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Legg knows education issues take time, money

By C.T. BOWEN Editor of Editorials
Published February 18, 2007

John Legg knows the answer.

Hey, he's an educator; he better know the answers. He teaches two classes of government and U.S. history at Dayspring Academy, the west Pasco charter school he formed. He also volunteers to teach at any west Pasco public school that will have him.

Then there is his other job, state legislator, in which he is beginning his second two-year term representing District 46. He is vice chairman of the Committee on Education Innovation and Career Preparation and sits on the Schools and Learning Council. In other words, he's shaping the House's aggressive education agenda for the upcoming legislative session. It includes bills calling for: state-administered, end-of-the-year exams for high school students to replace the 10th grade FCAT; a greater emphasis on gifted education; moving the date for the FCAT to later in the school year; teaching a foreign language in elementary school; boosting career training and establishing so-called ninth-grade centers of excellence to try to increase the high school graduation rate.

It is a lot to consider. Legg knows it may take multiple legislative sessions to try to accomplish it all. The list does not even count what might emerge from the state Senate or what Gov. Charlie Crist might suggest, aside from seeking more physical education for elementary school pupils. Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, is expected to be the lead sponsor on that one.

There is a reason for the House members' ambition. Nobody anticipates Crist to parrot former Gov. Jeb Bush's heavy-handed, top-down management style. Crist is more of a toss-out-an-idea and let-legislators-fill-in-the-details type of governor. Bush, the policy wonk, would produce a 50-odd page bill and defend every line in it.

So, let's think about what members of the Florida House of Representatives hope to accomplish. They want elementary school kids to begin learning a foreign language and also get a daily half-hour of P.E. (Under today's schedules, elementary kids have physical education every third day as part of a rotation with art and music classes.) They want a greater emphasis on teaching gifted students even though elementary gifted teachers will tell you their creativity with the curriculum is limited by the Department of Education mandates for daily uninterrupted 90-minute reading blocks. They want the FCAT later in the school year instead of beginning in early February (effectively testing kids on what they've learned during the first 60 percent of the school year).

They want ninth-graders to spend their first several weeks in high school learning studying and time-management techniques to prepare them for the academic rigors of the following four years.

They want a lot.

So, are they prepared to consider that the wants don't align with the wants?

That is the question to Legg near the end of an hourlong interview this week. Does the school day need to be longer?

Yes, said Legg, without hesitating.

Legg's Dayspring Academy knows the value of giving students more time on task. The academy extended its day this school year. Middle school students attend from 7:45 a.m. to 3 p.m., or 65 minutes longer than students attending traditional public middle schools in Pasco County.

But Legg has his own question.

"How do we fund it?"

It's an inquiry ducked for 15 years, ever since budget cuts under Gov. Lawton Chiles forced high schools to trim their seven-period day to six. That means four, yearlong classes removed from a high schooler's education.

Legislators who harbor ambitions of enhancing Florida's public school education system should be prepared to devise an answer. In their assigned role in this relationship with the governor, they shouldn't skimp on the details.

[Last modified February 18, 2007, 07:20:53]