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Tallahassee, FL – September will see 15 rallies by the Children's Movement of Florida. Also known as the Milk Party, it's a bipartisan effort to reorder the state's priorities and invest more in kids. Tonight's rally is at the Tallahassee-Leon Civic Center, at 6 p.m., and two members of the Children's Movement steering committee, David Lawrence and Betty Castor, spoke with Margie Menzel.
The first rally was in Pensacola Monday, with a community meeting in Panama City set for Tuesday morning and a rally in Tallahassee Tuesday night. Then it's on to Gainesville Wednesday. David Lawrence, Jr., the former publisher of the Miami Herald and co-founder of the Children's Movement, says they're working to turn out big numbers to prove that voters agree: Florida must do more for its kids.
"What we need to show in September is all about showing some wherewithal, some power," said Lawrence. "We're going to gather 10-15,000 people in Florida during the month of September."
Lawrence describes himself and former Education Commissioner Betty Castor as "frustrated Floridians." He says the state spends just three percent of the money it controls on early intervention and prevention - and the result is its poor showing in nearly every benchmark of children's health and education. Betty Castor:
"We're not in the upper quartile on anything," said Castor. "For instance, dropout rate; we have a very high dropout rate. But we're down there, if you look at some of the health indicators, Florida's 35th, 36th, 37th, so We've had a very tough time looking at ourselves, but then when you look at us and compare with other states, it's dismal. And if you then look globally, of course, we're an endangered species in terms of what we're doing for kids and how we rank."
Florida's pre-kindergarten program meets just four of 10 national standards, and the state ranks 49th in the nation in its percentage of uninsured children. Seventy-five percent of young men 17 to 24 don't qualify for the American military, says Lawrence, and in an increasingly tough and global economy, Florida's lack of investment in children is downright dangerous.
"Our mission here, at the Children's Movement of Florida, as we go around September from Pensacola to Tallahassee and through Key West on the 30th - our mission isn't Let's have more taxes,'" Lawrence said. "Our mission is in decision-making in this state: Can you make children the first priority? Our failure to do that, frankly, dooms this state as a fairly poor place to raise children and grandchildren and hope that they will have futures here."
[MM: You don't think it's a coincidence that Florida's economy is suffering more than some other states?]
"Absolutely not," said Castor. "You must prepare young people for jobs. We must have a technology, it's a changing economy. There is so much evidence that reflects how much a young person can earn when they have a high school diploma, an associate of arts degree, a baccalaureate degree or higher. Dropouts today don't have a chance. They don't have a chance to compete in the job market. We should be ashamed."
Florida's high school dropout rate, at 35 percent, is five percent higher than the national average. And it's a truly sore point with Lawrence that the state skimps on early education and then pays millions for remediation - with children suffering as a result.
"You know, if you ask me am I ever insecure, I'm insecure a good part of the time," he said. "A sort of balance of security and insecurity, and I bet Betty, in her honest moments, would tell you the same thing. You get more things done that way. So that's healthy. It is incredibly unhealthy for a six-year-old to have already made up his or her mind, I can't make it.' And then teachers triage em and whatever else and we're off to the races. Makes me cry about all of this."
Lawrence and Castor understand that next year's state budget is in such dire straits that many worthy programs for children - like Healthy Start and Healthy Families, which barely survived last session - will be back on the chopping block. But Lawrence says the voters are willing to spend what the lawmakers are not, and he points to Miami-Dade County's passing a $100 million dedicated funding source for children. People raised their property taxes to do it, he says, with 85.4 percent of the vote.
"It is stunning what people are willing to do and how excited they are," he said. "People aren't satisfied; they want to be inspired. They want something better - not only for their lives but for everyone's life. They see what's happened. They see a country that is angry about lots of things. It's a tough time, so there's a lot of anger, as there was in the Depression. People aren't prepared to settle. This isn't about settling. This is about doing something larger than yourself, doing something that transcends your own life."
Tonight's rally in Tallahassee will be at the Civic Center at 6 p.m. The Milk Party will also host a gubernatorial debate on children's issues on Oct. 16 at the University of Miami, with Democrat Alex Sink confirmed and Republican Rick Scott yet to decide.