———- Forwarded message ———

Subject: SB 202
To: <broxson.doug.web@flsenate.gov>, <rouson.darryl.web@flsenate.gov>, <baxley.dennis.web@flsenate.gov>, <book.lauren.web@flsenate.gov>, <bradley.jennifer.web@flsenate.gov>, Brodeur, Jason (web) <brodeur.jason.web@flsenate.gov>, Burgess, Danny <burgess.danny@flsenate.gov>, <davis.tracie@flsenate.gov>, <grall.erin@flsenate.gov>, Senator Joe Gruters <gruters.joe.web@flsenate.gov>, <harrell.gayle.web@flsenate.gov>, <hooper.ed.web@flsenate.gov>, <ingoglia.blaise@flsenate.gov>, <martin.jonathan@flsenate.gov>, <perry.keith.web@flsenate.gov>, <pizzo.jason.web@flsenate.gov>, <polsky.tina.web@flsenate.gov>, <powell.bobby.web@flsenate.gov>

Honorable Senators,

Analysis of SB 202 dated March 10th:
The cost is indeterminate at this time.
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/202/Analyses/2023s00202.aed.PDF

1. Please put a limit on the total expenditure so that the cost is not “indeterminate.” Representative Tuck has offered her estimate. Please make that amount or less the cap.

2. Also please put it as a separate line item in the budget and a guarantee it won’t hurt the funding of the neighborhood and magnet schools!  

3. Also please make it so only private schools that have a large endowment will be eligible for the voucher. Experience shows that schools with the vouchers as their only revenue are subpar. IF you don’t do this, then please at least have an accountability and transparency element of the bill so the taxpayers can be assured our money is spent ONLY on quality schools.

4. In addition to putting a dollar limit on the effect of the bill, please prioritize the vouchers as follows:

• Kids with disabilities and family income less than 375% of poverty level
• Kids with disabilities and family income less than $300,000
• Other kids with family income less than $300,000 
• Everyone else

5. Also please institute some sort of penalty if the private school misleads the parent as to what services they offer.  

I wish you wanted to make EVERY neighborhood school excellent and include lots of choices within each neighborhood school rather than funding the private schools which parents were willing to pay for themselves. Residents can opt out of public services, but it shouldn’t mean the taxpayers have to pay for it.

Here’s the latest Accountabaloney blog post about HB 1:
https://accountabaloney.com/index.php/2023/03/06/hb1-and-sb202-allow-double-dipping-that-should-be-fixed/

Excerpts:

THIS BLOG, however, is about how the voucher expansion bills appear to allow double dipping by ESA recipients when they enroll part-time in Florida’s traditional public, magnet or charter schools. This is a problem that needs to be fixed.  Currently part-time students (mostly homeschoolers) are funded through the state’s funding formula, the FEFP.  … Line 212 says the ESA can be used to purchase contracted services provided by a public school or school district, including classes, and makes it clear that part-time enrollment is not considered public school enrollment. No mention is made regarding the determination of costs for these contracted services.
Beginning on line 1324 of SB 202:

1002.44 Part-time public school enrollment.—
(1) Any public school in this state, including a charter school, may enroll a student on a part-time basis who meets the regular school attendance criteria in s. 1003.01(13)(b)-(e), subject to space and availability according to the school’s capacity determined pursuant to s. 1002.31(2)(b).
(2) A student attending a public school on a part-time basis pursuant to this section shall generate full-time equivalent student membership as described in s. 1011.61(1)(b).
(3) A student attending a public school on a part-time basis pursuant to this section is not considered to be in regular attendance at a public school as defined in s. 1003.01(13)(a).

Translating that legalese:
The bill says that ESAs [line 212] can be spent for contracted services, including taking classes on a part-time basis at a public school or school district. Later the bill says [line 1325] that part-time attendance at a public school is reimbursed via the FEFP, the state funding formula. Which is it? Do school districts negotiate contracts for services with ESA recipients or do they continue to get funded for part-time attendance via the FEFP? When my question was asked to House Appropriations staff, I was told the intention was to pay public schools via the FEFP, which would mean taxpayers would be paying double for ESA recipients to attend public schools part-time – once via the ESA and again via the district’s FEFP.

