WKoF initiative: Kitchen Table Economics
CIVIC Concern | | 
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From health care costs to gasoline prices, the housing slump, the credit crunch and hurricane insurance, Florida families are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. What do you think are the toughest issues facing Florida's households? What can the state do to strengthen the middle class and help the working poor? Policy changes? Public-private partnerships?
Share your thoughts here as we kick off "What Kind of Florida Do You Want to Live In?", our ground-breaking, two-year initiative that will mobilize citizens from around the state to come together in shaping policy proposals that can make a real difference in the lives of Floridians. To learn more, visit the What Kind of Florida? homepage.
Overlooked Problems With Standardized Tests
Marion Brady | | 0
America is in love with the idea of "accountability," with measuring how much students know of what a school teaches. But that isn't really what's important. It's a second level of functioning which should concern us--what the young can DO with what they know.
But there's an even MORE important third level of functioning--what students do when they don't know what to do . . .
. . . and a critically important FOURTH level--what students do when nobody knows what to do.
Because the future is unknowable, our survival as a society hinges on students being able to function at this fourth level, but we're so preoccupied with the first "how-much-does-the-kid-know" level we're ignoring it completely.
The Property Tax Puzzle
Property tax reform is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, issue facing the state legislature this year. There has been much hand wringing all around. Many hare brained schemes have been floated. Civic Concern has just published a thoughtful, reasoned history of the property tax problems in Florida and proposed some solutions.
Some commenters on the St. Peterburg Times Buzz Blog piece on this report claim that
The people want major reduction in property taxes
Others argue
I don't think "the people" want a bunch of half-cocked, sound bite ideas.
... Recent polls show they're pretty skeptical of all the various proposals.
If you want my opinion...
Cross Posted from Florida Kossacks
http://fl-kossacks.blogspot.com/
Civic Concern, Florida Kossacks, Florida Legislature, growth, impact fees, Leadership Florida, local politics, property taxes (all tags)