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Pierre Tristam: The Great Florida Voucher Swindle! Welfare for the Rich!

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2024 //
7

Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive in Flagler County, Florida. In this brilliant article, he describes vouchers as welfare for the rich, a new kind of state socialism. He points out that vouchers are destroying public schools.

I want to acknowledge that I cribbed the article from the blog of the Network for Public Education, which you should subscribe to. It’s free, and it’s curated by the great Peter Greene. If you have a passion for public schools, sign up.

Tristam writes:

It would be absurd, I think we can all agree, if Paul Renner, our esteemed Speaker of the House and Flagler’s chief pork slabber, were to champion a bill entitling every citizen to take out $2,000 from their local policing budgets so they can have their own private security and call it “Police Choice.” After all, don’t we all pay taxes? Shouldn’t we have a choice how that money is spent? Don’t we free Floridians know best? Sheriff Rick Staly would be the first to tell Renner he’s out of his mind. 

It would be absurd, I think we can all agree, if Renner, claiming that taxpayers shouldn’t have their park choices limited to Holland and Ralph Carter Park, were to champion a bill entitling every household to take out $1,000 from the parks and rec budget so they could help subsidize their Disney and Universal experiences and call it “Park Choice.” Even Renner’s chamber of commerce courtesans would tell him he’s out of his mind. 

But not too many people told Renner he was out of his mind when he did exactly that to public schools: he championed a bill entitling every child in Florida to $8,000 a year to spend on private education, at the public school system’s expense, and called it “school choice.” The few who did were themselves told they’re out of their mind. 

“School choice” is an orchestrated demolition of public schools and the social contract. The focus-group euphemism masks the thieving of tax dollars to subsidize private schools, transforming what was once an aspiration of  fringe Christian and anti-government militants into state doctrine. “I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have public schools,” the televangelist and founder of the Moral Majority Jerry Falwell said in a 1979 sermon. “The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be.” Falwell lived long enough to see Jeb Bush’s Florida reopen that door. Renner swung the wrecking ball. 

Flagler County schools are losing close to $11 million this year to “choice,” siphoned out so 1,250 students can get their $8,000 either for private school or home school. True, not every one of these students was attending Flagler schools before, so it’s not a net loss of 1,250 students. But very few of these students were either qualifying or getting taxpayer subsidies before. Exactly 136 did in Flagler just four years ago, costing the district less than $1 million. Now anyone qualifies, including millionaire families, and every dollar going to them is a dollar diverted from public education. 

That figure of 1,250 students is for the first full year of this “choice” being in effect. Coming years will only accelerate the drain on public schools, because if you have children you’d be out of your mind not to take the $8,000-per-child handout, especially since most of you aren’t paying anywhere near $8,000 in school taxes each year. The rest of us, and even more so businesses and renters, are subsidizing the swindle. 

Advocates of the swindle have come up with a couple of defenses: first, that they’re taxpayers who should choose where their money is spent–the untenable argument that would then support “police choice” and “park choice,” and if you push that logic far enough, “war choice,” as in: you may spend my money on the Ukraine war but not the genocide of Palestinians. But in our social contract how our taxes are spent is not an a-la-carte option, though Boomer narcissists who can’t see past the hedge of their gated community think it should be.

Second, the advocates claim the dollars “follow the child,” as if public money going to private subsidies were new money that doesn’t affect public school budgets. It’s excellent propaganda. But it’s a double-barreled lie–double-barreled, because not only is every student lost to the public schools a loss of $8,000, but every student who was never enrolled in  public school but is now getting the $8,000 compounds that loss, since these are public dollars that would have otherwise been allocated to public schools. 

Incidentally, we don’t say that people receiving food stamps are on “food choice.” We don’t say that people getting Temporary Assistance for Needy Families are on “poverty choice.” When people get free money from the government, we call it welfare. Ditching the ordurous school-choice euphemism and applying the language’s proper definition–school welfare–exposes the state’s fabrications.

Facts do the rest. The welfare kings and queens this time are much richer than those on food stamps. As the Miami Herald reported Sunday, “Last school year, the average income of families who provided income data and received scholarships for a family of four was $86,000.” (To be eligible for food choice this year a family of four can’t have a household income above $62,400.) 

