Florida and Democracy

Anyone ever heard of the lass size amendment? It restricted the sie of classrooms so that one teacher wasn't lumped in with 40 or 50 students to teach at once, causing any number of difficulties including but not limited to one kid acting out taking time out of the class so that if the other students had questions, good luck getting them answered, and just even more basic than that is getting kids questions answered, let alone many others.
Well in Florida, parents and voters, often one in the same, decided that they wanted to give a better learning environment for students, one that could possibly bring us out of the gutter of state rankings, maybe put us at the edge of the gutter. They took things into their own hands, removed it from the state legislature, and passed an amendment to the state constitution, something which really ticked off the legislators. Now they have found an opportunity to try to destroy an act of democracy which they don't like in the name of funding issues. This is after the lack of proper funding already had it behind schedule, and so they are sending it back to us, so that with the cuts to education and raiding of trust funds set up for things such as programs for child health care, to scare us into agreeing with them against our own long term interest. Now if you are against the amendment in the first place then this is good news, but if you are for it, as it is obvious that I am, then this rejection of the will of Florida voters finally having a chance to work, is a shameful showing of what our lawmakers think of their constituents.

Michael Desilets
CPO 2001
T/R 8:35