Florida handcuffing public education in favor of privatization

Florida voters were bamboozled into voting for the state lottery because we were told by our state government that they would use the lottery money to augment the state funding of our public school system. However, instead they reduced the amount of state funding and replaced the reductions with the lottery money. I call this a scam!

According to the Bradenton Herald Sept. 29 editorial, the state continues to shrivel its share of the funding, currently at 59 percent, to the governor's latest proposal which reduces that percentage to 49 percent. Who is expected to make up the difference? You guessed it: Local school districts, which equates to us, the property owners of Manatee County.

Gov. Rick Scott, the ace of scampsters, has been boasting that he will be increasing per-student spending to an historic level, but he fails to mention that it is we, the taxpayers, who will be funding the bulk of this increase.

The Florida Constitution requires that the state government adequately fund the public school system. I believe they are violating the state constitution when they continue to shift the majority of funding to local school systems.

The Bradenton Herald editorial stated that the state Legislature should reject the governor's latest smoke and mirrors idea, and instead more state dollars should be invested into our K-12 public educational system. Wake up, people! We are once again being bamboozled by Tricky Ricky and our devious state legislators.

I am normally not a conspiracy theorist; however, when I add up everything they have been doing to make our schools, teachers, and students look bad, I can only conclude that they are tying to do away with public education in our state and privatize it all.

Carol Gazell

Bradenton

This story was originally published October 4, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Florida handcuffing public education in favor of privatization ."