According to Step Up for Students, the state’s arm administering school welfare, 82 percent of handouts went to students attending religious schools–madrassas–like one in Palm Coast that boasts of “raising champions for Christ” and still sports a crusader for a mascot, which is no less offensive to a few hundred million people than if it flew the Confederate or Nazi flags. Our tax dollars are subsidizing that kind of bigotry. 

More perniciously: When Bush started the welfare-to-school wagon he limited it to the disabled and the needy. Minorities benefited disproportionately. It was a form of segregation in reverse, like affirmative action. Renner’s scheme, like so much under Gov. Ron DeSantis, revives pre-Brown v. Board of Education segregation. By eliminating eligibility barriers, wealthier families use the subsidy as a bridge to very expensive public schools whose tuition keeps the riff raff out, even with $8,000 subsidies. A family might’ve afforded a $9,000 school but couldn’t afford a $15,000 school. So clever schools adjust their tuition just so as a barrier to undesirables and to make extra profit, thus cashing in twice over: in dollars and in whitening their own “choice” of who gets in. Et voilà. Jerry Falwell’s jolly jowly ideal realized. 

Finally, to make sure the dagger cuts deeply and fatally, the state makes it mandatory for school districts to advertise school welfare on their websites. Districts like Flagler must make it as easy as possible for parents to apply for the money and get out of the district, while the state provides a detailed list of private schools to choose from, including, of course, every madrassa under the sky. State and districts could not be shouting louder: Public schools suck. Here’s $8,000. $16,000. $24,000. Now leave.

As students continue to be bribed out, public schools will be left with less money, all the responsibilities for higher standards, more challenging students, crumbling buildings and, revoltingly, school board members and superintendents in full Stockholm Syndrome mode. You hear them in board meetings not only talking about school welfare but praising it, pandering to it, the way the condemned suck up to their executioner. 

There are exceptions. Our own Colleen Conklin for years has been sounding the alerts about the swindle, starting with the charter schemes. She thankfully kept a few of those out of the district, back when local school boards had a say. They no longer do. And Conklin is leaving in November. Our remaining board members love the school welfare swindle and are probably trying to figure out how to cash in with their own kids without looking like public school traitors. 

But as Jerry Falwell implied, it’s a matter of time before those school board members are surplus property, like public school buildings, like buses, for that matter like teachers, counselors, paraprofessionals, bus drivers and administrators, all of whom are already treated like disposable obstructions in the way of school welfare and the cult known as “parental rights.”

Categories DeSantis, Education Industry, Extremism, For-Profit, Fraud, Hoax, Privatization, Vouchers

Orlando Sentinel: President of University of Florida Cashed In on Staff and Consultants

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2024 //
8

Shortly after Senator Ben Sasse left the U.S. Senate, he accepted the presidency of the University of Florida. Silas Morgan of the Orlando Sentinel relied on reporting by the student newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, to describe how former Senator Sasse upped the budget for his office by millions of dollars.

The University of Florida’s student newspaper reported Monday that former university president Ben Sasse spent millions of the school’s money to hire GOP political allies.


Sasse, a former Republican U.S. Senator from Nebraska, gave several one-time Senate staff members and other GOP officials lucrative remote positions at UF, according to records obtained by the Independent Florida Alligator.


Among the Senate staffers who joined him at UF are his former chief of staff, Raymond Sass; his former communications director, James Wegmann; his former press secretary, Taylor Silva; and three other former staffers. Both Sass and Wegmann worked remotely from the Washington D.C. area.


Sass’ salary, at $396,000, was more than double his Senate salary. Wegmann’s new position at UF earned him $432,000, while his predecessor in the position had made $270,000.

The hirings contributed to a $4.3 million increase in presidential salary expenses, part of a tripling of his office’s spending compared to what his predecessor, Kent Fuchs, spent during his last year in office, the Alligator reported. Sasse’s office employed more than 30 staff members, while Fuchs had fewer than 10.


Sasse also hired former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, who worked remotely from Nashville, in a newly-created position that paid a starting salary of $367,500 and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s former scheduler, Alice James Burns, who also worked remotely and was paid $205,000.


A report obtained by the Alligator says Sasse spent over $20,000 flying his employees to UF between April 29 and July 29. The only hire who lives in Florida received a $15,000 stipend to relocate to Gainesville.