This is what I sent to the committee that will hear SB 202 on March 8, 2023:

———- Forwarded message ———
Subject: SB 202
To: broxson.doug.web@flsenate.gov, thompson.geraldine.web@flsenate.gov, harrell.gayle.web@flsenate.gov, perry.keith.web@flsenate.gov, jones.shevrin.web@flsenate.gov, avila.bryan@flsenate.gov, book.lauren@flsenate.gov, burton.colleen@flsenate.gov, calatayud.alexis@flsenate.gov, collins.jay@flsenate.gov, davis.tracie@flsenate.gov, hutson.travis.web@flsenate.gov, simon.corey@flsenate.gov

SB202 will be heard in your committee on March 8 at 11am.

If students receiving the voucher money use public school services, then payment for those services should come out of their voucher money not via the FEFP. Please fix that. Otherwise taxpayers would be paying double for ESA recipients to attend public schools part-time – once via the ESA and again via the district’s FEFP. Please allow the school district to negotiate a fair price to be paid out of the voucher including the amount to cover the capital outlay funds that the school didn’t receive because the voucher student isn’t included in the per student count when the capital outlay funds are distributed.

If the students want to make use of the public school services or facilities, they need to reimburse the school district, i.e. the taxpayers. Parents can opt out of the public schools, but taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund that decision. If you continue to force taxpayers to fund that decision, you need to make sure that taxpayers are funding quality education in these alternative choices PLUS make sure it isn’t hurting the quality of our public schools.

Please don’t ignore the experience of Arizona and New Hampshire by underestimating the cost of the Universal Voucher expansion.  There needs to be a cap! How much can Florida’s budget handle before it starts to hurt the funding of our public schools?

Also, do millionaires really need this subsidy for the elite private school tuition of their children? The current income limit is 375% of poverty level. Raise it if you want, but don’t raise it to a family income of a million dollars. It’s outrageous that you want middle class families to subsidize the elite private school tuition of millionaires.

Just last week, the Idaho legislature rejected a similar Universal ESA bill with GOP lawmakers concerned they had “absolutely no clue what the dollar amount on this is” and saying “It’s actually against my conservative Republican perspective to hand this money out with no accountability that these precious tax dollars are being used wisely.”

Vote no on SB 202 or at least fix the problems.

Thanks,

Please urge your state representative to ask that the staff analysis indicate which schools must comply with the various bills. We now have 3 categories of publicly funded schools:

• Schools run the locally elected school board
• Charter schools
• Voucher funded private schools

Charter schools and voucher funded private schools are supposed to comply with health and safety laws BUT the wording in HB -1B signed by the Governor late in 2021 specifically exempted charter and voucher funded private schools. The bill reads in part:

A district school board, a district school superintendent, an elected or appointed local official, or any district school board employee may not…    

Did representatives who voted yes on the bill give a rationale that explained why this particular health rule wouldn’t apply to all publicly funded schools? Was it because Education Commissioner Corcoran wanted to go after the district-run schools that followed CDC guidelines but didn’t want to go after charter or voucher funded private schools that also disobeyed Dr. Ladapo’s rule? In other words, was the bill an attempt to hurt the district run schools rather than an actual health concern?

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F.S. 1002.20 discusses parental rights and (3) is specific to health issues but notice how (n) singles out the district-run schools.

1002.20 (3) (n) reads in part:

 1. A district school board, a district school superintendent, an elected or appointed local official, or any district school board employee may not:

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F.S. 1002.33 reads in part:
16) (a) A charter school shall operate in accordance with its charter and shall be exempt from all statutes in chapters 1000-1013. However, a charter school shall be in compliance with the following statutes in chapters 1000-1013:

1. Those statutes specifically applying to charter schools, including this section.

2. Those statutes pertaining to the student assessment program and school grading system.[but voucher funded private schools don’t, correct?]

