The Governor took a giant step towards educational standards in the State of Florida. Unfortunately the step was backward.
The first sentence of Florida House Bill 989 includes the phrase “…allowing a resident of a county to challenge the use or adoption of instructional materials …” Not an educator with credentials, and maybe not even someone with a high school diploma but any resident can challenge any teacher or teaching by “lodging a complaint over the teaching methods or materials in Florida’s public schools”. Let’s leave the charter schools out of this equation; they don’t have to comply with State standards.
The new law was sponsored by the Florida Citizens’ Alliance, whose mission statement starts off “Most agree that liberty is not “freedom” in that the individual isn’t free to satisfy his every whim or wanton desire at the expense of others…..” Can you see where this is going?
These ‘others’ want to determine educational standards and eliminate what they see as ‘wanton desires’ among those they disagree with. There’s a slight problem with that as the First Amendment refers to the initial amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It guarantees freedom of expression, religion, assembly and the right to petition. (And even ‘wanton desires)
How do you define a ‘wanton desire’ anyway? These ‘others’ believe it’s excessive, immoral and malevolent. For me, it’s devouring a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia.
Whoooooops…..I just slid down that slippery slope. Maybe Rick Scott, the Governor who was CEO of Columbia/HCA about a decade ago, when the hospital company was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud believes he can now do to the public educational system what he did to the government.
No wonder public education is under fire. If they can eliminate the educational component, and we’ll have a State full of zombies who would do whatever they’re told and not have to think about it.
Aside: Does any sane rational person believe the earth was formed in 6 days 6,000 years ago? And that’s my opinion. Regulate that!