Florida Education: Community Involvement

This is a lot easier said than done. One of the most difficult and dangerous afflictions to our society is apathy. Apathy in politics has polarized us to the point of moving backwards. Apathy in our communities prevents us from enjoying the inherent resources of our surroundings. I have long said when we solve the problem of apathy the wrinkles of politics will go away. Education policy is politics in its most contemporary understanding. It is filled with special interests and bureaucratic strangle holds on power. One of the biggest deterrents to businesses getting involved with local educational efforts is the old adage that "No good deed goes unpunished." Stepping up to help out can open up unexpected consequences and liabilities. The other major obstacle to individuals getting involved is the lack of communication and reception of public input and ideas. Perhaps the most divisive and off-putting practice is our conditioning that public education is the only game in town. The natural occurrence is to split the people that are pre-disposed to being active and involved into several small competing, not cooperating groups. In a wholly market scenario this would preferable, but involving public education into the mix prohibits a market approach. Government is not a business and does not always have to subscribe to the same habits or practice. For compulsory public education we need to be thinking more utilitarian and strive to achieve the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. This means we need to make allies not enemies of the public and private schooling opportunities.

Assuming we solve some of the communication problems pointed out in Part II, informing the community should be a matter of process and PR. The real work is providing the open collaboration to actually accomplish the goals of providing higher quality learning to our students.

One area that I have grown to realize that I was relatively unaware or uninformed in is home schooling. This pseudo public/private education arena is one that has received lots of criticism and little accolades for the activity and programs it entails. Home schooling is fast becoming the economic preference to the perceived lack of quality in public schools. One of the myths that I clung to concerned quality and standards or accountability. Then I saw Orange county comparisons and realized that people are doing this out of fear for their children's futures. They (the parents) have already started to think cooperatively instead of individually. Find a teacher that is out of work in a bad economy, get a small group together and all of sudden you have a win/win. A teacher is making money and small groups of kids are getting focused attention.

Private schools and home schooling siphons off a great deal of responsibility from the public education system. Why has such an animosity between the three groups grown to a point that reminds me of partisan politics? The answer of course is not new. It reoccurs with almost every policy arena - money.

Realizing that we are never going to remove money as the universal answer to all problems and solutions to politics, we must utilize it as the constant and make it a tool instead of an obstacle.

Money, just as it currently is our burden can be leveraged as the saving tool. It can be the constant that brings the community back together with a common focus on providing meaningful education for our future. Utilize money from the private business community through incentives to help equalize the perceived differences between public, private, and home school and the competition can be shifted from finding money to finding academic achievement. Creative interaction/competition between the different educational entities can create community events that produce advertising possibilities that drive businesses to want/need to be involved. Community debates, brain bowls, spelling bees, etc. sponsored by local business and participated in by private vs. home school vs. public kids could really help with political apathy and create economic incentives for involvement.

Vouchers or similar systems must be maintained to allow for reasonable choice not based on economic availability. Individuals that choose to spend the cost of private institutions should receive some reasonable break on property taxes that fund schools. The lottery should be used for what it was originally sold to the public as - a never ending funding source for education. Businesses should be further allowed and encouraged to be involved with sponsorship of educational needs for all types of students. Coexisting with alternative sources of education to relieve the burden on public schools is a natural common sense approach and it creates more opportunity or paths for community involvement in the overall education of our public.

One of my future constituents from Scottsmoor (thanks Tanya) provided some great starting points for research:

http://www.hslda.org/docs/study/ray2009/2009_Ray_StudyFINAL.pdf

http://www.nheri.org/Research-Facts-on-Homeschooling.html

http://www.homeschool-by-design.com/socialization.html

http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/FL/default.asp

Steve Edmonds is running for the Florida State Senate District 24. To find our more on Steve Edmonds and his stand on issues, visit him at www.edmonds4senate24.com.