Education: PreK-12
Team Leaders:
Maggie Zalamea, Broward Teachers Union, 954.486.6250 x253; mzalamea@btuonline.com; Hon. Maureen Dinnen, School Board, Broward County, 754-321-2003 mdinnen@browardschools.com
Members:
Ernestine Alleyne, Vice President, BTU; Sandra Bernard-Bastien, Children's Services Council of Broward; Fred S. Bellis, Broward Supervisor of Elections; Kevin Boyd, Broward Days; Joseph Cobo, Florida Medical Management; Linda Cooke, HABC Manufacturing; Ilene Feldman, BTU COPE Committee; Yadiris Ferreira, Teacher; Janet Flader, BTU retiree chapter; Sharon Forde, Community Activist; Evan Goldman, Children's Services Council of Broward; PJ Grant, EAC-Davie; Hon. Caryl Hattan, Davie Town Council member; Sharon Hepburn, Teacher; Lola Jordan, United Way; Jodi Klein, Chair, Broward District Advisory Council; Hal Krantz, BTU Executive Board; Victoria LaPorte, Teacher; Lori Lerstad, League of Women Voters; Robin Levin, Emerald Hills Private School; Alan Levy, Great American Farms; Kenneth Minchew, Teacher; Jo Moskowitz, Citrix Systems; Linda Nestor, President, Broward PTA; Earthlean Perry, BTU COPE Committee; Susan Pignato, BTU COPE Committee; Shannon Prohaszka, Jack & Jill Children's Center; Roy Rogers, IBI Group; Robert Rosen, Teacher; David Ross, Teacher; Hon. Nora Rupert, School Board Member; Bernie Shultz, Vice President, BTU; Bob Swindell, The Fort Lauderdale Alliance; Debra Theaman, Teacher; Gina Vasile, Teacher; Tammy Wagner, Parent Advocate; Dave Wallace, United Way; Gwen Watson, Ikon; Kalebra Williams, Teacher; Margaret Wolter, Aide to Broward County Commissioner Lois Wexler; partnership with the Broward Education Coalition
Broward Days K-12 Education Team Mission
The Broward Days PreK-12 Education Team is committed to working with all stakeholders, including but not limited to, policymakers, parents, educators, businesses and community members, all of whom are needed to ensure student achievement and accountability for students, parents, educators and the community at large.
Areas of Concern:
Education Funding
The Florida Constitution states that making adequate provision for the education of all children is the “paramount duty” of the state.
The state must adequately fund education and cease further budget cuts ($1.35 billion was cut from public education in 2011).
The Legislature must cease enacting “unfunded mandates” for public schools.
Florida should collect taxes on online and remote shopping of goods and services like they are collected for local and state merchants.
The Legislature should review and repeal unnecessary tax exemptions (spa services, luxury sky boxes and yachts, tattoo services) to generate needed revenues for public education.
The Legislature must examine and implement creative, innovative, and sustainable revenue generating ideas
Florida is missing out on upwards of $1 billion per year in sales tax on online purchases; this is not a tax on the internet – it is a tax on certain goods and services that is being avoided because the shopping is done remotely. This is an already-existing tax which is not being enforced on remote sales transactions and is blatantly unfair to local merchants who could be fined or charge criminally for not charging sales tax in their stores.
Class Size Reduction
The Legislature should fully fund the Class Size Amendment so local school districts are not forced to use local funds to comply with the law.
The 2011 Legislature reduced the number of “core” classes for purposes of meeting class size reduction requirements from 849 to 288. This will lead to bigger classes in many more courses and will hurt students.
Critical courses such as foreign language and honors/advanced courses are no longer considered “core.”
This has led to larger class sizes in many “non-core” classes which impacts student achievement.
The Legislature should refrain from making further changes to the class size reduction amendment and implement it as the voters passed it in 2002
Charter Schools, Virtual Education and Vouchers
Achieving adequate funding of public schools should precede any expansion of voucher or tax credit systems that fund private schools
All students, teachers, and administrators should be subjected to uniform and consistent performance measurements and rigors, including students who attend and educators who work at charter schools, virtual schools, and any other school funded by public monies through vouchers or other systems
Any attempt to utilize public monies to fund religious institutions and/or schools should be avoided due to constitutionality issues (a Florida appeals court found a voucher program by former Governor Bush unconstitutional)
Local Control
Any legislation that reduces local control of the public schools must have local agreement.
Date Submitted: 10/21/11