Our children can achieve great things when we set high expectations for them.
Public education must be viewed from the lens of providing each child with the learning environment that best meets his or her needs. If we can send a low-income child to a parochial school, knowing that his odds of attending college will increase as a result, then that should be our mission.
If we are going to compete in this world we're in today, there is no possible way we can do it with lowering expectations and dumbing down everything. Children are going to suffer and families' hearts are going to be broken that their kids won't be able to get a job in the 21st Century.
It's at the core of the Catholic faith, and to imagine how we are going to succeed in our country unless we have committed family life, a child-centered family system, is hard to imagine.
Women who bring up children by themselves do it heroically, they do it against all odds, men who don't feel responsible for being part of their child's life create real strains on that family.
Florida has its own rhythm, too. People go to work, they watch their children learn and grow and start families of their own. They play in the sun and pass their lives enjoying the outsized blessings that make our state unique.
