Scott Powers
Democrat Rick Roach drew 155 people in his quest for state Senate District 13 and said he received a standing ovation Sunday for delivering a new platform for reforming school testing and education in Florida.
“It kind of exceeded my expectations. I think I’ve given people something to vote for,” said Roach, a former Orange County School Board member seeking election in the Senate district that covers much of central and eastern Orange County. “I didn’t expect a standing ovation for four minutes from 155 people but I swear that’s what they gave me at the end.”
Roach’s platform, delivered at a town hall meeting in Winter Park Sunday, declares, “If you fix education, you’ll fix Florida,” and contends student testing programs need to be reined back to measuring students, not being the purpose of schools.
Roach is in a three-way Democratic Aug. 30 state Senate primary battle with former state Reps. Mike Clelland and Linda Stewart. The Republicans have Dean Asher seeking the seat that’s currently held by term-limited state Senate President Andy Gardiner.
Roach said the first thing he would do as a senator is arrange for representatives of the testing companies to testify in Tallahassee, because he is confident they would tell lawmakers that Florida is using them all wrong, as foundations for designing curriculum, rather than as tests for appropriate school curriculum.
Money spent on test-training and preparation could be rerouted to shop classes, internship programs and other job training in the schools, he said.
“What’s happened for the last 16 years since I’ve been on the school board is we’re spending more money on human services, more money on locking people up in prison, and they stole it all from education,” he said. “We have more people in poverty, more working poor, more people without health insurance, we have a pitiful job market income here, under $25,000 per year [median income, based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.]
