Freaking Florida

I am really alarmed with Florida recently.

Our governor is a crook. And I don't just mean as a politician, homeboy is a criminal and I'd think the same thing if he was a member of my political party.  He was CEO of a company that was charged with 14 felonies and agreed to a $600 million fine for Medicare fraud. He frequently endorses policies that benefit a $62 million investment he still has (in his wife's name, he claims this makes it not a conflict of interest....). He wants state employees to start being drug tested--fine, but he happens to own a chain of businesses that do drug testing and this would cost tax payers $23.5 million a year. Yet he just made deep cuts to programs that benefit the severely disabled because we can't afford them.

We have legislators that can't bring themselves to say or hear the word "uterus" but feel obliged to make decisions about other people's.

We are trying to base teacher pay on student performance. The same teachers we force to deal with teaching to the FCAT standardized tests. The same teachers who have already had their salaries and budgets cut repeatedly. In theory it's a fine idea, but I'd like to see some of these politicians volunteer in the classroom before making this decision. There are at least 3 kids in Big Kid's class that if my pay was based on their performance, I'd be praying nightly for their disappearance.

The FCAT is destroying education, by the way. Big Kid, who has a deep love of learning and has always loved school, is sick to his stomach every Sunday night because he dreads going to school and doing worksheets all of the time. They are little form-filling factories--it is boring and stupid and I don't blame him for hating it. It's sad. His teacher hates it too and fondly remembers the days they had time for science experiments and projects in class. Big Kid will do great on the FCAT, but he'll probably hate school forever now.

I could go on...and on...and on. I have been seriously considering and researching moving. I just need to figure out if I could live without our beaches (and I need to convince Mr. Ashley, I guess.)