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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 Monday, December 13, 2004

"Pre-K Program was Designed to Appease Private and Religious Day-care Centers"

    Before the ink dries on a law creating a statewide pre-kindergarten program, it will bear the hallmark of a Republican-led Legislature that would rather tighten public purse strings than regulate private and religious schools.

    The voter-mandated pre-K program, the centerpiece of this week's special lawmaking session, likely won't meet the number of instruction hours or qualified teachers called for by early-childhood development advocates. The proposal, expected to pass with few changes, doesn't bar religious discrimination, either.

    The loose regulations benefit private and religious schools and day-care centers, and they expose the roots of the battle over pre-K: money, and who gets it once the state begins to pay for the $300 million to $400 million voluntary program for more than 150,000 4-year-olds in the fall.

    Skeptical of education bureaucracies, Republican lawmakers have long favored private schools. They created the nation's largest private school voucher program, which helped turn the classroom into an extension of the marketplace or even, critics say, a house of worship.     "Pre-K bill pits private vs. public concerns for care". See also "Down to the wire on high-quality pre-K" ("This week, lawmakers will consider a watered-down plan that fails to satisfy the mandate for universal pre-K that voters overwhelmingly approved by constitutional amendment in 2002.")

5:59 AM

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