Activists & Education Liberty Watch Combine to Stop Florida Data Mining Bill

Education Liberty Watch was honored to be able to join with what has now become The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition to defeat Florida’s very invasive Common Core linked data collection/data mining bill SB 878, (See Dr. Karen Effrem’s analysis and correspondence with Florida legislators here, here, and here).  Here is the end of session update written by the Florida group’s lobbyist, Randy Osborne:

A BATTLE WON!

As we began this journey several weeks ago, many bills had been written already, many were out of committee, and some were days from being passed into law.  Our goals were simply to slow down the implementation of Common Core and to stop the intrusive data-mining between the State and the Federal Government.  Through your help and by the grace of God, we were able to accomplish both of these goals.

The following is an update of bills that we have been fighting:

Senate Bill 878- A bill sponsored by Senator Galvano was a very intrusive bill that would have connected over 400 data points with the federal government.  Though we were able to get a portion of the language out of the bill such as religious and political affiliation as well as a few other points, we were not able to get the bill completely stopped.  The Senate unanimously passed this bill, sent it to the House which, again, unanimously passed it with a small amendment.  Through the tireless efforts of our supporters, the bill died in committee.  Frankly, for a bill to die, having moved this far through the process, is very unlikely.  In fact, we were concerned that the language was placed in another bill not related to education.  After the tedious analysis of thousands of pages of legislation and the end of session, we knew the bill indeed had died.

House Bills such as 7027 and 7057 also died which had similar language to SB878.

Senate Bill 1630’s language was moved into another bill and was passed.  This bill requires technological load testing of systems prior to implementation of Common Core.  In this good bill, sponsored by Senator Legg, we asked that there be language requiring a short and long term cost analysis of Common Core prior to implementation.  Though this language was not put in the bill, we believe that we will be able to get this language into a bill in next year’s session.

Make no mistake – we have won a battle but the war is still raging and Common Core proponents are working hard to stop our coalition.  We must not let them win!  Our children’s and our nation’s futures are at stake!

The following is our course of action:
•    Educate – We must educate the voters, parents, teachers, school board members, and our politicians. We are currently developing a plan to create a state-wide effort to accomplish this task.
•    Engage – We must expand our statewide coalition to build a force of citizens to hold our elected officials accountable to stop Common Core.