{"id":21561,"date":"2014-03-05T07:00:33","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=21561"},"modified":"2014-03-05T10:58:18","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T15:58:18","slug":"three-questions-andy-ford-on-policy-priorities-for-florida-teachers-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2014\/03\/05\/three-questions-andy-ford-on-policy-priorities-for-florida-teachers-unions\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Questions: Andy Ford On Policy Priorities For Florida Teachers\u2019 Unions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his State of the State address on Tuesday, Gov. Rick Scott promoted his $18.8 billion budget for education.<\/p>\n

\"FEA<\/a>

NEA Public Relations\/flickr<\/p>

FEA President Andy Ford<\/p><\/div>\n

But if it were up to Florida Education Association president Andy Ford, there would be even more money going to Florida\u2019s public schools.<\/p>\n

The Florida Education Association is the state umbrella group for Florida teachers\u2019 unions. Before the legislative session began, Ford sat down with StateImpact Florida to talk about policy priorities this year.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/span>Where is FEA on the Common Core State Standards now?<\/b><\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/span>We support the standards and even the Florida version of the standards. We think those improvements were actually for the better. But we have some problems with the implementation. There hasn\u2019t been sufficient time put in place to move from one system to the other. We also don\u2019t have the resources to be able to make the transition. And we\u2019re just moving too quickly, we need to slow it down a little.<\/p>\n

This year teachers are teaching the standards. The test the kids are going to take is based on the old standards. So there\u2019s going to be some confusion there.<\/p>\n

As we approach the next school year, we\u2019re going to continue using the new standards. And we don\u2019t know what the test is yet because it hasn\u2019t been selected. So we don\u2019t know if it\u2019s going to be valid and reliable because they\u2019re not going to have time to field-test it.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/span>What are your legislative priorities this year?<\/b><\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/span>We\u2019re always looking at the budget and making sure there\u2019s enough money. What\u2019s proposed from the Governor doesn\u2019t get us back to the \u201807-\u201808 school year\u2014which was our high level before the economy went down.<\/p>\n

We are hoping we\u2019re going to hit the pause button on some of the high-stakes decisions made based on the testing. We hope the legislature will step up to the plate and give us a break. Not throw everything out\u2026 but let\u2019s have some time to actually get everything in place that makes sense. So that if a school has an A, we know it\u2019s earned that A. And if the school has an F we know that there are serious problems there.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/span>What do you anticipate will be the toughest things to get done?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/span>I think the pension issue<\/a> is also an obstacle. That\u2019s going to be one of the ones that we\u2019re going to focus on that will be very tough.<\/p>\n

The retirement security of public employees is extremely important\u2014and the system we have in place right now works. It\u2019s well funded. It performs well in good times and in bad times. At this point there\u2019s no reason to tinker with it. Some of the changes the legislature\u2019s talking about could put that plan in jeopardy. We have to try and stop that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his State of the State address on Tuesday, Gov. Rick Scott promoted his $18.8 billion budget for education. But if it were up to Florida Education Association president Andy Ford, there would be even more money going to Florida\u2019s public schools. The Florida Education Association is the state umbrella group for Florida teachers\u2019 unions. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[1036,1157,925],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21561"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21568,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21561\/revisions\/21568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}