About Us
FundEducationNow.org was created by Kathleen Oropeza, Christine Bramuchi and Linda Kobert in February 2009 in response to an urgent call to action from Orange County School Superintendent Ron Blocker's statement that anticipated budget cuts to Florida Public Schools were both "catastrophic and criminal." Our organization is both permanent and non-partisan.
How We Got Here
We're moms, we multi-task. Each of us have kids ranging from pre-schoolers to high school seniors and we are well aware of what is at stake. As voters, we have been asleep. From the start, we knew that the most powerful tool we had was our voices as parents and voters. We also knew that it was very likely that our fellow-parents and even some teachers weren't up to speed on what the legislature was doing.
We began with a series of regular legislative alerts that continue to this day. Word spread through email and we added other schools, created a web site as a state-wide clearing house, activated twitter, reached out to experts, created a video campaign, did a 30 minute prime-time television special on our ABC affiliate, conducted 50+ media interviews, and posted on YouTube.
What we're doing
We continue to inform the media, meet with legislators, business leaders, and key stakeholders, inspire advocacy with large groups of principals, parents and administrators and develop our statewide network of informed and highly-dedicated education advocate.
The children of this state have been abandoned in the political process. That time is over. They need us to put muscle and power behind our demands. It is our job as advocates to hold the legislature accountable from one election to the next. Either they deliver on their constitutional obligation to fund public education with an eye towards excellence and restore the trust of their constituents or lose the honor of being an elected official.
To that end, FundEducationNow has become a plaintiff in the complaint Adequacy Complaint filed against the State of Florida on December 18, 2009 by Tom Rumburger and Jon Mills.