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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, November 09, 2005

Laughable

    I think it's called "home cooking":
    "Although intuitively . . . the idea of small classrooms is a fine idea, when you magnify that issue across the state, the negative impact greatly outweighs a qualitative benefit," said W.C. Gentry of Jacksonville, chairman of the Council for Education Policy, Research and Improvement, a group appointed by the governor and legislative leaders.
    "Class-size cap isn't answer, study says". See also "Report: Reducing class size will hurt quality" ("A politically appointed committee warned a House panel Tuesday that reducing class sizes as required by Florida's constitution will result in a decline in the quality of teachers — and education — for the state's schoolchildren.")

    And isn't this a bit self-serving: the report complains that "[m]any new teachers can't afford to buy a home in Florida and that will make it harder for school districts to hire enough teachers to comply with the class size amendment, a new state report concludes." "Report: Housing costs could undermine quest for teachers" (conveniently, the "study, ordered by the 2004 Legislature, amplifies arguments that Gov. Jeb Bush and some Republican lawmakers have been making since voters approved the amendment in 2002.")

    I see: we don't pay our teachers enough to buy a home; hence, it is not practical to hire enough teachers to reduce class sizes.

6:47 AM

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