An editorial in today's Treasure Coast newspapers points out that the "No. 8 in the nation" ranking from Education Week isn't quite what it seems to be. The magazine's report card for Florida looks good at first, but Florida is being "graded on the curve, and the competition isn’t too tough," the newspaper writes

While Education Week praises Florida for gains by poor students, and equal distribution of funds to school districts, the magazine didn't actually account for last year’s budget cuts, which capped off a decade-long trend of declining state support for schools.

The Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy also calls attention to our D-minus for student achievement (scores on national standardized tests), F for funding per student, and F for college readiness (the state’s high-school graduation rate is 45th in the country).

Read more by downloading the issue brief from the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy here.

This week, as part of the state's annual budget process, Gov. Charlie Crist released his proposal for paying for the state's education system. To be clear, we don't like it. Read more in today's Lakeland Ledger.

In Florida, the state budget process starts with the governor releasing his proposal, then the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate release their proposals, then they work out their differences over the course of a 60-day legislative session starting in March. It's a process that has been responsible for Florida's decade-long trend of reducing state support for education, and this year doesn't promise much better.

Gov. Charlie Crist released his plan for education funding this week, and it includes another withdrawal from an investment fund that was intended to pay for services to help children and elderly residents. That means we can get a little extra money this year, but in future years there won't be as much income from the investment fund. We call that selling off our kids future. There's also a proposal to expand gambling, which won't help our children either. Here's what Bud Chiles had to say about it this week:

“There’s a culture in Tallahassee that says it’s OK to sell off our state’s future in exchange for short-term political gain, and Charlie Crist’s budget exemplifies it. I hope that lawmakers find a better way to support children and the elderly than selling off the last of their savings and buying into gambling. It’s no wonder that the people of Florida have lost trust in their elected leaders. There are only so many promises you can break before people start to wake up to the truth of what’s happening. Charlie Crist has proposed yet another corporate benefit using funds that were supposed to be a permanent endowment for the needs of our state’s children and elderly.”

The Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund was created for the people of Florida in 1999 with money from Florida’s tobacco settlement. The funds were to provide a perpetual resource for enhanced funding of children’s health programs, child welfare programs, children’s health and human services initiatives, elder programs and biomedical research. The money was invested in order to generate income, and formerly produced from about $100 million to $50 million in state revenue annually.

In 2008, Gov. Charlie Crist convinced legislators and children’s advocates to allow a withdrawal of more than $350 million from the endowment to meet a budget shortfall, then surprised advocates with a second raid on the fund that led to an additional $700 million withdrawal in 2009.

Top education officials in Florida are acknowledging that the FCAT has not worked in improving the college-readiness of Florida's high school graduates, but it remains to be seen whether legislative leaders will devote the resources necessary to improve things.

In a story published in the Tampa Tribune, Frances Haithcock, state chancellor of K-12 public schools, said that a high school diploma in Florida prepares students for little more than remedial education in college.

There's a movement toward phasing out the FCAT, at least at the high school level, but getting Florida from Worst To First is going to take more work than just phasing out a failed policy.

Unless Florida invests serious financial resources to improving education now -- adding classes, funding quality afterschool programs, and improving a broad-based curriculum for students at all grade levels -- our leaders are at risk of failing another generation of children.

It's clear from the news coming out of Tallahassee that Florida's parents and students are paying for failure -- remedial education to make up the gaps in what we provide for in our high schools. It's not clear whether that means the Legislature will begin investing in success.

The kids from Orlando Day Nursery join Bud on his walk.

From Sunday’s Orlando Sentinel, reporter Kate Santich caught up with Bud as we walked in Orlando on Thursday last week and wrote up some of her interview. On Friday, Bud walked a few miles on the road from Lake Alfred to Winter Haven, chatting a little with The Lakeland Ledger while he was in Polk County, then headed over to the WEDU studios to tape an episode of “Florida This Week” with Rob Lorei.

We appreciate the good discussion of Florida’s indicators, because public awareness is the first step to inspiring action to change things.

“We are 50 out of 50 states in our per-capita funding for education. We are second-worst [nationally] in the percentage of uninsured children,” Bud said in his interview. “And in any other indicator of well-being you want to look at, we're close to the bottom. … The only way you can fight what has been happening is by collective citizen action. And once people start coming together, you won't be able to stop them.”

