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 Friday, February 18, 2005

Madmen Running the Asylum

    As soon as the 2005-06 school year, the state Board of Education (headed by that businessman Phil Handy, the man who brought us "eight is enough"), might use what it calls the ultimate sanction":
    Florida is moving closer to seizing "chronically failing" schools and turning over their management to private companies.
    And who are these private companies?
    The nation's most high-profile school privatization program is in Philadelphia, where the city school district hired Edison Schools Inc. and other private firms to run a group of low-performing schools. Restructured schools that were still run by the school system outperformed those run by private firms, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2003.

    Edison has managed only one Florida school -- Henry E.S. Reeves Elementary in Miami-Dade. School district analysts said in a 2001 report the Reeves hadn't shown academic advantages over the traditional public schools, and the School Board voted this week to terminate Edison's contract with Reeves.
    "Private takeover step closer for F schools".

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