UF hasn’t responded to requests from the Alligator for a complete log of Sasse’s travel expenses. His travel expenses rose to $633,000 over his first full fiscal year, more than Fuchs spent on travel in eight years.

He also spent $7.2 million on consulting contracts, nearly two-thirds of which went to consulting giant McKinsey and Company, where he used to work as an advisor on an hourly contract. This amounts to more than 40 times what Fuchs spent on consulting in eight years.

Sasse abruptly resigned at the end of July, citing his wife’s failing health. The Alligator says the university did not respond to questions about what would happen to the hires now that Sasse is gone. Fuchs has returned as interim president until the UF Board of Trustees can hire a permanent replacement for Sasse.


Sasse’s hiring by the Board in 2022 resulted in the UF Faculty Senate passing a no confidence resolution in Sasse’s presidential search process due to transparency issues. Legislation passed by Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature earlier in 2022 made records relating to public university presidential searches exempt from Florida’s open public meetings and public records requirements.

His appointment by the board of trustees also generated controversy among parts of the student body, especially the LGBTQ+ community, for political positions Sasse had taken while in the Senate.

Categories Accountability, DeSantis, Education Reform, Florida, For-Profit, Funding, Higher Education

Florida: Climate Change Kills Off Last of a Rare Species of Tree

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2024 //
15

The state of Florida—Ron DeSantis and his dumdum legislature—has decided that climate change doesn’t exist, but climate change doesn’t care. The Miami Herald reported that the last of a rare species in the Florida Keys has died—because of rising seas. The children of Florida won’t understand any of this because the State Department of Education will not buy textbooks that explain climate change. They think—I suppose—that if you don’t learn about it, it will go away.

Key Largo has a new, disturbing and first-of-its-kind graveyard. There are no headstones, no burial markers, no names, no bodies. 

It’s the last place an incredibly rare species of tree called the Key Largo tree cactus was seen alive, back in 2023. The killer? All the clues point to climate change. 

At least, that’s what a newly published paper suggests. Scientists have been watching this particular stand of cacti — known for their height (up to 20 feet) and brown hairlike puffball they grow around their flowers — since the 1990s.

At the time, researchers determined that a two-acre patch in John Pennekamp State Park was the only population in the U.S. of Pilosocereus millspaughii, an offshoot from the larger Caribbean population of the cactus. But as of last year, the very last of the bunch is gone. And researchers believe sea level rise was the main culprit — rising tides and groundwater turning the soil too salty for the plant to survive. It appears this local extinction (also known as extirpation) could be the first climate-driven demise of a species in the United States.

“As far as we know, from any published research we can find, this is the first case we can find,” same James Lange, lead botanist with Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens and co-author of the study, which was published Tuesday in the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas. “It was tragic to see as we monitored this over the years,” he said. “It was a big, old beautiful plant, one of the things that makes the Keys unique. And we’ve lost it.”

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/climate-change/article289915489.html#storylink=cpy

Categories DeSantis, Environment, Florida, Stupid

Florida: New Law Undermines Unions

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2024 //
23

Last year, the extremist Florida legislature passed a law that requires unions to apply for recertification if their membership drops below 60% of eligible workers. The long-term goal was to drive unions out of the state. So far, the law has caused a drop in 50,000 union members. If you are a Republican, that’s good news. If you are a Democrat or just someone who believes workers should have rights, that’s bad news. This law is the product of Ron DeSantis’ hatred of unions.

The article was written by McKenna Schueler, an investigative labor, housing and government reporter.

A new teachers “union” that is reportedly financed at least in part by the anti-union Freedom Foundation will soon appear on the ballot with the United Teachers of Dade, an existing teachers union in Miami-Dade County that represents nearly 24,000 public school educators and school staff. 

United Teachers of Dade, the largest local teachers union in the state, was recently forced to petition the state for an election to recertify — essentially, to remain formally recognized as a bargaining agent — due to consequences of a state law in Florida approved last year.

Specifically, the union was forced to petition for recertification after reporting less than 60% dues-paying membership in annual paperwork—a threshold they’re now required to meet under Florida law to remain certified. The new “union” — the Miami Dade Education Coalition — boasts itself as a viable alternative that wants to replace United Teachers of Dade.

State records show the organization officially registered with the state Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC) in February, with the backing of the Freedom Foundation, a right-wing think tank based in Washington that’s funded by billionaires. Brent Urbanik, a social studies teacher in a public magnet school in Miami-Dade County, is reportedly the new union’s president.

