 10 of the 37 members of the 1998 CRC to testify before the State Supreme Court to give their recollections of their personal experiences on the 1998 CRC. These 10 members were not asked to testify in the lower courts before this case came to the State Supreme Court. If they would have testified in the lower courts, then they would have been subjected to cross examination. If they are allowed to testify in the State Supreme Court, their testimony could not be under cross examination. The state is claiming that the testimony of these 10 members of the 1998 CRC would be irrelevant to deciding about the constitutional language of the amendment at issue before the State Supreme Court.
Members of the 1998 CRC were lawyers, architects, real estate developers, former politicians, CPAs, professors, civic leaders and business leaders. Mainly well connected and big campaign contributors to the politicians that appointed them to the CRC commission. I would not call them “Framers of the Constitution”.
At issue is the wording of the amendment. What is a uniform school system? What is an efficient school system? What is a secure school system? What is a high quality school system? What is a high quality education. All of these terms are ambiguous. In my opinion the 1998 CRC did not do a very good job in writing such an ambiguous amendment and I understand why the Citizens for Strong Schools want some of these 1998 CRC members to testify before the State Supreme Court. However, these members should have testified first in the lower courts. Now, it is too late.