It's the shame of Florida -- our state arrests and locks up more of its children than almost any other. We have the 4th highest juvenile arrest rates for violent crimes and the 4th highest percentage of teens who are incarcerated, more than 58 percent and 34 percent above the national average respectively.

Our state's politicians are responsible for making the problem worse, says Bud Chiles in an op-ed published this week in the Miami Herald and the St. Petersburg Times, Florida's largest and most respected newspapers.

We must demand better leadership in Florida -- we must find people who can see beyond shortsighted budget cuts and instead consider the impact of their decisions a generation from now, Bud writes.

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We left Tallahassee at six a.m. bound for Daytona, home of NASCAR and made famous by its beaches. I must say, our first stop of the day, The Chiles Academy, was one of the most inspiring visits we’ve had during our walk across Florida.

The Chiles Academy, a charter school for teenage mothers, provides an atmosphere that feels like a loving home; where order, peace, love, and instruction abound, and where teenage mothers can come to make sense of the confusion and complexity their new lives demand—caring for their babies and in some cases their other young ones as well.

The news that a group of concerned parents is suing the state of Florida for its failure to provide a high quality education system has met one important goal already -- people are talking about what's wrong in Florida, and how we can fix it. Here's a sampling of what a few of Florida's opinion leaders are saying:

The Gainesville Sun: "Something is wrong when our best and our brightest young people are receiving high school diplomas yet are not ready for college. What an indictment of our political leadership and of the FCAT culture they created." And more: "The action has been a long time coming. Maybe we missed it, but we don't think Florida has a constitutional mandate requiring lawmakers to keep taxes as low as possible at the expense of our children."

The Tallahassee Democrat: "Students drop out in frustration before they even enter high school; minority students are too often on the down side of the achievement gap, entering school unprepared to learn, and the digital divide exacerbates economic and social inequities that are irrefutable despite data manipulated to win political gold stars."

The Daytona Beach News-Journal: "Florida's poor performance on other key measures -- such as graduation rate -- demonstrate the folly of depending on standardized tests for definitive assessments of schools."

Gov. Chiles poses with the staff of The Chiles Academy.

All over Florida, Bud's walk of One Million Steps has taken us to places where Gov. Chiles' legacy of fighting for Florida's children is still strong. Thursday we were privileged to visit The Chiles Academy in Daytona Beach, a charter school that helps pregnant and parenting teens and their children.

Executive director and co-founder Anne Ferguson showed us around their new facility, which is a converted elementary school in the heart of one of Daytona Beach's poorest neighborhoods. The Chiles Academy is a stabilizing influence in the lives of the young women and their children, empowering them to become independent and responsible adults.

It was a thrill for all of us to walk into the front office and see, there on the wall, a picture of Bud's dad posing with the staff in front of the old portables that served as The Chiles Academy's first home.

You can look it up. The Florida Constitution says it is “a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders” and that the state shall provide “a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education …”

For the past decade the state Legislature has been ignoring its constitutional responsibilities, paying less for education while forcing costs on to local districts, lowering the state's contribution to education funding from 62 percent in 2001 to 45 percent this year.

Enough is enough, says a group suing the Legislature and Board of Education for their failure to support education. The lawsuit, which you can download here, says they've failed to meet the constitutional requirements. The plaintiffs, whose attorneys include former Democratic House Speaker Jon Mills, Republican E. Thom Rumberger and members of Southern Legal Counsel, want state leaders to create a "remedial plan" for fulfilling their constitutional obligations.

"I hope it's a catalyst for change," Rumberger told the Orlando Sentinel. "Maybe we can get a clear ruling from an impartial court, this is what it is."

If you're feeling inspired today -- even a little -- please take a moment to share that inspiration with your friends by sending them the Pledge For Florida's Children.

Last week, Bud had a chance to visit with St. Petersburg Times metro columnist Howard Troxler, who wrote up a column on their talk for the weekend edition. After their talk, Bud made a quick drive over the Howard Frankland Bridge to do a live radio show with WMNF's RadioActivity host Rob Lorei. You can listen to the podcast here. Still to come, Bud taped an episode of Political Connections at Bay News 9 to air at a future date, and Florida Magazine is working on a story as well.

During their interview, Troxler asked Bud what he hoped to accomplish by walking One Million Steps. Bud replied that the goal is to raise public awareness and to remind Florida that there is a common good and a nobility to advocating that good.

"Who," he asked rhetorically about the current crop of state politicians, "is inspiring? Who is being inspired?"

How we answer is up to you.

At Worst To First, we have a simple philosophy for helping Florida's kids: Invest in success instead of paying for failure. This week the entire country was reminded of Florida's failure to invest in children when the U.S. Supreme Court heard appeals in two Florida juvenile cases that resulted in life sentences.

Florida leads the nation in life sentences for minors who committed crimes in which no one died. Reporting by the St. Petersburg Times reveals that Florida sends more children to adult jails and prisons than other states because state laws make it easy for prosecutors to pull young offenders out of the juvenile justice system. Sadly, that's not surprising in a state that ranks last in per capita spending on education, but 16th in per capita spending on corrections.

Florida has some bright spots, however. Miami-Dade County is considered a model for the way it delivers services to first-time offenders based on their needs rather than their crimes. The Lawton Chiles Foundation's Worst To First effort is inspiring Floridians to improve the state's performance along a wide range of indicators, because we know that investing in healthy children is wiser than paying for broken adults.

We can invest in increasing high school graduation rates, reducing teen birth rates, and providing quality child care for working families, because we know that these will help children become stronger adults.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), it is estimated that only one in three Palm Beach County students graduates with a regular diploma on time, a statistic that is well below national and state averages. The ACLU reasons that if this is the case in Palm Beach County, the state is failing to provide an adequate education to its students; something Florida's Constitution explicitly promises.

In every community we visit, we get a chance to talk with the people working every day to help Florida's kids get off to a strong start in life, no matter their economic circumstances. In Jacksonville we were fortunate to spend some time learning about the work being done in the downtown area at the Salvation Army Child Development Center and Community Connections of Jacksonville.

Watch the video here to see some great interviews with people making a difference in improving the lives of Florida's kids -- Kristin Smith, director of the Salvation Army Child Development Center; Kathy Ingram, director of community initiatives at Nemours BrightStart! and Latwanda Smith, director of child care at Community Connections.