Unlike United Teachers of Dade, which was required gather cards in support of recertification from at least 30% of the thousands of school staff they represent, state law only requires “intervenors” like the Miami-Dade Education Coalition to gather 10% of signed cards to appear on the ballot with them. 

According to state records, the new “union” failed to even do that…on the first try…

So, MDEC tried again. 

This time, the organization only submitted 11 invalid or duplicate cards. 

But, sure, they made the cut…

Broadly speaking, there are dozens of unions across Florida that have petitioned for recertification following the passage of last year’s Senate Bill 256, a sweeping anti-union bill that was over a decade in the making. 

The law essentially makes it harder for workers to pay union dues, by prohibiting payroll dues deductions, while requiring more workers to do so in order for a union to remain certified. Membership information has to be reported to PERC annually…

So far, more than 50,000 public sector workers have lost their union representation following the passage of the new law. The Freedom Foundation, which lobbied in favor of last year’s law and sent mailers to union members telling them to ditch their unions, hasn’t been shy in sharing its delight. 

On X, formerly known as Twitter, the organization shared a screenshot of my recent article for In These Times on this fallout, declaring that these workers had “been freed from union bondage.”

“[W]e’re just getting started,” the organization added in a June 7 post.

Categories DeSantis, Extremism, Florida, Teachers, Unions

Florida: Two Festival Groups Offer to Abandon State Funding to Protect 600 Arts Groups

By dianeravitch
July 12, 2024 //
9

Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed all arts funding for ALL Florida because of two performing groups that he considers “sexualized.” Six hundred groups lost $32 million in state funding, in some cases jeopardizing their survival.

The two groups that offended the prudish DeSantis offered to give up state funding so DeSantis could restore funding to the others.

Leaders of two performing arts festivals said Thursday that they would gladly give up their grants if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis restores the $32 million in state funding he nixed for more than 600 Florida arts groups, explaining the reason for his veto as being because the two theatrical events were “a sexual festival.” 

Leaders of The Orlando Fringe and Tampa Fringe described the governor’s description as inaccurate on Thursday at a news conference, but they said it was important for the state’s arts groups to be funded because they play critical roles in their communities. The Orlando festival had been slated to get $70,500, and the Tampa festival was in line to receive $7,500 before the veto.

Categories Art, Arts Education, Censorship, Creativity, DeSantis, Extremism, Florida

Florida: Textbook Authors Told to Delete References to Climate Change

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2024 //
21

Leslie Postal of the Orlando Sentinel reports that Florida’s Department of Education has warned textbook authors to delete references to climate change, although some apparently are getting through. This is especially egregious since Florida is one of the states most threatened by climate change.

She writes:

Textbook authors were told last month that some references to “climate change” must be removed from science books before they could be accepted for use in Florida’s public schools, according to two of those authors.

A high school biology book also had to add citations to back up statements that “human activity” caused climate change and cut a “political statement” urging governments to take action to stop climate change, said Ken Miller, the co-author of that textbook and a professor emeritus of biology at Brown University.

Both Miller and a second author who asked not to be identified told the Orlando Sentinel they learned of the state-directed changes from their publishers, who received phone calls in June from state officials.

Miller, also president of the board of the National Center for Science Education, said the phrase “climate change” was not removed from his high school biology text, which he assumed happened because climate change is mentioned in Florida’s academic standards for biology courses. [Note: The state standards for science were adopted in 2008, before DeSantis was elected Governor.]

But according to his publisher, a 90-page section on climate change was removed from its high school chemistry textbook and the phrase was removed from middle school science books, he said.

The other author said he was told Florida wanted publishers to remove “extraneous information” not listed in state standards. “They asked to take out phrases such as climate change,” he added.

The actions seemed to echo Florida’s previous rejection of math and social studies textbooks that state officials claimed include passages of “indoctrination” and “ideological rhetoric.” And they fall in line with the views of many GOP leaders, who question both the existence of climate change and the contributions of human activities to the problem, despite a broad scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is transforming the earth’s environment.

In May, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that stripped the phrase “climate change” from much of Florida law, reversing 16 years of state policy and, critics said, undermining Florida’s support of renewable and clean energy…

But there are no textbooks for high school environmental science classes on the approved list, though three companies submitted bids to supply books for that class, according to documents on the department’s website. Course material for that subject typically includes significant discussion of climate change.

