Education

Florida public schools are clearly not adequately funded.  In 2016 Florida ranked 44th out of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia in total per student spending at $8,920 compared to a national expenditure of $11, 762.  This is a decrease of 11.5% since 2008 ($10,071 in 2016 dollars).  Florida direct instructional expenditures per student ranks 40th - $5,478 compared to $7,160 nationally.  This is largely due to low salaries and limited benefits - Florida ranks 47th in instructional employee salaries, and 49th in instructional employee benefits.

My proposed budget for the first three years of my term will include an increase of 10% per year in per student spending.  This will raise us to approximately the national level.  Subsequently I will propose continuing increases with the goal of ultimately reaching a level of at least the 75th percentile of state per student expenditures.  The legislature uses the governor’s proposed budget as a starting point to develop the final budget. I will use the threat of line-item vetoes as leverage to accomplish these goals.

I attended private parochial elementary and high school, but do not believe that public funds should be used to fund them or to fund charter schools.  Taking funds away from under-performing schools so that students can transfer to a private school is counterproductive in efforts to improve public schools.  And legislative action to force local school districts to fund private/charter schools is a serious overreach.

I would promote establishing and funding a program controlled by the Florida Department of Education to make competitive grants available to public, private and charter schools for innovative demonstration projects to improve youth education.   This initiative would result in the establishment of a “best practices” database of evidence based programs to address problems that public schools face such as minority achievement disparities and improving schools in financially depressed neighborhoods, among other problems.