MaryEllen Elia, the superintendent of Hillsborough County representing the states school superintendents, asked the state Board of Education for a moratorium on Florida's high-stakes testing accountability system.
This is a sentiment echoed by the Parent Teacher Association and the state's teachers' unions, among other groups. They represent millions of the people closest to education. The state board -- which, I remind you, does not have one true educator on it, and instead is made up of Rick Scott donors and supporters -- gave them a collective shrug of their shoulders.
You see, despite being charged with running our public education system, Scott and the board neither believe in nor support our public schools. If they did, rather than trying to privatize our public schools with charters that as a group perform worse and vouchers which resist accountability, they would be working to improve our public schools. If they did, they would listen to the concerns about testing, accountability, a lack of resources and privatization and attempt to address them.
I am completely befuddled how Rick Scott, an insurance executive, and Gary Chartrand, the chair of the board and a grocer by trade who sent his children to exclusive and expensive private schools, can dismiss the experts in education. How is it possible that they think they know better?
Some of you might be saying, what about the board and Scott's proposal to fund education at a previously unseen level -- to which I reply, isn't it good to be (pro) education in an election year?
The problem is, last time Scott ran he promised not to cut education and then did so by $1.5 billion, and coupled with the damage he and the board did the last four years, I am not surepublic education can survive four more years of him and a state board that would dismantle our public schools rather than work to improve them.
Chris Guerrieri is a teacher in the Duval County Public Schools system who often blogs on public education issues, including his opposition to charter schools.
