Governor Rick Scott on Friday, visited Audubon Park Elementary School in Orlando, his second ‘Let’s Get to Work’ trip. During his visit, Scott spent time in the school’s cafeteria and helped to prepare breakfast and lunch, which he served to Audubon Park Elementary students.
Reacting to Scott’s visit to today, Representative Scott Randolph (D-Orlando), issued the following statement:
“Governor Rick Scott’s visit to Audubon Park Elementary School in Orlando is like a grave robber coming back to dance on the grave.
“After countless trips to charter schools and charter school rallies, today marks what may be the first time Rick Scott has visited a Florida public school. Governor Scott has chosen to do so not to assess the plight of our public schools, but as a bus stop on his tour around the state to improve his image.
“After originally proposing to cut $3.3 billion from public education; after refusing to fund public school construction while funding $55 million for the construction of private charter schools; after championing private charter schools despite more and more reports about the lack of accountability and transparency; after leading rallies to hand our public tax dollars over to for-profit corporate schools, Rick Scott has the audacity to serve lunch to the school children he stole from in a publicity stunt to improve his image.
“Rick Scott has a public image problem because his job-killing, anti-middle class policies have contributed to the second-highest job loss in the country in July and have taken $1.3 billion away from Florida’s children. Maybe after lunch he should spend some time reading to public school kids the part of the state budget where he cut $1.3 billion from their future.”
Within six months of taking office, Scott, following implementation of a raft of policy measures harmful to Florida’s most vulnerable segments of the population, has seen his approval ratings plummet. A Sunshine State News poll in mid-July showed he had a favorable rating of just 27 percent among registered likely voters in Florida.
