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Legislative Update
March 21, 2007
Former Governor Bob Graham and former Florida Congressman Lou Frey were gave key and decisive testimony before the Senate Education Committee today. Senate Education Committee Chair Don Gaetz has filed S1234 which addresses a number of key recommendations from the white paper "Enlisting A New Generation of Florida Citizens" endorsed by both Florida statesmen above. Indications are from Bob Bedford, FCSS/FASSS lobbyist, that the bill was passed unanimously by the committee. (I've just checked ONLINE SUNSHINE and have confirmed this, but the revised bill itself is not yet online.) S1234 calls for the establishment of a Florida Strategic Center for Civic Education, inclusion of Civics on FCAT, and several other items. The Governor has committed to fully funding the measure. FCSS & FASSS will, of course, be studying the bill for ways to secure assessment of all the social studies Sunshine State Standards. House Education Committee Chair Joe Pickens will be visited by Bob Bedford tomorrow and is expected to file a similar bill within days. It seems that with Graham, Frey and Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis championing our cause, we may finally be blessed with victory in the state legislature this year. Since the 1980s our organizations have favored taking Florida out of the educational "dark ages" with regard to historical and civic knowledge. This may finally happen. Members are still in a holding position until leadership can analyze S1234 and hear the status of the House bill.
LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
March 15, 2007
The Legislature has filed a bill to establish "a World-Class Sunshine State Standards Advisory Council comprised of outstanding Florida teachers" to oversee the establishment of world class curriculum standards for Florida's public schools. The legislative committee has reviewed the bill and is supportive of its intent. We would hope that one or more of the teachers on the Council will have social studies teaching experience that that the established timeline for the development of standards in our area will be realistic. Mr. Bedford advises us that former Governor Bob Graham is scheduled to testify before the Senate Education Committee on March 21st. We are hopeful that the committee will heed his recommendations and that we will see something in bill language very soon. More to follow on this next week.
In the meantime, on the national level the fight to fund Geographic Literacy is heating up once again. Over the past two years, two bills have been filed to ensure that -- while history and civics seem to be generating headlines and attracting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding -- Geography does not suffer or become forgotten. Unfortunately, H.R. 5519 and S. 1376 have been languishing in education committees for some time and we haven't seen much press on that. Senators Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Christopher Dodd (D-CT) have apparently re-introduced on March 1, 2007 the Teaching Geography Is Fundamental Act, which authorizes competitive grants through the Department of Education to improve K-12 geography curriculum, teacher training, and instructional materials.
The bill, which was originally introduced by Cochran earlier in the 109th Congress, and co-sponsored by Dodd, focuses on providing educators with the tools they need to improve geography literacy and educating teachers about better ways to communicate the importance of geography to their students. It calls for a $15 million appropriation from Congress. FCSS urges NCSS and related social studies groups and organizations to lobby for passage of the measure.
A recent press release from Sen. Cochran's office and the text of both measures are attached. Knowing that the NAEP reform bill gathered little attention in Congress despite the testimony of David McCullough, I don't think we can be optimistic about the Geography bills. (I'm not aware of any 'aggressive' national campaign by anyone to fight for this measure, is anyone else?)
Stay tuned for more on the Florida campaign to save our civic and historical heritage next week!
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