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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
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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.

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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, February 24, 2005

"Jeb!": Vouchers "American as Apple Pie"

    More school vouchers
    Nearly 200,000 schoolchildren around the state, including 32,000 children in Miami-Dade County alone, could receive vouchers to attend private school under a far-reaching package of education reforms unveiled Wednesday by Gov. Jeb Bush.
    In defense of this massive vouvher/privatization scheme - even though vouchers have repeatedly been ruled unconstitutional - "Jeb!" gives us rarely seen rigorous argumentation:
    "I think it's frankly as American as apple pie to give people choices when what's provided them isn't working," Bush said.
    Perhaps there are "two Americas", as John Edwards argued last year, because some Americans don't think the new voucher plan is all that all-American:
    Henry Levin of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education questioned whether such an expansion is justified given the lack of data showing whether students in private schools are succeeding.
    "New vouchers `as American as apple pie,' Gov. Bush says". And,
    Critics said that giving the worst-performing students vouchers and letting them disappear into a private school system with no public accountability is no way to solve the problem.

    "They said vouchers. And I said no," said Wayne Blanton, director of the Florida School Boards Association, about his briefing from Bush's office on the issue.

    Palm Beach County Schools Superintendent Art Johnson said it also could create problems with the balancing of schools for enrollment purposes.

    Bush's announcement came Wednesday even though "Opportunity Scholarships" — his first and smallest voucher program, for children at schools receiving an F grade two out of four years — have been declared unconstitutional by a state appeals court because they send public money to religious schools. The Florida Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in the case this spring.

    "The governor is just showing a lack of respect for the courts," said Ron Meyer, the lawyer for voucher opponents who successfully argued the case before the 1st District Court of Appeal.
    "Added school choice sought". See also "Bush outlines reading voucher proposal" and "Gov. Bush Tucks Vouchers Into Education Bill".

5:33 AM

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