Milk Party comes to West Palm Beach urging lawmakers to commit to resources for kids

The Children's Movement of Florida's Milk Party has no political affiliations, but its members say the only way to make children's issues a priority in the state is to change the way legislators spend money.

Gathering hundreds of people at 17 statewide Milk Party rallies this month is the movement's first effort to show elected officials that improving quality pre-kindergarten programs and providing insurance to over 800,000 kids without healthcare in Florida should top the list of government spending, said David Lawrence, Jr., co-founder of the Children's Movement.

"The first way to reach them is to let them know that there's an extraordinary amount of people who care for children's issues," Lawrence said Thursday outside the Harriett Himmell Theater at CityPlace, where hundreds savored milk and cookies and enjoyed performances by local children's dance troupes and school bands during West Palm Beach's rally.

The movement has also scheduled a gubernatorial debate at the University of Miami on Oct. 16 focused solely on children's issues.

Democratic candidate Alex Sink will attend, but Republic Rick Scott has not confirmed, Lawrence said.

Lawrence, who compares the movement's grassroots efforts to the conservative Tea Party's ability to impact public opinion by attracting thousands to national rallies, said his ideas do not call for additional taxpayer money, just a reorganization of priorities.

"This is not about raising taxes. It's about children having a higher priority in how we spend our money now," he added.

One of the issues the movement is focusing on is the state's pre-K program, passed by voters in 2002 after Lawrence promoted a constitutional amendment to educate all 4-year-olds.

Since its was initiated in 2005, the state's pre-K program has enrolled more than 665,000 4-year-olds, and last year the state spent more than $361 million in the program.

But Lawrence and other early childhood advocates said Florida is on the lower end of the scale when it comes to educating pre-kindergarten students, both in funding and in quality.

A 2009 report by the National Institute for Early Education Research ranked Florida 34 out of 37 in how states fund their pre-K programs. The same study said Florida only met three of 10 benchmarks of the IEER Quality Standards Checklist, and fails to meet national standards that require pre-K teachers to have a bachelor's degree or a smaller student to teacher ratio in the classroom.

"The state leaders in Florida have not included the quality components that we know make a good program," said Marci Young, project director for Pre-Now, which evaluates states' pre-K programs as part of the Pew Center on the States.

State officials say the voluntary pre-K program includes many quality standards that are proven to increase children's preparedness for kindergarten.

"The agency recognizes the need for continued program improvement and supports efforts to increase program standards to ensure a premier early education system for Florida's children," said Robby Cunningham, communications director for the state Agency for Workforce Innovation, which is in charge of the state's pre-K programs along with the Department of Education and the Department of Children and Families.

The Children's Movement of Florida is also advocating for better access to health care, improved programs for children with special needs and mentoring and parent skill programs for families.

"The idea is how do you make children the number one priority in this state," Lawrence said. "We can build roads and prisons and bullet trains, but nothing for children."

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