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.

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 Saturday, July 09, 2005

Isn't It Obvious

    More FCAT foolishmess:
    Gov. Bush's misuse of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test makes it hard to give his administration the benefit of the doubt as it tries to develop a meaningful system of merit pay for teachers that includes FCAT scores.

    Six years ago, the governor insisted on making the FCAT the biggest factor in school grades, even though the test wasn't given to most students and didn't cover most subjects. The test is more comprehensive, but still doesn't cover history, geography, art, foreign languages and other electives. Further, students in kindergarten through second grade and in 11th and 12th grades don't take the FCAT.

    That hasn't stopped Gov. Bush and his appointees at the Education Department and on the Board of Education from pushing the FCAT as a pillar of teacher evaluation. ...

    The biggest problem with merit pay in Florida is that teacher salaries are below the national average to begin with. If Gov. Bush and his appointees set up a system that requires teachers to jump through stupid hoops just to fight over a few crumbs of bonuses, the state will find it hard to recruit sufficient talented teachers.
    "Pay teachers on merit - but not on the FCAT".

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