Rick Scott and his colleagues in the Florida congress have done all they can do harm both public education and the teaching profession. If he were to tout these as an accomplishment, I would have to shrug my shoulders and as respectfully as I could be disagree. That's however not what he did in a new TV spot.
Did anybody else just spit out their milk? If so I apologize.
In effect Rick Scott is asking people not believe what he has said and done and to give him credit for somethings, public education and the teaching profession that he was not able to completely dismantle and have succeeded in spite of him. Here is a head scratcher, if he thinks pubic ed is so great why did he push policies that sent billions to voucher and charter schools? Could it be that is where many of his donors come from?
Among other lies, half truths and cherry picked statements Scott touts his education funding.
From Florida Politics
A new spot from Scott, per the campaign, “highlights how Florida’s incredible economic turnaround under Governor Scott has led to unprecedented achievement and funding for education in Florida.”
Did anybody else just spit out their milk? If so I apologize.
In effect Rick Scott is asking people not believe what he has said and done and to give him credit for somethings, public education and the teaching profession that he was not able to completely dismantle and have succeeded in spite of him. Here is a head scratcher, if he thinks pubic ed is so great why did he push policies that sent billions to voucher and charter schools? Could it be that is where many of his donors come from?
Among other lies, half truths and cherry picked statements Scott touts his education funding.
From Florida Politics
A new spot from Scott, per the campaign, “highlights how Florida’s incredible economic turnaround under Governor Scott has led to unprecedented achievement and funding for education in Florida.”
Scott links that to “our highest education funding ever,” which is a claim that doesn’t necessarily hold true in terms of real dollars.”
Julie Delegal via Facebook debunked the rest of the ad.
FIRST, as AG Gancarski notes, the governor's claim of "record spending" has been debunked by Politifact Florida. In terms of real dollars, we've gone backwards in education funding in Florida.
SECOND, "Florida's children rank 40th in the nation when it comes to their health, education and economic well-being, new data suggests, and close to a million of them are living in poverty — a number that dipped slightly from a year earlier." (from Orlando Sentinel, Florida Kids Count data/ Annie E. Casey Foundation Report, 2017)
THIRD, in terms of places teachers want to work, only three
states rank lower than Florida does. (Wallethub)
states rank lower than Florida does. (Wallethub)
FOURTH, under Gov. Scott, the state has excelled at issuing unfunded mandates, including the new "guardian program" that would arm "security assistants" in our schools. Duval's will cost $600K more than state funding provides. The Joint Budget Committee won't address it Friday. (The Florida PTA is pushing to have an item added to the agenda that would free up $58 million for this use.)
FIFTH, thanks to our lawmakers, our schools are unable to reap the benefit of steadily rebounding property values. Instead, lawmakers are actually DECREASING millage rates to keep school taxes depressed, as @damosreporter reported in today's print edition of @jaxdotcom.
SIXTH, what is this AP enrollment figure the governor cites? So what if we have more kids taking more AP tests? Here's the real scoop on the ranking that matters, i.e., which state's STUDENTS ACHIEVE best on AP tests. (It's not Florida. It's Massachusetts.) See Twitter for link.
In short, Gov. Scott's education claims don't hold water. We need new leadership altogether in Tallahassee, especially Andrew Gillum for Governor. We also need to deny Gov. Scott the opportunity to do more damage in DC. Vote to re-elect Senator Bill Nelson.
Scott has been terrible, it's time we put him out to pasture where he can spend the ill gotten loot he plundered from his health care business.
No comments:
Post a Comment