Released by the Florida Citizens’ Alliance —-
Open Letter to all Florida school districts, legislators and taxpayers:
As Constitutional Officers under the Florida Constitution, all Florida School Board Members are charged with the fiduciary responsibility to spend taxpayer money wisely and with great care. School superintendents, whether elected or appointed, share that same responsibility.
Given Governor DeSantis’s recent Executive Order19-32 to remove Common Core from our Next Generation Sunshine State Standards(NGSSS) and ensure we have high quality curriculum that “return to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic” , Florida Citizens Alliance urges every Florida school district to freeze all acquisition of instructional materials (textbooks, workbooks, pop culture novels, etc.) until Commissioner Corcoran, the Florida Dept. of Education, Governor DeSantis and Legislature complete the work of Executive Order 19-32. To do otherwise is fiscally irresponsible.
In 2012-13 the US Department of Education gave Pearson, PLC a $350 million grant to make their instructional materials Common Core compliant. McGraw Hill, Houghton and others followed suit. Florida schools have been buying Common Core compliant textbooks and related pop culture novels for the past 6 years. Once acquired, these materials live in school systems for at least 5-8 more years.
Now that we are serious about removing Common Core and using the highest quality curriculum, it is not only wasteful of taxpayer dollars but counter-productive to student learning for school districts to purchase materials that will soon be obsolete. Why spend money on unacceptable materials that will live in our schools for another 5-8 years and undermine the objective of Executive Order 19-32?
None of us would purchase a car that we expected to be obsolete in a year, would remain in our garage for 5 years and be unusable. Why expect our students to use obsolete materials?
To demonstrate your fiduciary credibility with your community of students, parents, grandparents, businesses and teachers, we call on each Florida school district to voluntarily freeze all instructional materials purchases, effective immediately.
If school districts are unwilling to voluntarily refrain from purchasing soon-to-be obsolete materials, we call on Governor DeSantis, State Board of Education, Commissioner of Education and the Florida Legislature to take immediate action to freeze all such acquisitions until the work of Executive Order 19-32 is complete. This will protect students from obsolete materials and save taxpayer dollars.
On behalf of Florida Citizens Alliance, our 50,000+ supporters and all taxpayers,
Keith Flaugh and Pastor Rick Stevens,
Managing Directors of Florida Citizens Alliance
ABOUT Florida Citizens
The Florida Citizens’ Alliance (FLCA) is a coalition of citizens and grassroots groups working together through education, outreach and community involvement to advance the ideals and principles of liberty. We believe these include but are not limited to individual rights, free markets, and limited government. Parental choice, competition and innovation are the only way forward to unleash the learning potential of each child.