“How do you write an environmental science book to appease people who are opposed to climate change?” asked a school district science supervisor, who is involved in science textbook adoption for her district. She asked not to be identified for fear of job repercussions.

She and other educators, the textbook authors and science advocates said the state’s actions will rob students of a deeper understanding of global warming even as it impacts their state and communities through longer and hotter heat waves, more ferocious storms and sea level rise.

Florida had already earned a D — and was among the five lowest-ranked states in the country — in a 2020 study that graded the states on how their public school science standards addressed climate change, said Glenn Branch, deputy director of the center for science education, which was a partner in the study.

Is there a grade lower than F? F-?

Categories Censorship, DeSantis, Extremism, Florida, Science, Stupid

Florida Turns Down $259 Million in Federal Funds to Feed Hungry Children

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2024 //
12

The Orlando Sentinel reported that Florida has rejected $259 million in federal funds to feed hungry children. The reasons of the DeSantis administration: we don’t need the money, and besides, it would cost $22 million to administer the program.

TALLAHASSEE– State officials said they passed up millions of dollars in new federal food assistance money because they have more than enough programs to feed Florida’s hungry children this summer.

But advocates for the hungry say the numbers tell a different story.

“The perception put forward by the state is that there is no need for other programs in the state,” said Sky Beard, the Florida director for the non-profit No Kid Hungry organization. “I wish it were true!”

While it’s too late for Florida to change course in time to affect kids this summer, 185 groups that seek to end hunger recently sent a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state leaders urging Florida to apply for the money by the Aug. 15 deadline for 2025.

“Every summer is a hungry time for kids.” Beard said.

One in five children in Florida are experiencing hunger because their families cannot afford enough groceries to make up for the free meals they got at school during the academic year, according to a recent report by Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks, pantries and community organizations dedicated to ending hunger.

Fewer than 10% of the 672,324 elementary school children in Florida who get free or reduced-price lunches during the school year receive a summer lunch, says a report by the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit organization working to end poverty-related hunger.

Categories Cruelty, DeSantis, Ethics, Evil, Florida, Injustice

Scott Maxwell: The Most Disgusting, Inhumane Law Passed by the Florida Legislature

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2024 //
4

Scott Maxwell is a regular columnist for Tthe Orlando Sentinel. In this article, he discusses the meanest, most heartless, most inhumane law passed by the legislature. How about letting workers have a water and heat break in Florida’s hot, humid climate? Employers don’t want workers to take time off. They prefer to let them struggle under a fiery sun, even if they collapse.

Maxwell writes:

I’ve written a lot of pieces about a lot of cruddy bills in Florida.

But I can’t recall one that generated more universal disgust among readers than the one lawmakers passed a few months ago banning cities and counties from making sure outdoor workers get shade and water on blistering hot days.

Miami-Dade was discussing local regulations that would guarantee roofers, farmworkers and others who toil in Florida’s blistering sun basic things like water breaks, shade and first-aid treatment for heat stroke — the kind of precautions most people with a conscience would provide for their dog.

Yet Florida’s big business lobby didn’t want to be forced to provide any of that. So they got their puppets in the Legislature to pass a law making it illegal for any local government to pass heat-safety regulations. Yes, their target was water and shade.

I described it as “The most shameful law Florida passed this year.” And readers overwhelmingly agreed. The disgust came from Republicans, Democrats and independents all around the state.

“This is so wrong in so many ways,” said reader Ingrid, who noted that, as a homeowner, she offers shade, water, seating and bathrooms to workers painting the outside of her house. “It is the American and right thing to do…”

And multiple conservative and independent readers said this was the kind of bill that made them think the pendulum of one-party power has swung too far. “So often, I no longer support Democratic legislators because I feel they are too far left,” Bruce said. “After reading this, I must vote for them anyway because others are too far to the right.”

But a question I also received over and over was: Why?

Why would lawmakers — most of whom have families and many of whom claim to be people of faith — support a bill that denies guaranteed access to things so fundamental as water and shade?

Well, here’s the remarkable reality: They normally wouldn’t. In fact, they didn’t.

