Parent group urges Scott to find new school leader not wed to testing
by John Kennedy | August 1st, 2012With Florida’s top education job open, an advocacy organization is urging Gov. Rick Scott to move in a new direction.
Fund Education Now, founded three years ago by Orlando-area moms opposed to classroom budget cuts, is launching an email campaign aimed at the Republican governor. The group wants Scott to replace outgoing Education Commissioner Gerald Robinson with a new leader committed to reducing Florida’s reliance on high-stakes testing.
Robinson announced Tuesday that he will step down Aug. 31 after a year on the job, to return to his family still living in Virginia.
Fund Education Now also is continuing its fight against legislation defeated last spring dubbed the parent-trigger bill, which would have enabled parents to convert low-performing public schools into charter schools.
“We want a leader that puts the needs of students and their teachers ahead of the high paid lobbyists that represent for-profit charter operators and private voucher programs,” the organization said in its email announcing the campaign.
The organization also chided Robinson for “missteps and blunders” involving the state’s testing system. But former Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday was quick to defend Robinson, thanking him for “serving the students and teachers of Florida.”
“He believes all children can learn, and this belief is evident in all he does,” said Bush, chairman of the Foundation for Florida’s Future, a leading advocate of the parent-trigger legislation.
August 2nd, 2012 at 10:14 am
How convenient to forget that VP Joe Biden’s brother, Frank Biden, has lobbied and got a Maverick Charter School here in Palm Beach County. Biden’s brother supports charter schools.
How convenient to forget that President Obama had his children, Malia and Sacha, in a charter school in Chicago before being elected, thereby passing up the nearby local public school his children would/should have attended.
Public education has had billions and billions of dollars thrown their way and still we read of the out of control classrooms (we need to give disruptors lots of chances to the detriment of the majority of other students in the class), the inept teachers KEPT on the payroll (just can’t get rid of those bad teachers) and who wants their children or grandchildren in a classroom with a teacher who can’t teach or has ‘problems’)
There is something wrong with a system that keeps poor quality teachers IN the classrooms supposedly ‘teaching’. Administrators can’t be in the classrooms with these inadequate teachers all day long, ditto, for others who trying to ‘help’ the poor inadequate teacher.
Parents need choice. Allow parents to select the schools they want their children to attend: public, private, parochial, virtual, whatever! That would surely closed down inferior schools, get rid of inferior administrators (yes, there are too many of them, too) and lousy teachers.
It’s ok for the public to have their children be subjected to these inferior teachers for a whole school year while these teachers are learning.
Do you want an inadequate mechanic fixing the plane you are about to board, that’s the same as subjecting your children to inadequate teachers.
that just shouldn’t be. (and yes, most teachers are good, it’s that the school system (and yes, unions) which supports inferior teachers instead of getting rid of them. Those ‘teachers’ need to find another source of income instead of ruining the education of an entire class of children.
Instead of protecting the reputation of most of the good teachers, the unions protect the bad quality teachers. that is wrong.