David Weldon: “The A-Plus plan is a very simple plan. If the school is scored low, parents can take their child and the money that was…”

“The A-Plus plan is a very simple plan. If the school is scored low, parents can take their child and the money that was going to their child and go to a private school. The education bureaucracy, teachers unions, liberals on the left went absolutely berserk. They said it would be the total demise of public education in the State of Florida. It was the end of the world, and the sky was falling. There was only one or two schools that scored really low, and a few kids went off into the private system. But what really happened was that every single school in the State made a tremendous effort, particularly the failing schools, the poorly performing schools, to improve their act. Because no school, no teacher wanted to be at a school that was scored low, no principal wanted to be the principal of that school. What happened is the entire academic performance of the whole State has gone up. The Governor of our State told me that piece of legislation was the single most important piece of legislation to improve the quality of education in the State of Florida in probably 20, 30, or 40 years.”