Dr. Karen R. Effrem, MD from the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition (FSCCC)writes:
“During the [Educational Policy] conference, Colonel West also did an interview with the Report Card, and had a stern warning for Governor Scott and the Republican establishment that seem to be trying to do a stealth implementation of Common Core without really changing anything:
“Colonel West stated: ‘If Gov. Scott does not clearly renounce the Common Core for Florida, he WILL lose the upcoming election. The Republican Clubs and the Republican Executive Committees are overwhelmingly opposed to Common Core.’”
Chad Lincoln in a Facebook post states, ”It’s rumored that Scott is going to wait for Crist to take a hard position. Then Scott will match it and take the issue to the sidelines.”
FCCC gives the following update on education related legislation for the 2014 session:
STANDARDS – HB 25 by Rep. Debbie Mayfield (R – Vero Beach) still has not been heard in committee and there is no senate companion bill YET.
On the other side, Rep. Janet Adkins and the K-12 Subcommittee passed the “Common Core Cover-Up” bill, AKA “Lipstick on a Pig” bill, PCB TKS 14-01, that merely removes references to Common Core from statute and changes the name to the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards or Florida Standards. This matches the cosmetic and “minor” changes that the commissioner is presenting to the State Board of Education for rubber stamping on February 18th.
A full hearing report,including a link video of testimony by Randy Osborne, Catherine Baer, and Meredith Mears, and media coverage are available on our website.
DATA COLLECTION – HB 195 by Rep. Jake Raburn (R-Valrico) and SB 189 by Senator Dorothy Hukill (R-Port Orange) had their first hearings in committee this last week. These identical bills seek to ban the collection of biometric and other sensitive data on students. We are grateful for the efforts of these legislators and look forward to working with them to make this legislation the best that it can be.
Nationally, support continues to pour in for our statement against the deceptive data privacy letter from Commissioner Stewart and 33 other chief state school officers. We are up to 8 national and 36 state groups from 29 different states.
CURRICULUM – SB 864 by Senator Alan Hays (R – Umatilla) that seeks to put curriculum decisions at the local level was just filed a few days ago. We appreciate his efforts. A detailed analysis will be coming soon.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Gage Skidmore.