Just two years ago, Republican legislators joined Democrats to unanimously pass a bill out of committee that would’ve guaranteed similar heat-safety protections to workers across the entire state.

At the time, GOP legislators described the heat protections as simply humane. One said it was “heartwarming” to see everyone agree on such a basic concept. The bill’s sponsor, Miami Republican Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez said: “It’s really about health and wellness and making sure people are protected.”

But then, as the Seeking Rents website that tracks the way money influences public policy in Florida recently revealed, the state’s homebuilding and business lobby got involved. And the bill died.

Then this year, the business lobby put the push on steroids. The Florida Chamber of Commerce not only wanted to make sure that no state laws guaranteed workers heat-safety protections; they wanted lawmakers to pass a law that banned counties from doing the same.

The chamber even warned lawmakers that if they didn’t do as instructed, the politicians’ scores would be docked in the business group’s annual “How They Voted” report card. The chamber told lawmakers that their votes on this one issue would be counted twice.

That is how badly the chamber — which is funded by companies like Disney, Publix, U.S. Sugar and Florida Power & Light — wanted to make sure no companies in this state would be subject to local heat-safety regulations.

We’ve all watched ugly politics transpire in Tallahassee. But this was uglier than usual. Veteran Tallahassee journalist Bill Cotterell — who has covered Florida politics for more than half a century — wrote that this was an example of how “the pay-to-play system goes beyond regular back-scratching and turns into cruelty.”

Mark Wilson, the president of the chamber, disagrees. He says readers who are outraged and observers like me and Cotterell don’t understand the issue.

He says the reaction is union-generated “hysteria,” that the chamber is “working to make Florida the safest state in the nation,” that the U.S. division of Occupational Health and Safety Measures already requires companies to protect their workers and that most companies want to do so anyway.

You probably don’t need me to tell you how silly that last argument sounds. If all companies were already doing all these things, they wouldn’t have been so frantically lobbying against them. House Bill 433 bans counties from requiring employers to provide things like “water consumption,” “cooling measures” and “appropriate first-aid measures.”

OSHA does not regulate these things the same way.  Instead, it has something called a “general duty clause” that broadly says employers shall provide a work environment “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.” Its website explicitly says: “OSHA does not have a specific regulation regarding heat stress.”

And while Wilson said OSHA is working on more specific heat-safety provisions, the simple fact is they don’t exist now.

The reality is that businesses in Florida have gotten so used to having their way, they don’t want anyone telling them what to do — even when it has to do with worker safety. And this state has a political majority willing do whatever they’re told, so that they can continue getting endorsements and campaign donations. Even it means opposing basic safety measures they previously supported.

That’s something for you to remember the next time you see a campaign mailer telling you that some politician has an “A-plus” business rating. This is the kind of thing they had to support to earn it.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

Categories Cruelty, DeSantis, Ethics, Evil, Florida, Health, Injustice, Shame

Florida: Three Moms Fight Back against Book Bans

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2024 //
16

According to PEN International, Florida is the state that bans more books than any other state. The state denies that it bans any book, because a controversial book can be obtained from public libraries or bookstores or online. Most of the challenges to books come from a small number of people, often affiliated with the odious Moms for Liberty.

Three mothers in Florida are pushing back against the book banners. They sued the state because it provides support to those who want to ban books, but not to those who oppose the bans. The stories were written by Leslie Postal of The Orlando Sentinel.

Three Florida mothers sued the state Thursday, claiming it violated their First Amendment rights by providing help to parents who want books yanked from public schools but denying that same aid to them when they want to fight school book bans.

“It’s just not fair,” said Stephana Ferrell, an Orange County mother of two and one of the plaintiffs.

The state, she added in a statement, “should not be able to discriminate against the voices of parents they disagree with.”

Two St. Johns County parents are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Tallahassee, the latest chapter in the ongoing debate about what books should be available to Florida’s schoolchildren.

The lawsuit argues that “Florida’s leaders only welcome input from those parents advocating for removing books from schools.”

In response to a request for comment on the lawsuit, a spokesperson at the Florida Department of Education said via email, “There are no books banned in Florida. However, sexually explicit material and instruction are not suitable for classrooms.”

At issue is the controversial state law (HB 1069) adopted last year by the Republican-led Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis. It expanded the prior year’s law “parental rights in education law,” which critics dubbed “don’t say gay.”

