Crist rolls out education budget

Gov. Charlie Crist rolled out a proposed education budget this morning that includes a 5.46 percent increase in per-pupil spending - up $394 from last year's funding, to a total of $7,606 per student.

The $33.5 billion package ($23 billion for preK-12) includes $138 million to fully fund any hits that K-12 would take if voters approve the property-tax amendment on Jan. 29. It also includes $847 million for class-size reduction, $467 million for teacher bonuses and $202 million for reading programs and virtual tutors.

Universities and community colleges are bracing for a grim budget this session, but if lawmakers follow the governor's lead, things won't be so bad. Though tuition will continue to be a tussle.

Crist, FSU grad, proposes $5.42 billion for state universities and community colleges - but  no tuition increase.

He recommends a $52-million increase for new student enrollment at Florida's 11 state universities and a $23-million increase for medical schools at Florida State University , Florida International University and University of Central Florida . He also proposes a $56-million increase to community colleges' annual budgets to help meet enrollment growth.

To help establish additional Centers of Excellence at the research universities like USF, Crist proposes $60 million that can be used toward biotech and clean technology research.

To see more budget details, click here.

Comments

[Karl]

Kim "So we are spending $500 more per pupil than costs to send my child to a private school and the public school system is providing dismal results. Does anyone see a problem with this?"

I see a problem. Private Schools general serve students in the top 50 %tile. Public schools serve everyone else. In addition, our legislature has given the MacKay Opportunity Scholarships to students with disabilities to encourage private school enrollment. Many of these students that enroll in private school end up going back to the public system because they don’t receive related services like speech, physical therapy, and transition services.

Public school can’t be compared to private schools. Public schools have mandated teacher certificate requirements, FCAT testing, and laws to protect all student’s education.

Come on Kim. Let us be fair…

Karl

I agree Lemon; let's taser every kid (and especially every Florida Gator student) who is disruptive to a class or official activity. This will "get their attention" without costing very much at all. I am glad that we don't run the military on a shoestring budget like we do the schools.

[Lemonbayer]

Throwing more money at the school system won't work.

We need to extablish discipline in the classroom.

Before you can teach a kid, you need his attention.

Lemon

Kim, if you want to allow public tax money to be spent on private school education, please feel free to change the Constitution for the state. As it is, allowing the like is not allowed.

The blog article is way off base anyway. The Governor would provide about $700 million in total increases for public education over what was planned during the May Regular Session. Of that total, nearly half is from INCREASED PROPERTY TAXES. State GR provides the other half, but state MANDATED EXPENSES increased by over $800 million. As such, the flexible budgets for school districts to pay for local inflation (insurance, utilities, etc.) and pay raises are actually REDUCED. Districts will have to cut in order to balance the budget without any pay raises under the plan.

The bad news is that the legislature probably won't even do this well for the schools.

[John]

Because your private school can choose who attends and can throw out the useless ones.

Our public education system does a pretty good job considering the quality of the raw materials. If you look deep enough you will see that most of the people who serve you on a daily basis were educated at public schools (doctors, pharmacists, wal-mart employees, etc. ) If you choose to send your child to private school please do not forget the police that keep you safe the construction worked that builds your homes, the cable guy who installed your cable service. They were probably educated at a public school. Oh yeah, even the Governor was educated at a public school, FSU.

[Kim]

So we are spending $500 more per pupil than costs to send my child to a private school and the public school system is providing dismal results. Does anyone see a problem with this?