3. Those statutes pertaining to the provision of services to students with disabilities.

4. Those statutes pertaining to civil rights, including s. 1000.05, relating to discrimination.

5. Those statutes pertaining to student health, safety, and welfare.

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F.S. 1002.421 reads in part as follows:

A private school participating in an educational scholarship program established pursuant to this chapter must
(a) Comply with the antidiscrimination provisions of 42 U.S.C. s. 2000d. [it doesn’t say f.s. 1000.05]

(g) Meet applicable state and local health, safety, and welfare laws, codes, and rules …

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Charter and voucher funded private schools do not have to follow the rules of f.s. 1003.42 unless stipulated elsewhere. That statute specifically says it only applies to the district run schools:
F.S. 1003.42 reads in part:

(1)(a) Each district school board shall provide all courses required …

   (2) Members of the instructional staff of the public schools, subject to the rules of the State Board of Education and the district school board,

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Are charter schools and voucher funded private schools part of “public education” mentioned in Florida’s Constitution Article IX? In other words, does “free public schools” mean “publicly funded schools”? 

ARTICLE IX of Florida’s Constitution

SECTION 1. Public education.—(a) The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education  … 

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?submenu=3#A9S01

HB 395/ SB 268 is another one of those bills that aims to distort history in pursuit of a particular (possibly harmful) ideology.

HB 395 is getting its first reading in the House on February 22nd.
Its companion bill SB 268 has one more committee to go: Senate Appropriations

Here is a rough draft of talking points:

• The countries mentioned in the bill are totalitarian centralized command post countries that do not embrace democracy. Democracy embraces the concept of letting all voices be heard. It is telling that similar fascist countries are left off the list in the bill. This bill could be amended to something I might actually support.
• By using words such as marxist and communist, it moves the narrative away from the true dangers facing our country by distorting historical facts. The true dangers facing our country are the attempts at silencing the voice of the people by voter suppression laws and attacks on teaching the facts of history in our public schools.
• One of the ideologies that helps make our country great is that cities and businesses can experiment with what works as compared to a centralized command post that controls all production.
• Instead of what this bill suggests, curricula could be suggested to point out how our Constitution helps prevent violent revolutions. The course might include the history of violent revolutions that might have been prevented if the voice of the people had been considered in the running of the government. The course work might include the value of hearing all voices compared to totalitarian/authoritarian regimes. The course work might include a discussion of the First Amendment which protects free speech, the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
• Certainly the confiscation of private property and Fidel’s brutality has left many Cuban immigrants and humanitarians angry.
• Problems with the bill: It could be argued that the economic hardships in Cuba since the revolution were caused by the US embargo and not by the form of government practiced in Cuba. Also the bill downplays what led to the Cuban revolution:

• Corruption had been an issue in Cuba since the establishment of the Republic of Cuba in 1902. Politics and power were seen as means for the elites to further enrich themselves and accumulate personal wealth whilst in office. Worsened by nepotism, people grew to accept and work within the system, acknowledging they needed bribes in order to achieve certain ends. Batista seized power by violence which undermined the notions of democracy.

What is the difference between a public school and a publicly funded school?

The legislature needs to always specify which of the publicly funded schools a bill applies to.  Bills should no longer just indicate “public schools.”   There are now three types of publicly funded schools: district-run, charter, and voucher funded private schools.

If the bill doesn’t apply to all publicly funded schools, then the bill sponsor needs to be clear why not.  In other words, why does the bill sponsor want to burden the district-run schools with the requirement but not the other publicly funded schools? The district-run schools are the only ones run by locally elected constitutional officers.

