If you’ve been wondering about what Florida’s Republican governors and legislature have been doing to public schools for the last 20 years, this will give you a good idea:

I especially like the background noise of the crowd cheering as that represents Florida’s voters well: they keep electing the same politicians who are hell-bent on destroying the schools they say are important and should be maintained.

Lately, the governor-elect Ron DeSantis interviewed three persons to be the new Education Commissioner, a position he does not directly appoint; the commissioner is hired by the State Board of Education.

Why is the governor-elect even interviewing people? It is not his choice.

But wait, this is the era of the neo-robber-barons, where laws and constitutions don’t matter.

DeSantis interviewed three people for the position, Pam Stewart and two others whose names I cannot now find via internet searches. I suppose that’s because the fix is in.

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/11/30/desantis-quietly-telling-education-leaders-corcoran-likely-next-commissioner-720589

Corcoran, the abusive House Speaker of the last two years, a self-styled Oliver Cromwell who will not honor a bipartisan agreement on an education bill, but will gut it to force his will upon an unwilling state, to put into place a new scheme for new charter schools.

A scheme, by the way, that died in committee as it could not find support for its own merits even among the charter-loving politicians in the Florida legislature. That is how HB 7069 came to pass.

One of the most, if not the most, powerful politicians in the state becoming Commissioner of Education? Answerable not to the governor, but the state board of education?

What a step-down.

Why would this happen?

Demolition Derby. The privatizers are ready to take down Florida’s public schools … forever.

No more nibbling around the edges of the cookie.

It’s time to crumble it and let the crumbs fall on the floor.

Arizona’s voters turned down a proposal (actually, a law passed by their legislature but Arizona can put laws on the ballot for a decision of the voters) to establish education savings accounts, whereby the money allocated for each child is turned over to parents to spend as they will with little to no oversight.

That’s what a Corcoran appointment will mean.

And did you know, Florida? We can’t put it on the ballot.

The endgame has started and Mozart is dead. No one is left to write the requiem mass.

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