Governor candidates promote different education agendas
is a key issue for Florida voters who will pick the state’s next governor, and the two candidates offer starkly different plans.
Republican Ron DeSantis, a former congressman from northwest Florida, wants to continue many of the GOP school reform plans pushed by state leaders for the past two decades. Those policies — including standardized testing, school grades and private-school vouchers — have led to improved academic achievement for students and more choices for Florida families, his campaign says.
“We’ll work very hard to provide a great education for everybody here in Florida,” DeSantis said, speaking to supporters in Orlando after he won the August GOP primary.
Democrat Andrew Gillum, Tallahassee’s mayor, wants to end those policies, which he says have been a failure, leading to an overreliance on high-stakes testing and the “demonizing” of Florida’s teachers. He wants to “rebuild Florida’s education system” — but on a model that values public schools and views them as “path for equal opportunity.”
Public teachers “who told me I could when I thought I couldn’t” propelled him to suc
— he is the first in his family to finish high school and then college — he told his supporters after his primary win.
Voters, who go to the polls Nov. 6, listed the economy as their top issue in the governor’s race, but education was second, tied with health care and immigration, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released in late September.
Education spending
Public school leaders across Florida have been frustrated by what they say is paltry state funding. With inflation factored in, the state’s share of school money has decreased in the past decade, they say, even as the economy has improved. Florida’s budget for this academic year provides, on average, only 47 cents more per student in basic operating funds than last year.
DeSantis wants to put more money in Florida classrooms by reducing “bureaucracy and bloat” in Florida school districts and in the Florida Department of Education, an agency overseen by Republican leaders since 1998. He has not offered specifics, however. The money saved could then go to pay “meritpay bonuses” to top-performing teachers, he says.
He also would require districts to devote 80 percent of their money to classrooms. That’s a standard at least some districts already meet. In its current budget book, for example, the Seminole County school district says 82 percent of its money goes to “instruction and direct school expenses.”
Gillum calls DeSantis’ plan a “cheap date” that would shortchange public schools.
His proposal is for a $1 billion hike in public school spending, funded in part by increasing the state corporate income tax rate from 5.5 percent to 7.75 percent.
That would help boost teacher salaries and bump up starting pay for teachers to $50,000, he says. Last year, the average Florida teacher — with more than 11 years of experience — earned a little more than $48,000. Starting pay varies by district, but it is about $40,000 in Central Florida school districts.
The money raised by the corporate tax hike would also boost other education programs, including earlychildhood efforts and school construction, Gillum’s campaign says.
With the Florida Legislature expected to remain in Republican control, Gillum would face challenges shepherding his tax proposal into law. But Gillum’s campaign said some GOP lawmakers, in the face of a growing teacher shortage, will compromise.
“I think Republicans are going to see that …if we don’t change something, we’ve got a growing public education crisis,” said Chris King, Gillum’s running mate, at a teachers union conference in Orlando earlier this month.
DeSantis calls Gillum’s tax proposal “counterproductive,” one that would discourage businesses from relocating to Florida and hurt the state’s economy.
Those views were a selling point for Bill Mathias, a Lake County School Board member and Republican, who plans to vote for DeSantis.
Mathias, who owns a food service equipment company, said he disagrees with Gillum’s proposal to raise the corporate sales tax, even as he wishes state lawmakers would provide more funding for public schools.
“There’s nothing more Republican than investing in our greatest asset, which is our kids,” he added.
School choice
A centerpiece of DeSantis’ education proposals is support and expansion of state-sponsored scholarships, or vouchers, that pay for children to attend private schools. More than 140,000 Florida students from low-income families or with disabilities use these scholarships, at a cost of nearly $1 billion.
Advocates say they give needed options to youngsters whose parents are unhappy with their assigned public school.
“I will protect these scholarships. I will stand with those families,” DeSantis said while visiting a private school in Boca Raton where about a quarter of students use vouchers.
He called his support for such school-choice programs “an important distinccess tion in the race” and noted the state’s largest voucher program, the Florida Tax Credit scholarship, saves the state money. The scholarship is valued at up to $7,111 per student, less than the average of $7,408 spent per public school student.
Gillum has said he wants to bring voucher programs “to a conclusion,” which his campaign clarified to mean that he wants to “stop the flow of taxpayer dollars away from public schools” and seek more accountability for the scholarships that remain in place.
An Orlando Sentinel investigation last year documented problems with some of the schools that take vouchers, including campuses that hired teachers without degrees and with criminal records, forged fire and health inspection forms, and faced eviction midyear because they failed to pay their bills.
Winter Park parent Heather Mellet said Gillum’s election could not quickly end the GOP programs she dislikes, including school vouchers that send students and public money to unregulated private schools. But Mellet, a Democrat, said Gillum could “veto some of the bad policy” and start to push back against two-decadeold Republican education measures.
“Nothing’s going to make a bigger impact than this governor’s race right now,” Mellet said.
But Cesar Jaramillo, who lives in MetroWest, will vote for DeSantis in part because of his support for Florida’s scholarship programs, which he said have made a difference to his 11-year-old daughter, Suri, who has special needs and uses a voucher to attend a private school in Ocoee.
She struggled in crowded public school classrooms, where students and teachers sometimes embarrassed her, said Jaramillo, a Republican. She’s almost caught up with her peers now.
“She’s really excelling in her studies, but it wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for this scholarship,” he added.
Common Core
Removing Common Core — academic standards that spell out what students should learn in language arts and math classes — from Florida schools also is a top priority of DeSantis.
The issue is not part of Gillum’s platform.
Common Core standards, controversial even as 45 states adopted them, were pushed by advocates as a way to help students learn more and graduate better prepared for college. But critics feared the standards backed by the Obama administration represented a federal intrusion into public education and would lead to an increase in highstakes testing, among other problems.
Some GOP leaders rallied against them, but Florida adopted the standards twice, first in 2010 and then again in 2014, both times with the support of Republican governors.
Education Commissioner Pam Stewart credited the standards with making Florida one of the few states where students made gains on national math and reading tests last year.
DeSantis has praised those academic achievements — but criticized the standards.
His Common Core opposition helped him win the primary election by galvanizing those with similar views, said Karen Effrem, executive director of the Florida Stop Common Core • • • Coalition, who plans to vote for him in the general election.
Dislike of Common Core cuts across party lines, she said, but she also worries it likely won’t be as much of an issue as school budget cuts, which upset parents blame on Florida’s GOP leadership.
“There are many in the public school sector who hate Common Core but also don’t want funding for their schools to be undermined,” said Effrem, who lives in Charlotte County, where her youngest child attends a public high school.
Early childhood and higher education
Gillum wants to expand Florida’s school readiness program, which provides child-care assistance for low-income families, and boost participation in Florida’s Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten program, which offers free preschool to 4-year-olds.
DeSantis does not mention early-childhood programs in his platform.
Parent LaWanda Thompson, whose two youngest children are in elementary school in Orlando and whose oldest is a student at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, said she is supporting Gillum in part because he’s pushed for more funding for preschool programs — and debt-free college educations.
“Education issues are my number one concern,” she added.
Gillum wants to make college “debt free,” though he hasn’t spelled out how he would do that, and his campaign did not respond to a request for more details. He also wants to make college education free for Florida students who commit to teaching in the state’s public schools for four years.
DeSantis wants to increase performance funding for state colleges and universities, which rewards schools based on data like graduation rates and alumni wages but doesn’t mean all the institutions get money. He also wants to “keep tuition as low as possible” and hold higher-education institutes “accountable for wasteful and inappropriate spending.”