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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 Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Breaking Scandal

    Recently,
    federal agencies have acknowledged using tax dollars to pay columnists to push Bush policies, including the No Child Left Behind Act. Critics argue that using public money for media campaigns could be considered illegal.
    Well, it seems our own Florida State University has joined the rogues gallery. The Palm Beach Post reports today that
    A Florida State University center has used more than a half-million in education tax dollars to put a positive spin on President Bush's key school policies, including hiring a public relations firm to teach charter schools to be more media-savvy.

    Despite conflicting studies on the success of charter schools and other alternative education programs, the School Choice Center at FSU touts them as ways to "increase student achievement, increase parental involvement, promote school improvement through constructive competition, and accomplish racial and ethnic diversity.
    More precisely,
    Since 2003, taxpayers have given the center $627,567 as part of a 5-year, $1.2 million federal grant made available through the No Child Left Behind Act, which promotes school choice as a fix for failing public schools.

    The center's mission is to make parents aware of all choice programs, including traditional magnet schools, expand the number of choice schools in the state, and help them "work the media" — as was written in one of the PR firm's pamphlets.

    But links on the center's Web site are almost entirely to studies and articles from conservative groups and strong school-choice proponents such as the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Center for Education Reform and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
    The GOoPers are circling the wagons:
    Michael Franc, vice president for government relations at the Heritage Foundation, defended the center's use of No Child Left Behind money, saying there is a "guerrilla war" being waged between traditional public school advocates and reformers.

    He compared the use of tax dollars to pay for a school choice marketing campaign to federal programs that publicize free and reduced-price lunch programs for children, or anti-smoking advertisements.

    "If this is simply trying to rectify the imbalance of coverage and give a better idea of charter schools and how they work, it seems like it is OK," Franc said. "This could be a grant to get the other side of the story to the public."
    "FSU center spent public money to tout feds' policies".

4:26 AM

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