DPCF / Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida - Policy Position Paper on Public Education

Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida

Public Education

“The American system of public education was created with two vitally important purposes, to prepare our youth for success in a career and equally importantly, to provide the knowledge and skills to be an informed, engaged citizen.”

                        --Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools (Annenberg Public Policy Center)

The Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida (DPCF) supports a quality public education for

all children. Every child deserves an education with a rich and comprehensive curriculum including art, music and physical education. Schools must be adequately and equitably funded. We oppose efforts to divert public education funding to private interests through vouchers and for-profit charter schools.   

“School choice” has proven over time to be deceptive language used to camouflage the underlying goal of privatizing our public schools. Charter schools, under the guise of public status and with taxpayer money, are increasingly being managed and controlled by for-profit management companies. Vouchers are used primarily to pay tuition to private religious schools. Floridians have repeatedly voiced opposition to vouchers, yet the legislature and the governor continue to expand voucher programs. Neither charter nor voucher schools are held to the same accountability standards as traditional public schools. Studies have shown that charter and voucher schools get no better results, and in many cases, charter and voucher students underperform compared to their public-school peers. This is particularly noteworthy considering public schools must and do accept all students, not a select few.

The choice/privatization policy was launched under the administration of former Governor Jeb Bush, and has been primarily supported by Republican legislators. The stated premise of the scheme was that teachers and schools were not being held accountable and that the traditional system was too hamstrung by bureaucracy to allow innovation. Crucial to Bush’s privatization plan were two key mechanisms: the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests (FCAT) and the grading of schools on an A-F scale. High-stakes consequences were attached to these tests and grades, including school funding, student retention and eventually merit-based pay for teachers.

• Standardized Testing -- Standardized tests, such as the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, are not a reflection of a child’s overall skills and knowledge, nor of a teacher’s effectiveness. They are a snapshot of how well a student can perform on one exam on one day. These tests should not be used as weapons to punish or reward children, teachers or communities. Instead, standardized tests should be used as diagnostic tools to assess children’s abilities and identify strategies to help them improve. FCAT and other high-stakes assessments force teachers to “teach to the test.” As a result, children are deprived of the essentials of a well-rounded education.

• A - F School Letter Grades -- The letter grade system is used to justify funding distribution for schools. The grading system rewards schools that are already resource-rich and punishes schools that are resource-starved. School grades are nothing more than an indicator of the economic health of communities. The formula for determining grades is continually changing, making accurate evaluation impossible. Additionally, the system is subject to political manipulation, as demonstrated by the recent Indiana grade-fixing scandal that forced the resignation of Florida’s former commissioner of education, Tony Bennett.

A crucial consequence of this effort is merit-based pay. Calling it an accountability measure, Bush promoted a “value-added model” (VAM) of evaluating teachers. VAM is a complicated formula that attempts to measure a teacher’s performance based on student test scores. It has proven controversial in Florida because teachers have been scored on the performance of students and subjects they did not teach. Studies prove that VAM is not reliable (Polikoff and Porter, American Educational Research Association, April 11, 2014), and there’s no indication that it improves educational outcomes for children. The Democratic Progressive Caucus believes that merit-based pay is a surreptitious attempt to de-professionalize teaching. We support an evaluation system that involves a comprehensive and realistic review of a teacher’s performance. We oppose a market-based approach to schooling that employs high-stakes testing tied to incentives and sanctions.  

In 2012, the Democratic Progressive Caucus joined the Florida School Boards Association and U.S. Representative Frederica Wilson in calling for a suspension of Florida’s school grading system pending a forensic study. Floridians have lost faith in the accountability system, and the stakes are simply too high to continue a system so flawed. Merely changing the formula for the grades, as the Florida legislature did during the 2014 session, will not address the concerns of Florida parents. With the release of this report, the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida again calls for suspension of school grading until a forensic study and thorough review by an independent evaluator is completed.

“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 and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require...”

                --Constitution of the State of    Florida, Article IX, Section 1

Florida public schools have been underfunded when compared to other states. In a pending lawsuit filed against the state of Florida in November 2009, parent groups and public education advocates argued “...that Florida failed to adequately fund its public education system and failed to provide students with ‘high quality’ public schools demanded in the Florida Constitution. It cited shrinking budgets, low graduation rates and a faulty school accountability system, among other problems” (“Education Suit Against State to Proceed After Supreme Court Action,” Orlando Sentinel, September 11, 2012).

The DPCF agrees that the Florida Legislature has consistently underfunded our public schools. We believe that the current accountability system diverts scarce public dollars from public school classrooms and puts them into the pockets of private interests.

Finally, after thoroughly researching and reviewing the origins, the creation, and the proposed implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in Florida, the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida declares its opposition for the following reasons:

• CCSS were written without input from parents, classroom teachers or others with insight and expertise in childhood development
• Early childhood specialists have criticized the CCSS as developmentally inappropriate
• CCSS were not field-tested prior to implementation
• CCSS are tied to high-stakes tests which are invalid and unreliable
• Students do not develop at the same rate, yet CCSS attempts to force every student into an ineffective one-size-fits-all education model
• The State of Florida rushed the implementation of CCSS before the proper foundation -- curriculum, teacher-training, valid assessment tools, technological infrastructure -- was in place
• The primary forces behind CCSS are those who stand to benefit from privatization of public schools, including former Governor Jeb Bush and testing companies

The Caucus supports national standards that are developmentally appropriate, educationally sound, properly field-tested and written with input from all stakeholders, including parents, classroom teachers and students. There must be a process for review and revision of the standards.

Approved by Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida

Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee 

Susan Smith
President
Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida
stsmith222@aol.com
813-390-3616
@stsmith222

Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Minority Outreach Solutions.