We think: Legislators sleep as the education funding crisis deepens

March 20, 2009

The news that Orange County's school system was going to be nearly a quarter-billion dollars in the hole arrived Wednesday like a thunderclap.

School officials, looking a little stunned themselves, laid out the grim scenario, which nearly doubles the deficit figure they had been working against for months.

Suddenly the prospect of laying off maybe 700 teachers out of the 12,000-teacher work force has turned into layoffs of 1,000 or more. Front-office administrative cuts could go from 100 to 200. Deans. Guidance counselors. Curriculum experts. All are more vulnerable now.

Some people have pointed an accusing finger at Superintendent Ron Blocker because he hadn't anticipated such a deep cut much earlier.

Only they have the wrong villain.

This mess is due partly to the economy but also to a state government that has never taken public education very seriously. Florida has long been mired in the bottom tier of states in how much money it spends per pupil on education.

What's happening right now perfectly illustrates why that is.

Many legislators won't even consider raising Florida's cigarette tax, which, like education spending, is among the nation's lowest tax rates for a pack of smokes. Many don't want to talk about ending even the craziest sales-tax exemptions. What about taxing Internet sales?

Don't look to the governor for leadership on this issue. Charlie Crist snuck out of Tallahassee on Wednesday when hundreds of students, parents and teachers rallied on the Capitol steps to demand more support for education.

Mr. Crist showed up in Jacksonville where, asked about a proposal to increase the sales tax by a penny to support education, dismissively responded, "I don't like that. I don't like taxes."

Thanks for clearing that up, governor. Neither do we. Maybe a higher sales tax isn't the way, but what would he suggest, aside from some chump change out of a gambling compact with the Seminole Indians? Or hoping for federal bailout money that may or may not come, and certainly will have plenty of federal strings attached if it does?

We wonder to whom Mr. Crist owes his loyalty: Florida's schoolchildren or Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader who in an opinion column recently reminded Mr. Crist and 30 Republican state legislators that they've signed a pledge to never increase taxes. ...
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