The law “allowed parents who wanted certain books removed from schools to appeal to the state, if their local school district did not side with them. But the three parents said that when they objected to their school districts’ decisions to remove or to restrict the availability of certain books, they had no recourse.”

Orange County Public Schools, for example, last year decided to remove the book “Shut Up!” by Marilyn Reynolds from all campuses after a parent complained the book, used in a class at Timber Creek High School, was “explicit and pornographic.”

The book deals with child sexual abuse, and the School Library Journal called it a “wise novel” that “is an important addition for any collection serving teens.”

Ferrell, who helped found the Florida Freedom to Read Project to fight school book bans, tried to challenge OCPS’ decision. But both the district, and eventually state Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, denied her request, saying the “state review process” was only for parents who wanted books removed and were unhappy their district did not agree.

Those parents can appeal to the state for a special magistrate to review the school board’s decision. The special magistrate then makes a recommendation to the State Board of Education — made up of DeSantis appointees — and the board then issues a final decision.

If the state board agrees with the parent, the cost of hiring the magistrate must be paid by the school district that had its decision overturned.
The two St. Johns parents objected when their school district last week said only 11th and 12th graders could take out the novel “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, and several other books, including “The Freedom Writers Diary,” about a high school teacher and her students who “used writing to change themselves and the world around them,” and the memoir by Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was kidnapped at age 11 and held prisoner for 18 years, giving birth to two children by her abductor.

Those books were challenged by a woman who has filed 92 of the 114 book challenges dealt with in St. Johns County schools since 2021, according to Jax Today, and she objected to them because they included references to “sex abuse, violence and hate.”

The lawsuit noted that the woman who challenged the books did not have children in the public schools when the St. Johns County School Board took up her objections last week.
The St. Johns mothers, Nancy Tray and Anne Watts Tressler, objected to the school board’s decision, with Tray telling the board parents could keep their own children from reading those books, or others they disliked, “without eliminating availability for every single high school student in St. John’s County, ” the lawsuit said.

Both mothers were told there was no avenue for them to appeal the school board’s decision and realized it would be “futile” to appeal to the state, the lawsuit added.

The sponsors of HB 1069 touted the law as a way to “protect the rights of parents to have a say in their children’s education,” the lawsuit noted, but “this legislation only benefits those parents who hold the State’s favored viewpoint: agreement with removing books and other material from schools.”

The law, and the regulations adopted to implement it, provide different benefits “depending on a parent’s perspective” so “they violate the First Amendment’s ban on viewpoint discrimination, and should be invalidated,” the lawsuit said.

Here are some of the books that the state or rightwing parents consider “sexually explicit:”

Hundreds of books, including a classic by Leo Tolstoy and a storybook by beloved children’s author Maurice Sendak, have been pulled from Florida school libraries this fall as administrators continue to scrutinize collections for works they fear violate new state laws.

Seminole County Public Schools has removed more than 80 books, including the National Book Award winner “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” this school year, and restricted access to 50 others by requiring parental permission or making them available only to high school students, according to Katherine Crnkovich, a district spokeswoman.

In Hernando County north of Tampa, six picture books were removed recently from school libraries, including Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen” and David Shannon’s “No, David!” They all have illustrations that show kids’ naked bottoms, or, in one case, a goblin’s bare derriere..

In Collier County in southwest Florida, more than 300 novels have been taken from shelves, packed up and put in storage. They include works by Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, Toni Morrison, Flannery O’Connor, Ayn Rand, Leo Tolstoy and Alice Walker.

The novels “Moll Flanders” (published in 1772), “Their Eyes Were Watching God” (published in 1937), “Slaughter-House Five” (published in 1969) and “The Kite Runner” (published in 2003) all met the same fate as did Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” (published in 1878).

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was banned as was Little Rock Nine by Marshall Poe about the integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957.

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Categories Censorship, Democracy, DeSantis, Extremism, Florida

Scott Maxwell: Why Di$ney and De$antis Are Friends Again

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2024 //
3

Scott Maxwell is one of the most astute and fearless journalists in Florida. He regularly blasts politicians and fat-cat corporations when they collaborate against the public interest. He did it again, in his column in The Orlando Sentinel, calling out Disney and DeSantis for their cynical behavior.

He wrote:

Disney — a company that made national news when it announced it was ending campaign donations in Florida — is back in the political game.

