As you know, the Florida Legislative Session for 2009 is underway. Some of the legislation will deal with the Social Studies.Some proposed bills include:
-House bill 0013 and Senate bill 2174 would add Social Studies to the FCAT.
-House bill 1231 and Senate bill 2608 would create an appeals process for students marked for grade level retention. It would add history, civics, geography, arts, music, and physical education to the subjects required by statute to be considered in decisions about grade level promotion. Current law only requires consideration of reading, writing, science, and mathematics.
-House bill 1293 and Senate bill 2654 would require each high school to offer a minimum number of AP, IB or dual enrollment courses.
You can follow the progress of the bills by checking in at the Florida Senate homepage and typing in the bill number, or the Florida House homepage. More may be coming.
Of course, what is a legislative session without remembering Will Rogers – humorist, writer, movie star, and radio personality of the early 20th century. Research indicates that humor can get us through tough times - and with the budget shortfalls and economic situation, times are tough! So, here are 25 quotes from Will Rogers about our national Congress which could apply to our state legislature...“A fool and his money are soon elected.”
“Remember, write to your Congressman. Even if he can’t read, write to him.”
“About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.”
“Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.”
“Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.”
“It takes nerve to be a Democrat, but it takes money to be a Republican.”
“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?”
“A flock of Democrats will replace a mess of Republicans. It won’t mean a thing. They will go in like all the rest of ’em. Go in on promises and come out on alibis.”
“Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.”
“Democrats never agree on anything, that's why they're Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.”
“Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.”
“I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him "father."”
“I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!”
“Ain’t it funny how many hundreds of thousands of soldiers we can recruit with nerve. But we can’t find one politician in a million with backbone.”
“If I studied all my life, I couldn't think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.”
“If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.”
“It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.”
“Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse.”
“The more you observe politics, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.”
“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.”
“There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.”
“There ought to be one day - just one - when there is open season on senators.”
“You know how Congress is. They’ll vote for anything if the thing they vote for will turn around and vote for them.”
“Why sleep at home when you can sleep in Congress?”
“Papers say: “Congress is deadlocked and can’t act.” I think that is the greatest blessing that could befall this country.”