Taxpayers want their tax dollars protected. The legislature shouldn’t create rules and punishments for district run schools that don’t apply to all publicly funded schools. Please add an amendment to these bills so that the courses being required apply to all publicly funded schools:

• HB 281
• HB 361
• SB 480
• SB 490

On another but related note, please urge your state representative to vote yes on HB 51 in this 2022 state legislative session

In 1994 when the state legislature began requiring  public schools to teach the Holocaust, “public schools” meant the neighborhood and magnet schools.  It is important that charter schools and voucher funded private schools teach the Holocaust and African American studies in the same way district run schools are required to teach it. Florida bill HB 51 will require the courses be taught in all publicly funded schools as it should be. It is vital that the Holocaust be taught in all publicly funded schools as first required by Florida statute beginning in 1994:

to be taught in a manner that leads to an investigation of human behavior, an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping, and an examination of what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purposes of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions  

https://www.holocaustresources.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/FL-HolocaustMandate.pdf

The teaching of the Holocaust in a way that leads to an investigation of human behavior, an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping, and an examination of what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purposes of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions should be taught in ALL publicly funded schools. 

Please urge your state representative to co-sponsor this important bill HB 51.

Are you watching the 2022 Florida legislative session? There are lots of issues involving education including funding for teacher salaries and more mental health counselors.

This issue is about safeguarding our tax dollars that are designated for capital outlay funds. Please urge our legislators to strengthen F.S. 1013.62 (5) in at least two ways

1. Allow the school board to deny new charter applications if 100% of the local tax capital outlay funds and the assets they purchased can’t be recouped by the school district if the charter school closes
2. Allow the school district to withhold distributions of the capital outlay funds until the charter contract stipulates how the capital outlay funds and the assets they purchase can be recouped if the charter school closes

The goal of this suggestion (as an amendment to a bill) will be to keep the assets purchased with capital outlay dollars within the public school system if the charter school should close. It is important that the public know that charter schools are skirting the law by making lease payments to related parties rather than owning the building. If the charter school owned the building then it would be easier to keep the building in the public school system for another charter school or the district to use if the charter school should close. As it stands now, our sales surtax and local property tax money’s investment will be lost if the charter school closes and a private entity owns the building. Giving away tax revenues with few strings attached is not an effective way of meeting policy objectives or managing public finances. It is clear that without a legally enforceable contract specifying the obligations of the respective parties, an economic incentive will be considered a gift. I don’t think anyone wants our sales surtax or local property tax money to be a gift to private investors. Capital outlay dollars and the assets they purchase should stay within the public school system.

Possible bills this amendment could be added to:
HB 225 and its companion bill SB 892
HB 609 and its companion bill SB 622
HB 865 and its companion bill SB 758

f.s. 1013.62 (5) reads in part:
(5) If a charter school is nonrenewed or terminated, any unencumbered funds and all equipment and property purchased with district public funds shall revert to the ownership of the district school board, as provided for in s. 1002.33(8)(e) and (f). … If there are additional local issues such as the shared use of facilities or partial ownership of facilities or property, these issues shall be agreed to in the charter contract prior to the expenditure of funds.

Do you object to any of the new Holocaust standards? The  final version of the Holocaust standards starts on page 20:
https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/18736/urlt/SR-SocialStudies.pdf

When we advocate for “experts” to draft standards for our district-run schools, how should we define “expert”?