This is about as surprising as when Sleeping Beauty woke up before the movie ended. You know, instead of spending the rest of her life in a coma.

See, despite all its high-minded declarations about removing itself from the dirty world of politics, Disney was always going to jump back in the slop.

Why? Because campaign donations are basically legal bribery. And Disney has long been one of the biggest bribers in the state.

In fact, the main reason Ron DeSantis and other GOP lawmakers revolted against Disney two years ago was because Disney cut off their cash.

Sure, the politicians claimed they were upset about Disney standing up for LGBTQ rights. But DeSantis and legislators didn’t go nuclear on Mickey until the company said it was ending campaign donations. Before that, Disney was one of the Florida GOP’s biggest sugar daddies. And the politicians were Disney’s reliable puppets.

The examples were endless. Disney would request tax breaks, protection from lawsuits and mandatory sick-time regulations, even laws that allowed theme parks to get rid of lost-and-found items faster. And the lawmakers who received Disney dollars happily obliged.

That certainly included Ron DeSantis. When the company wanted to be exempted from the governor’s planned crackdown on social media back in 2021, Disney cut DeSantis a $50,000 check, told his staffers how to write the law and — voila! — it included a special carve out for any company that “owns and operates a theme park.”

Some people believe Disney is a liberal company. But this company will give to anyone in a position to do favors — Republican, Democrat or serial killer.

Some hardcore Disney fans don’t like to hear that. They like to believe Disney has a genuine moral compass. Not when it comes to campaign donations.

Disney gave money to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the same campaign cycle. (You can decide for yourself what kind of ideological value$ that $ugge$t$….)

Now, Disney has definitely given Florida Republicans way more money than Florida Democrats over the last couple of decades — not because Mickey and Minnie are big backers of the NRA, but because Republicans have all the power.

Disney cut the Republican Party of Florida about a dozen checks for as much as $100,000 apiece during the 2022 cycle — and then threw in another $148,000 worth of free resort rooms, theme park tickets and other goodies. Disney gave Florida Democrats less than half that.

Disney also gave a lot of cash directly to some of the most anti-gay politicians in the state. That included every sponsor of the infamous “Don’t Say Gay”/”Parental Rights” law, as well as the attorneys general who tried to keep same-sex couple from marrying one another. When hard-core lawmakers fought to prevent LGBTQ citizens — including some of Disney’s most loyal cast members — from ever adopting children, Disney cut those politicians checks to help them stay in office.

The only reason Disney paused its campaign donations was because this column and newspaper exposed the company’s two-faced political giving — funding anti-gay politicians while flying rainbow flags and promoting equality — which prompted Disney employees and even Abigail Disney to revolt.

But as soon as Disney announced it was cutting off the politicians, the politicians attacked, making it clear that if Disney wouldn’t pay, the politicians weren’t going to play.

Well, Disney is apparently paying again. As the Sentinel reported last week, State Sen. Geraldine Thompson acknowledged Disney was helping sponsor a fundraiser for her re-election campaign.

If Disney was looking to dip its toe back into the donation pool, Thompson seems like a relatively safe way to do so. The Windermere Democrat, after all, is a popular, moderate veteran elected official.

I suppose it’s possible that Disney will be more selective about its future donations and refuse to fund politicians who espouse values that run counter to the ones the company claims to have. But I doubt it. Especially since some of the same GOP politicians who spent the last two years demonizing Disney seem eager to start cashing their checks again.

Florida Politics reported last month that GOP party chairman Evan Powers was ready to move past the anti-Disney ruckus, saying he “always believed that Disney will come back to the table.” And DeSantis recently did Disney a big favor when he decided to put his former staffer — the one who’d worked with Disney lobbyists behind the scenes to do the company favors — in charge of the theme park’s government district.

Keep in mind: DeSantis previously accused Disney of “sexualizing” children and being cozy with the “Communist Party of China.” But now he’s doing the company favors and issuing statements that say he wants to help the company promote “family-friendly tourism.”

Money seems to solve all sorts of relationship problems in politics — which is precisely why we all knew Disney would start dishing it out again. And why I expect to see the company dish a lot more to the powerful pols who want it. Otherwise, the company may find itself being labeled communist pedophiles again.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

Categories DeSantis, Ethics, Fake, Florida, Funding
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