Florida fails on so many levels...

[gatechic]

I can't believe that our state legislators think this is a good thing. What are they thinking?

Comments

[klcthebookworm]

Have they started protesting yet?

I'm flabbergasted at the taking away of incentives for continuous education of teachers. Sadly, not the surprised at tie together pay with the standardized test. But given that statistically speaking, Colleges of Education across the nation get the mediocre of university students, I always held a glimmer of hope that helping the good ones have access to more classes counter-balanced that.

[gatechic]

Oh yes!

The sad thing is our Governor is ready to sign the bill. He's a Republican so he's doing it to not piss off the tea baggers and win the primary for Congress. Sorry for sounding so bitchy, but these people need to go!

This bill is sponsored by a Republican and people wonder why I'm not a Republican anymore. *points to clueless Republican state legislators* That's why.

I've already sent off as many angry letters as I could. My head's about to explode.

[klcthebookworm]

Getting Scary Out There This is the shit that worries me.

I don't believe in being passive about passions and protesting is a good thing; but this no compromise, kill all who opposes because they are un-American rhetoric for the sake of ratings is insanity. And the entire population running on sleep deprivation and losing the brain matter that makes us rational human beings is soaking it in. Then they wonder why we're all becoming more violent and uncivilized?

Why does this tiny and loud (I'll give them credit for that) group of demented whack-jobs count more than me? Why are you (the entire GOP) turning into them? I've got issues with the Democrats too, which is why I only label myself Independent.

I hope you guys have term limits.

[gatechic]

Me too. It's this kind of behavior that makes me ashamed to be an American. The way they act is un-American. They claim to be all about democracy and freedoms, but only if you agree with them, which is NOT a democracy or about freedoms.

I'm with you on this (I label myself an Independent as well). I'm far from being a Democrat, but it will take very drastic changes for me to even vote Republican ever again.

[or_mabinogi]

It's a good thing that reading silently to myself does not require the use of my jaw because it was sitting on the floor the whole way through. Between Florida and Texas (and I think I've heard some questionable motions in Oklahoma and here in Ohio) I feel like politicians are just trying to make/keep the population dumb. There definitely needs to be some education reform in this country. We can't have politicians continue to alter what gets taught just because it doesn't fit their ideology.

[gatechic]

I had to re-read it just to make sure I was reading it right. I still can't put together a coherent thought about how much this fails our children and our state. This does nothing to encourage people to go into the education field, at least not in Florida. It really is a 'dumbing down' of our children.

What this essentially does, is push people into the Voucher program, which was Jeb Bush's baby, or a mass exodus from Florida. The Voucher program takes money from public school(tax-payer money) and puts it towards private schools for each student that utilizes this program. Who, with kids, would want to move to this state with this kind of bullshit?

Not surprisingly, this bill is sponsored by a Republican.

[or_mabinogi]

The national voucher program was just up for renewal last week and was defeated (55-42). Does Florida have its own version?

[gatechic]

Sadly, we do.

[kseda]

I really have nothing but D= in response to that, plus another dose of being thankful I graduated before Jeb took offic.

[gatechic]

Jeb ruined the education system in this state. I hope we never see him again. I know I won't vote for him for anything.

[moony_blues]

Hmm...There's plenty of bad in there, so I'm not ignoring it. I think that teachers should be rewarded for pursuing continuing education credits (so much so that I think it might be a good idea to make that a requirement to keep their teaching licenses) or graduate degrees. Those are very important. I also think that they should retain their licenses based on their performace because some of the worst teachers in the system are protected by tenure. However, using a standardized test to measure teacher performance is the worst idea that ever came out of any attempt to reform public education in our country. We need to teach our kids how to think and figure things out on their own, not teach them how to pass a test. Teacher performance should be based on a lot of things, and parent feed-back ratings or peer-ratings and administrative reviews, while not perfect, would be much better measures of performance than a standardized test.

[gatechic]

THIS!

[moony_blues]

Hehehe... Thanks. :D

[gatechic]

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse in this state.