The task force’s official position is that the Holocaust should be “taught in ways that encourage a pluralistic perspective and democratic practices.” This view is standard among Holocaust education experts.“ The Holocaust should be studied in a way that builds empathy and focuses on social action so that it doesn’t happen again,” Dobrick said. “You have to also bring into Holocaust education things like hate groups today, and hate crimes against Asian Americans, and shootings at synagogues and mosques.” Though the final draft of the standards includes, at the very end, the mandate to “recognize the significance of ‘Never Again,’” Hershfield argues that the rest of the document fails to live up to that goal. “If we truly want to educate our next generation to understand the evils of hatred, exposed during the Holocaust, we must address the universal lessons,” Hershfield wrote in a letter to FLDOE on June 11th. “Failure to do so effectively makes the last proposed standard a mere label without any meaning or substance.”  … LAST OCTOBER, the expert panel appointed to write Florida’s Holocaust education standards—a group composed of scholars and Jewish communal leaders—received feedback on a draft of the standards from the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) provided by the right-wing Christian Zionist organization Proclaiming Justice to the Nations (PJTN). … Tensions boiled over at a February meeting between FLDOE officials and members of the expert panel and task force. Stier likened the FLDOE’s reliance on PJTN to inviting a group “championing the so-called ‘lost cause’ of the southern states” to contribute to learning standards on slavery. … The expert panel rejected PJTN’s recommendations, citing both historical inaccuracies and an inappropriately religious tenor, which, they wrote in a letter, “has no place in the public school curriculum.” … Over the course of many months, the members of both the expert panel and a state-appointed Holocaust education task force of area experts fought to minimize PJTN’s influence on the standards—but the final draft still bears evidence of the group’s political project, and its efforts to overtly falsify history to build support for Zionism. The latest standards contain scaled-down versions of the inaccuracies that the experts have protested. … PJTN’s communications director, Jackie Monaghan, explained that “Jewish interests are a big part of our game plan.” The “game plan” of Christian Zionists is well established: They support complete Jewish control over Israel/Palestine based on the theological premise that it will bring about the rapture, or the end of days. The group approaches state education standards as an opportunity to cultivate political support for Zionism toward its theological ends. … PJTN is not the only group guiding the transformation of Florida’s schools: In 2020, FLDOE also invited Hillsdale College, a conservative college in Michigan with deep ties to pro-Trump Republicans, to weigh in on civics education standards. …

https://jewishcurrents.org/the-christian-zionist-group-shaping-holocaust-education-in-florida/

The League of Women Voters has a list of issues for which they advocate.  I think they need to define “expert” in this bullet point:

Support a curricular framework that includes broad common standards developed by educational experts that serves as a guide to local districts.

https://lwvfl.org/issues/education/

The way I understood Florida Statute 1003.42 (2)(g) is that its main purpose was to explain the Holocaust in a way to reduce prejudice against all groups. It wasn’t meant to be a history course or a course on comparative religions.  Am I wrong?  This is how that statute reads:

(g)1. The history of the Holocaust (1933-1945), the systematic, planned annihilation of European Jews and other groups by Nazi Germany, a watershed event in the history of humanity, to be taught in a manner that leads to an investigation of human behavior, an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping, and an examination of what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purposes of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions,

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=1000-1099/1003/Sections/1003.42.html 

Some of the new standards seem to have an agenda other than trying to instill tolerance in our children. Specifically
1. It seems to me (and I could be wrong) 912.HE.1.3 is trying to tell kids that reparations led those paying the reparations into an irrational mob mentality. That seems a distortion of history. Certainly there could be a course about the pros and cons of reparations, but does it belong in a course about the Holocaust?
2. It seems to me (and I could be wrong) SS.912.HE.2.2  is trying to blame Hitler’s actions on the one Jewish kid who committed a crime. How is that helpful? It was HItler who did these things.  It’s like blaming George Floyd for Trump having protesters pepper sprayed.

Please tell me if you think these are OK. These are excerpts from the standards (see link above):
SS.68.HE.1.1 
 Students will describe the basic beliefs of Judaism.   
 Students will identify examples of antisemitism related to Israel 
SS.912.HE.1.3   
  Students will recognize German culpability, reparations and military downsizing as effects of the Treaty of Versailles  
SS.912.HE.1.7  
 Students will explain how the Nazis used propaganda, pseudoscience and the law to transform Judaism from a religion to a race.   
SS.912.HE.2.2 
 Students will understand the reasons for Herschel Grynszpan’s actions at the German embassy in Paris and how the assassination of Ernst vom Rath was a pretext used by the Nazis for Kristallnacht.

Admittedly my knowledge of history isn’t that great. I wasn’t interested in history in school. Maybe we do need to know the ugly as well as the good so we can know when people are distorting history. However, it doesn’t seem that the new standards are focusing on

The history of the Holocaust (1933-1945), … [should be] taught in a manner that leads to an investigation of human behavior, an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping, and an examination of what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purposes of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions,