Public education is the cornerstone of our nation’s economic might. When we make a true commitment to educating a future generation, we are not only producing a workforce that is better equipped to tackle the problems of today, but we are planting the seeds for the innovation of tomorrow. If we are going to prepare our children for the future, I believe Florida must change its course and make a proper investment in public education.
Our failure to make this investment triggers the scourges of every society: poverty, crime, discrimination. It’s our responsibility as a community to combat these issues and make sure that every child has the chance to succeed. We cannot do this when we put more of an emphasis on testing than teaching.
Tallahassee’s obsession with standardized testing has harmed our schools in more ways than can be counted. One glaring example has been in the recent failure by Pearson Education Inc. to properly grade and code the FCAT on time. Rather than finding ways to improve our schools by putting money into the classroom, our state is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in testing – and getting a bad return.
The State of Florida pays our teachers about $6,000 less than the national average and ranks 36th in terms of per child spending. We spend $20,108 per year to house an inmate in a Florida prison. Compare that to the $6,400 we spend on per student funding. These numbers reflect a disturbing trend that lead to only one outcome: we care more about locking people up then giving them an education.
We need an education policy that is not based on the principles of fear -- but instead seeks to keep the most talented educators in our state and inspires our children to be the innovators of tomorrow.
When educators are instructed to teach only what is on a test, the question needs to be asked: What is left out? This question should be in the minds of Tallahassee lawmakers before they pass harmful legislation like Senate Bill 6, which would have only worsened the problem.
There will always be a need for proper academic guidelines and benchmarks to ensure the quality of our education system. But testing is not teaching and when we use a rigid model to determine how much we pay our teachers or how much we fund particular schools, it has gone too far.
If we want to get serious about education reform, it starts with a partnership between parents, teachers and lawmakers - not a power grab by Tallahassee bureaucrats. As a product of the public school system, I know that the best ideas in education come from the classroom.
Turning Florida’s economy around begins with realizing that every dollar we spend in the classroom is an investment in a job market based on creativity and ingenuity.
All it takes is the political will to make that happen.
Perry C. McGriff
State Senate candidate, District 14
