Legislative Report #8

Legislative Update # 8
January 12, 2009
TO: All Interested Persons
FR: Jack Bovee, Legislative Chair, FCSS
RE: Latest Legislative News

For additional information on Florida legislators or issues go to ONLINE SUNSHINE - http://www.leg.state.fl.us/


Greetings everyone,

The FASSS-FCSS Legislative Committee is working on an update to our Advocacy Toolkit for the coming session. As stated at this weekend's board meeting, many reports, editorials and other information may be found at the FASSS-FCSS Advocacy webpage at http://fasss-fcss-legislative-news.blogspot.com/ . If others are interested in joining the committee or serving as part of our 'grassroots' team, please contact me at your leisure.

One way to be effective is to begin collecting related articles and to regularly write to the local media about the importance of social studies and about our need to pass both a national bill to reform NAEP in time for the 2010 assessment and the need to have a social studies assessment plan for Florida.

Here is still yet another columnist sounding in on the dire crisis this nation faces with regard to ‘saving our national heritage.’ Although numerous reports are included here, including the NAEP assessment of 2006, aside from a couple of suggestions -- none of which would hold the states or public schools accountable for their civic mission -- little is offered. It's not surprising that Phyllis Schlafly, due to her conservative roots, would not advocate state accountability for the upcoming History and Civics NAEP in 2010. What, however, can possibly explain the silence of our national organizations on this topic? Until we have equity on NAEP or some other form of national assessment we'll continue to have foreign nations (Mexico) more concerned about discovering what their emigrants to the U.S. know about foreign cultures than our own government seems to want to know about its own youth.

If ANYONE can produce ANY letter from ANY national social studies leader on reintroducing for the FOURTH time in Congress an attempt to reform NAEP by giving us equity in holding states accountable for their civic mission, please do so! I don't want to slam the 'innocent' when I submit my diatribe on what's wrong with the 'state of social studies' to leading educational periodicals across the nation in the near future.

A better copy of the Schafly editorial is attached below. Also, the recent report by a Russian professor and former KGB intelligence officer about the imminent breakup of the U.S. is below. Many other reports about the dire crisis our nation faces are posted to the FCSS Advocacy webpage. One has to wonder when our former enemies are confidently predicting our nation's collapse – in part due to our crisis in national identify -- why our legislative bodies can't pass simple bills designed to assess our students on commonly agreed upon knowledge and understandings about our government, economic system and past history. Once again, it may be worth reporting that the US Department of Education requires each state to assess students on the equivalent of the 197 question Florida Youth Survey. In that survey each county is compared to every other on a wide variety of questions involving drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and other social mores.

As a first step in "Advocacy" for the coming session, I urge all board members to contact their local representatives on H0013 on the importance of social studies and the need to pass that assessment measure. Moreover, as we remain unsure as to whether NCSS will have a list of questions to the members of the U.S. SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE who will shortly be confirming Secretary Arne Duncan in that position, I urge all local councils and interested persons to write, phone or minimally email these Senators on the need to pass the equivalent of S1414 (the NAEP bill). This bill, like two others before it (Senate 870 and S2721) died in the last two year Congress and will have to be reintroduced once again in the new Congress.

In either case, you might want to include the Wall Street Journal article about how the President’s Press Secretary and the room full of press corps members couldn't help but laugh at the Russian professor's claim about the collapse of our nation next year. Given the lack of any attempt to provide equity to subjects such as American History, Civics, Economics or Geography on national or state assessments, I’m not sure such reports are so funny, nor so implausible anymore.

Jack B.

Legislative Report #7

FASSS-FCSS Legislative Report #7

Emergent Design and Development, Inc.
Legislative Update
January 5, 2009

Happy New Year and we wish each of you a prosperous, healthy, and rewarding 2009. Things are going to be interesting in the Legislature, as always. Less money, more needs, special interests, along with the normal party politics will make for an exciting year. We will update you regularly regarding the Educational issues.

SPECIAL SESSION
The Special Session begins today (Jan 5, 2009). The purpose is to bring the Budget in line with the expected income. Currently the prediction is a shortfall of $2.3 billion.
The House will take public testimony from 1-5pm today. The overall calendar is expected to result in a budget passing each house by Friday. Conference Committees would work on the weekend (January 10 and 11). The budget would be printed by Tuesday the 13th, wait the required 72 hours, and have a final vote by Jan. 16.
During these two weeks, both Houses expect to have time to meet in their regular committees to work on legislation for the 2009 Session. Agreement seems to have been reached on some general guidelines:
No higher taxes on cigarette products or on alcohol
Possible adjustments to unnamed uses fees
Higher fines and fees related to traffic enforcement
Higher criminal and civil court fees
Transfer of trust funds
Reduction of appropriations in current budget

BRIGHT FUTURES CONCERNS
The current budget crisis appears to put pressure upon the Legislature to examine the costs related to the Bright Futures Scholarship Program.

Among changes to lower the cost of the program are:
Raise academic requirements for the program
Include family income as one criterion
Raise college grade point requirement for renewal
Raise credit hour requirement for renewal
Establish and freeze a flat rate for the scholarship
Lower the percentage of tuition and fees covered by the program

POWERBALL AND THE LOTTERY
Multistate Powerball in Florida starts this week with ticket sales beginning on Jan.4 and the first drawing on Jan. 7. Florida will be the 30th state to join along with the Virgin Islands and D.C.
Base jackpots will begin at $220 million and the average winning jackpot expected to come in at $141 million. (The odds of winning are 1 in 198 million vs. the current Florida lottery odds of 1 in 122 million)
Sales of the current lottery program have reduced by 7.5% since July. According to lottery officials, 40% of Powerball sales in Florida will go to the education system, 5% will be paid to retailers, and the rest will go to winners in the multistate program.

FCAT FIX
Last year, Legislators decided to ease the pressure of the FCAT on the grades given to Florida High Schools. It now seems that the fix has raised some concerns, especially among Florida Superintendents.
In a pilot program, State DOE officials have recalculated the grades given to High Schools last year, using the new system. One hundred twenty nine (129) High Schools would have dropped one letter grade. Twenty-four (24) would have improved. The number of schools identified as failing would have doubled.
We would expect to hear further reaction from the Legislature concerning this issue.
Bills of interest filed in the Florida Legislature are attached in a PDF