DeSantis’ unveils education plan

Gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis vows to cut costs, support school choice in platform.

TALLAHASSEE – Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis released his education platform Tuesday, vowing to cut administrative costs and put the savings into school choice programs and incentives to recruit and retain teachers.

The plan is in striking contrast to that of Andrew Gillum, his Democratic opponent, who wants to increase the corporate income tax rate to raise $1 billion to put into traditional public schools, including a pay raise for teachers.

DeSantis defended the school choice policies put in place by Republicans over the past 20 years since they won power in Tallahassee. His plan calls for expanding on those programs, including increasing the cap for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, which parents with eligible incomes may use to put their children in private schools. The current cap is $873.6 million, but it automatically increases 25 percent each year if demand is high enough.

“Twenty years ago, decades of taking a cookie-cutter approach to educating our diverse youth culminated in a systemic failure across Florida’s education system,” DeSantis said in a released statement. “The system’s refusal to innovate and change resulted in scores of Florida’s children being robbed of the opportunity to improve their future and maximize their opportunities through getting a high-quality education.”

Other parts of DeSantis’ plan would require that 80 percent of education spending go to the classroom with an audit of the Department of Education to look for areas to cut bureaucracy and administrative costs. He also wants to require local school districts to outline their spending in a public online database.

Some of those savings would be used to pay teachers bonuses based on merit and pad the pay of special needs teachers to address a teacher shortage. DeSantis also wants to “simplify and optimize” the state’s merit pay system that pays teachers based on student performance. DeSantis is also calling for a comprehensive review of curriculum standards, with an aim toward cutting out “Common Core” standards in Florida and ensuring that no bias exists in textbooks.

One area where DeSantis and Gillum agree is in vocational and technical education, which both want to expand. Gillum praised the plan of Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, whom DeSantis defeated in the GOP primary, to offer more courses for vocational training. DeSantis wants to expand apprenticeships.

The school-choice program is seen by supporters as a way to give low-income students a better education, but detractors have noted that private schools accepting the scholarships aren’t held to the same standards as public schools, and they argue it’s money that would otherwise go to public schools.

An Orlando Sentinel “Schools Without Rules” series in October highlighted problems with such programs, including some schools that falsified fire or health inspection documents, hired people with criminal backgrounds and without college degrees and set up shop in rundown buildings. The stories also detailed the Florida Department of Education’s failure to act in some cases, even after it was tipped off to problems at a school.

Gillum slammed DeSantis’ proposal as continuing the GOP platform of selling Florida as a “cheap date” while short-chang-

ing education that could provide high-skilled workers for businesses that pay workers better than the state’s mainstay tourism industry.

“We’re simply saying that we’ve got to invest in our next generation, that we’ve got to invest in our children,” Gillum told reporters Tuesday in Tallahassee. “I want this state to be measured by the investments that we make in kids, not into as many tax breaks as we can manage.”

Gillum’s plan is to increase the corporate income tax rate from 5.5 percent to 7.75 percent, generating $1 billion more in revenue and using the money to put starting teacher salaries at $50,000 per year and to pay for school construction.

Getting the tax increase through a Republican-controlled Legislature would be highly difficult, but even if it happened, Gillum’s plan could also be used to increase funding for the Tax Credit Scholarship. It’s funded by corporate income tax credits that companies pay, so a tax increase could mean more revenue for those programs, even though Gillum has criticized them as taking money away from the public school system.

Gillum said he’d work to make sure the Legislature doesn’t divert the money and dismissed the criticism that he’d cut back on programs that help low income and minority students.

“We’re trying to create opportunity for all kids,” Gillum said. “The public education system is a contract that exists between the government and its citizens. And regardless of where you come from, the color of your skin, what side of the track you grew up on that every one of our kids is guaranteed an equal opportunity to learn in the public education system.’’

Republicans bashed Gillum’s plan as a double whammy – a tax hike that would hurt companies and erode the education reforms of the past two decades.

“No matter how he tries to spin this, raising $1 billion in taxes would be a disaster for hard-working Florida families,” Meredith Beatrice, spokeswoman for the Republican Party of Florida, wrote in an email. “Gillum wants to hand over control to the teachers’ unions and put specials interests and bureaucrats ahead of students.”