You can read the rest of the Sentinel’s interview HERE.

Photo courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel.

A warm welcome from the United Way. Happy and healthy kids at the Orland Day Nursery. An energizing lunch discussion with children's services groups from the entire Central Florida Region. Some great media attention and public recognition for the people doing good work in the community.

That type of energy is what Worst To First set out to harness with One Million Steps For Florida Kids in 2009, and as we launched back into the final stages of the walk in 2010 we were happy to see our vision coming to life.

The Orlando Sentinel was there to cover us, so jump over to their website to see some of the photos (and special thanks to Sentinel photographer Joe Burbank, who shared with us his memories of Gov. Lawton Chiles' inauguration and the iconic photos he shot).

The Associated Press reports today that several mothers are testifying in a class action lawsuit this week that Florida doesn't give their children access to quality health care. In a state that ranks the second worst in the U.S. in kids without health insurance, the shocking number revealed by the lawsuit are that 390,000 children did not get a medical checkup in 2007 and more than 750,000 received no dental care.

Bud Chiles wrote about this issue recently in an op-ed published in Florida newspapers, along with the disturbing news that Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has chosen to defend the state's practice in court.

Florida's reimbursement rates are among the lowest in the country for doctors and dentists, so most won't accept Medicaid. There's a real human cost for what Florida's leaders decide is good enough for Medicaid patients.

According to the AP report, mother Rita Gorenflo says her 10-year-old son Thomas had to wait 16 months in 2005 for a back surgery to correct scoliosis that was affecting his left lung, an avoidable delay that worsened the curvature of his spine.

Another sad example of why Florida is among the worst states for children, and why our work is so important.

Worst To First will be in Orlando on Thursday, January 14, to walk with the Heart of Florida United Way and a group of children and educators in central Orlando. Please come out and walk with us, or just honk and wave if you see Bud out on the road.

We're starting the day early at 8 a.m., and the walk begins at Orange Ave. and S. Orlando Avenue. From there we'll walk about 4 miles south on Orlando Avenue and west on E. Colonial Drive to get to the Orlando Day Nursery.

We'll spend some time with the kids and meeting the staff, then take a short walk with them around Lake Dot. Hope we'll see you there.

A new state report urges the Legislature to expand oversight into child-abuse deaths and increase funding for Healthy Families Florida, a home visitation program aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect, but it's unlikely to get more money in 2010, according to a story in today's South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

While deaths resulting from child abuse spiked 23 percent in Florida, Broward County led the state with 26 child-abuse deaths in 2008, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
Florida has one of the highest child-death rates in the country, which officials attribute to better reporting procedures and a sinking economy. Part of the solution should be better education for parents, said the state's top child welfare official.

Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon told the Sun-Sentinel, "I think we've got to have a much more aggressive educational effort. What's happening right now is probably the biggest economic crisis this country has ever faced. You have a 25-year-old who lost his job, can't pay the rent, a 6-month-old crying in the middle of the night and you have a recipe for disaster."

An op-ed from Bud Chiles in today's Tallahassee Democrat questions why our state is in federal court fighting to limit the amount that Florida pays for medical care for uninsured children, especially considering the clear evidence that Florida's kids get inadequate care.

Federal law requires the state to provide Medicaid-eligible children with medical care as good as the care provided to children with private insurance. As more men and women in Florida lose their jobs and their benefits, more children are losing their coverage too.

It's a real problem, but Florida is especially stingy in what the state pays medical providers to care for uninsured kids, virtually guaranteeing they don't all get adequate care. You can read more about the lawsuit challenging the state at the Miami Herald.

Worst To First has found hope in the work being done in local communities to help. As Bud writes, "Health care providers are finding creative ways to bring care to the children who need it, instead of waiting for them to show up in the emergency room. Local communities are stepping up and filling in the coverage gaps where the state and federal governments can't or won't help. ...It has given me hope that we can accomplish real change in Florida, by demanding that our state leaders honor the values that our parents instilled in us. Looking out for your neighbors. Giving in times of need. Taking care of our children first. But we all need to get involved and raise our voices."

You can raise your voice by signing the Pledge For Florida's Children today, and asking a friend to do the same.