Republicans’ are starting their 21st year of complete control of public education and if you haven’t noticed things are getting worse not better.
Instead of investing in our public schools, they insist on diverting more and more money to for profit charter schools of which hundreds have failed and voucher schools that have barely any accountability, don’t have to have certified teachers, or teachers with degrees and can have junk curriculums.
Then the cherry on top is Tallahassee keeps heaping one unfunded mandate after another upon our schools severely limiting what they can and cannot do and its requiring districts to share what money they do have with charters many of which are run by for profit charter schools.
Help is not coming, not from Tallahassee anyways but that doesn’t mean we can’t help ourselves.
Port St. Lucie is about to join over a dozen other districts state wide that have decided they can no longer tolerate the abdicating of their responsibilities out of Tallahassee and that they are going to step up to the plate to make up at least some of the shortfall by voting on an extra mill to fund education. They are going to join, Martin, palm beach and even very conservative Clay county in doing what’s right for their children.
Duval’s schools need over a billion dollars in repairs and upgrades. Their teachers are the lowest paid in the six big counties in a state that has some of the lowest paid in the nation. Math and reading coaches and libraries have all been drastically cut. So what are the super and board waiting for, things are already beyond bad?
I understand nobody likes taxes, but I believe there are things like children being ill prepared for life, that they like worse.
It is time Duval joined the other counties that have already done so and made our children a priority.
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