Staff opinion: Starvation and the blame game

As Orange County Public Schools announced its 2013 teacher of the year, lawmakers at the state level were working on slashing the higher education budget, introducing a school prayer bill and voting on a set of bills that would pit teachers and parents against each other.

Currently making its way through the Legislature, House Bill 1191, called the “Parent Empowerment Act”, would give parents power to fire teachers, and House Bill 543, called the “Parental Involvement and Accountability in the Public Schools Bill”, lets teachers grade parents for their involvement.

Both of those bills would in effect allow parents and teachers, formerly allied in PTA programs, to tattle on each other to higher authorities rather than to communicate openly. Rather than fostering an environment of cooperation, it would put parents and teachers in opposing camps blaming each other for failing students.

As further diversion from solving the education problems plaguing the state, Senate Bill 98, now making its way through the house, would legalize “inspirational messages” at school events including, but not limited to, graduation ceremonies.

Funny thing about the term “inspirational messages”: they already exist at graduation ceremonies. They’re called commencement addresses. They happen every year at every high school in the country. So why would the state Senate, and now the House, spend more than six months working on a bill to legalize something that’s already legal?

A quick glance at the original language of the bill, filed in August, shows its original intent, legalizing organized prayer at public school events — about as close to an ACLU lawsuit waiting to happen as a bill can get. In the past four months that bill’s language has been watered down from allowing the formerly dubbed “prayers of invocation and benediction” (terms tied almost exclusively to Christianity) and rechristens them as “inspirational messages.”

If the bill passes as written, it still has the potential for causing a lawsuit for any school board that chooses to exercise its new right, though school officials would by law still be required to keep their hands off the organization of any prayer service. But if the school board were to lose a lawsuit against a student, the board would have to pay the legal fees.

That’s something few could afford these days, especially with schools suffering a net $1,381 loss in per-student funding in the last four years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Gov. Rick Scott’s proposed budget would add just $59 per student, though Senate and House versions would offer more.

If those students manage to graduate and hear their more religiously themed commencement address, they’ll be greeted by a higher education system that’s been stripped even further of state funding.

Even as college students are graduating with record levels of debt — three of the top five colleges in the nation for graduating debt-riddled students are in the Sunshine State — the Legislature is mulling cuts to higher education of more than 20 percent.

So let’s cheer our teacher of the year finalists and our winner, but let’s not forget that while they’re winning in the classroom, they may be fighting a losing battle at the state level. We need more focus on educating students and rewarding good teachers, not putting the education system on a permanent starvation diet while giving parents and teachers a venue to scapegoat each other.