The Florida Congress is now discussing an unprecedented proposal to take $200 million in educational funding from those Democratic-held counties (Miami-Dade included) that defied an executive order last year exempting the use of masks in schools for the COVID-19. And Governor Ron DeSantis is overjoyed.
DeSantis, seen as one of the main heirs to former President Trump, plans to send the money to the majority Republican counties that supported him.
The plan, said by some analysts to be unconstitutional, was part of a budget bill passed last week in the Republican-dominated Florida House of Representatives.
The project was immediately attacked by teachers’ unions, school districts and education advocates, who say the sanctions will remove more resources from classrooms in a state that already ranks in the bottom four in spending per student nationally.
“This is retaliation by lawmakers and the governor,” said Jabari Hosey, president of the advocacy group Families for Safe Schools and parent of school-age children in Brevard County.
“We are short of over 150 teachers in Brevard right now. We need more social workers, there is a performance gap due to the pandemic that is still present in our community. We need more funds, more opportunities, more instructors », he complained.
That is why “retaliating and attacking the public school system that they are supposed to be promoting is very sad. Frankly, it’s embarrassing.”
Under the proposal of Republican state congressman Randy Fine, one of the governor’s most radical supporters, school districts in all 12 Florida counties that mandated wearing masks in public last summer in defiance of DeSantis’ executive order will lose those funds amounts according to their size. Brevard, for example, would lose $4.5 million.
Two-thirds of the money would come from South Florida, which overwhelmingly votes Democratic in local, state and national elections. Miami-Dade, the fourth largest district in the country with 357,000 students, would lose 72 million.
Of the other counties, Alachua, Duval, Hillsborough, Indian River, Leon, Orange, Sarasota and Volusia, all but three endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 Florida presidential election, which Donald Trump won.
Complying with the law is not optional. These school districts broke the law, and they were broken for nothing,” Fine said.
Last week, during a turbulent session of Congress, he insisted the state would cut the salaries of administrators earning more than $100,000 and said he would not “reduce funding for any direct educational services or resources that affect the education of students.” from kindergarten to 12th grade.”
However, he admitted that the policy was intentionally punitive for counties that refused to align with the governor. “He intends to reward the 55 school districts, the vast majority of which followed our state law and respected parental rights over the past year,” he said.
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