100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future, by Marco Rubio: on Education
Marco Rubio:
Incentivize foreign language curriculum in elementary school
Preparing Our Students for the Global Marketplace- Ensure student mastery of the appropriate knowledge at each grade level by developing statewide end-of-course examinations to match new, more challenging standards
- Make Florida's Voluntary
Pre-Kindergarten Program a global model for school readiness
- Encourage trained and certified curriculum leaders in reading, math, and science, and in the new curricular standards in every school
- Provide strong incentives to identify gifted
elementary school children and require our elementary schools to allow these children to work at a suitably challenging academic level
- Provide our elementary school children with the advantages of learning a second language by encouraging
and incentivizing a foreign language curriculum in all elementary schools
- World-Class Teachers and Principals Make World-Class Schools
- Pay teachers and principals based on performance and merit
Source: 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future by Marco Rubio
Nov 1, 2006
Marco Rubio:
Prepare students for the Global Marketplace
Preparing Our Students for the Global Marketplace (College)- Create career academies and career training programs that allow students to become industry certified in a technical field, both as part of and after their high school education
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Ensure the full implementation of policies relating to credit transfers, the expansion of articulation policies, and the elimination of any unnecessary barriers or impediments to postsecondary students
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Make public funding of universities contingent on university performance and outcomes
- Develop strategic fiscal policies that address the scope of each program for which state universities and community colleges will receive state support
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Commit to having a Top 10 public university in Florida
- Encourage collaboration among universities, businesses, education colleges, and specialty public-private partnerships to provide excellent principal preparation programs
Source: 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future by Marco Rubio
Nov 1, 2006
Marco Rubio:
More options for student and parent choice in education
Empowering Parents and Students- Continue to add options for student and parent choice in education
- Increase virtual schooling
- Identify professions in high demand that are currently experiencing shortages and provide incentives for students
to remain in Florida and enter these professions
- Provide voters with the option of dividing large school districts into smaller districts
- Create and fund an Inspector General or other watchdog to track specific incidents of fraud,
waste, and abuse that occur each year in Florida public schools
- Require all schools that accept state funds, including community colleges and universities, to send parents annual notices delineating school content, performance, and spending
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Provide incentives to create innovative public-private partnerships that will expand after-school programs
- Pursue public-private partnerships to provide classroom construction, leasing, maintenance, and school services
Source: 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future by Marco Rubio
Nov 1, 2006
Marco Rubio:
2+2 System: AA degree guarantees admission to university
Florida has attempted to control costs and expand access to postsecondary education in many ways. Florida's open admissions policy provides high school students access to the state's community colleges.
Florida facilitates the transition of students from secondary to postsecondary education--that is, from high school to a career center or on to a state university.
Florida's 2+2 system promotes our public community colleges as the primary point of entry for an undergraduate education, while the statewide articulation agreement guarantees community college graduates who receive an associate of arts degree admission
to a state university. By providing many student with affordable access to an undergraduate education, the 2+2 policy reduces the enrollment pressures on state universities for the first two years of an undergraduate program.
Source: 100 Innovative Ideas, by Marco Rubio, p. 23-24
Nov 1, 2006
Marco Rubio:
Integrate competition principles into education marketplace
Problem: Florida needs to further integrate the principles of freedom, competition, and choice into the education marketplace.Parental involvement is at the heart of education.
Parents know their children best, love them most, and are in the best position to know if a school is successfully teaching their children. Consequently, parents should have the means and ability to influence their children's education.
Source: 100 Innovative Ideas, by Marco Rubio, p. 36
Nov 1, 2006
Marco Rubio:
$4,500 voucher saves state $10,000 in per-student cost
Florida's school choice programs are comprehensive yet simple. Florida stands out partly because some of its choice programs are unique, but mainly because Florida simultaneously offers multiple programs. Each program is relatively pure, in that sense of
being designed around a particular, classic vision of school choice. In short, Florida offers a tapestry of school choice programs, and the success of the state's choice initiatives depends on this tapestry approach to coverage.Vito Fossella (R-NY)
introduced a House bill to create a federal tax credit of $4,500 per family to offset the cost of private or parochial school tuition. Florida school districts, meanwhile, receive about $10,000 per student enrolled in a public school. That is why school
choice means more money for education without raising the tax burden.
Thus the answer to Florida's education woes is not more spending but smarter spending. Success is not defined by per student spending or classroom size but by learning outcomes.
Source: 100 Innovative Ideas, by Marco Rubio, p. 37
Nov 1, 2006
Marco Rubio:
Private partnerships for provision of school services
Private sector efficiency can build schools in a fraction of the time while still ensuring safety and quality. Putting companies that specialize in construction in charge of building schools, rather than school boards that lack the expertise and technica
acumen of general contractors, makes sense.Public-private partnerships could also be extended to the provision of other school services. Privatizing school services such as transportation in numerous states, including Illinois and
Alabama, resulted in substantial savings and improves service quality. A 1998 study by Florida's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability found that privatized school transportation could save Florida over $13 million annually.
Another are to examine for public-private partnerships is school provision of cafeteria food. In sum, public-private partnerships will enable schools to free up money for other educational uses.
Source: 100 Innovative Ideas, by Marco Rubio, p. 47
Nov 1, 2006
Marco Rubio:
A+ Plan for Education: charters and choice
In 1999, we rocked Florida's K-12 education world by enacting the "A+ plan for education," a bold and revolutionary program based on high standards and expectations, clear measurement and accountability, and rewards and consequences for results.
This was only our starting point, and since then we have embarked on the largest effort of all fifty states to implement policies, practices, and finding initiatives to improve classroom reading abilities.
We significantly expanded education choice options by way of charter schools, virtual schools, and path-breaking scholarship programs.
We have accomplished so much, but there is still more to be done.
Source: 100 Innovative Ideas, by Marco Rubio, p. 8-9
Nov 1, 2006
Noam Chomsky:
Education must provide opportunities for self-fulfillment
Noam Chomsky said, "Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way." Problem:
Florida needs to further integrate the principles of freedom, competition, and choice into the education marketplace.
Parents know their children best. Consequently, parents should have the means and ability to influence their children's education.
Source: 100 Innovative Ideas, by Marco Rubio, p. 36
Nov 1, 2006
Vito Fossella:
$4,500 to offset tuition at private or parochial school
Vito Fossella (R-NY) introduced a House bill to create a federal tax credit of $4,500 per family to offset the cost of private or parochial school tuition. In Florida a student qualifying for school choice would receive less than $3,500.
Nationally, the amount provided to parents to cover some form of private education ranges between $3,000 and $4,500. Florida school districts, meanwhile, receive about $10,000 per student enrolled in a public school.
That is why school choice means more money for education without raising the tax burden. Moreover, schools perform better when they are subject to competition and choice.Thus the answer to
Florida's education woes is not more spending but smarter spending. Success is not defined by per student spending or classroom size but by learning outcomes.
Source: 100 Innovative Ideas, by Marco Rubio, p. 37
Nov 1, 2006
Page last updated: Nov 29, 2018