Re the July 12 article School grades decline — What does it all mean?: It means that Florida’s legislative leaders are accomplishing their goal of sabotaging public education by putting funding into private, for-profit hands.

Underfunding education and penalizing school districts for not accomplishing class-size requirements has been based on the intent of creating failing public schools. This has now been followed by adding inappropriate measures that have caused a decline in school grades.

This systemic approach by Republican legislators has created three strikes; and now they want to take public schools and students out of the system and hand facilities and funding over to companies with the aggressive parent-trigger bill.

Public schools must be funded appropriately and must be a priority of state legislators so that jobs can be created and our Florida economy can grow.

Jeffrey Solomon, Pinecrest