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FLORIDA POLITICS
Since 2002, daily Florida political news and commentary

 

UPDATE: Every morning we review and individually digest Florida political news articles, editorials and punditry. Our sister site, FLA Politics was selected by Campaigns & Elections as one of only ten state blogs in the nation
"every political insider should be reading right now."

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Welcome To Florida Politics

Thanks for visiting. On a semi-daily basis we scan Florida's major daily newspapers for significant Florida political news and punditry. We also review the editorial pages and political columnists/pundits for Florida political commentary. The papers we review include: the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Naples News, Sarasota Herald Tribune, St Pete Times, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, and, occasionally, the Florida Times Union; we also review the political news blogs associated with these newspapers.

For each story, column, article or editorial we deem significant, we post at least the headline and link to the piece; the linked headline always appears in quotes. We quote the headline for two reasons: first, to allow researchers looking for the cited piece to find it (if the link has expired) by searching for the original title/headline via a commercial research service. Second, quotation of the original headline permits readers to appreciate the spin from the original piece, as opposed to our spin.

Not that we don't provide spin; we do, and plenty of it. Our perspective appears in post headlines, the subtitles within the post (in bold), and the excerpts from the linked stories we select to quote; we also occasionally provide other links and commentary about certain stories. While our bias should be immediately apparent to any reader, we nevertheless attempt to link to every article, column or editorial about Florida politics in every major online Florida newspaper.

 

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The Blog for Thursday, December 16, 2004

Hasterok: Scorning Public Schools

    When Floridians voted to require the state to educate 4-year-olds, they didn't know they were approving a publicly financed program for private and religious schools.

    They believed their mandate would apply to public schools, forcing them to offer instruction for the state's children a year earlier than they do now. They were wrong.

    The bill tentatively passed by the Florida House Wednesday would create a prekindergarten system run almost exclusively by private and religious schools.

    That's not all voters didn't know.

    They didn't know that essentially anyone who isn't a convicted criminal could teach their children. Instructors need only the most minimal of training, similar to day care workers.

    They didn't know their children could attend class for only three hours a day during a full school year.

    They didn't know 18 children could be crammed into a classroom. In classes with more than 11 children, a second adult would be on hand, but that person wouldn't have to have any educational training.

    While they didn't know that private and religious institutions would form the bulk of schools offering pre-K, they couldn't have imagined those schools could reject students they didn't want and teach 4-year-olds the school's religious beliefs.     "Pre-K bill scorns public schools".

6:14 AM

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