Clinton Crushes Bush in Latest National Poll

"Jeb Bush is the clear Republican presidential frontrunner, surging to the front of the potential GOP pack following his announcement that he's 'actively exploring' a bid, a new CNN/ORC poll [.pdf] found."

However, the poll has great news for Hillary Clinton, who in turn crushes Jeb 54-41 in the same poll.

The survey was conducted by live interview among 1,011 adults nationwide from Dec. 18-21, with a subsample of 453 Republicans and 469 Democrats, via landline and cell phone. The overall sample has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

"CNN/ORC Poll: Bush surges to 2016 GOP frontrunner."

Imagine what these numbers would be if the media took the kid gloves off in its treatment of Jeb.




Scott's testing promises have "a fly-by-night feel"

The Tampa Bay Times editors: "Four months after Gov. Rick Scott promised on the campaign trail to take a look at the proliferation of standardized tests in Florida schools, the Department of Education finally announced plans this week to do so, saying it would seek details from the state's 67 school districts. That's a fine start, but the question about standardized testing extend beyond their frequency. Fifteen years after Florida's school accountability system started, there remain sincere concerns about how tests are administered, whether third-party testing companies get the answers right, or if the tests are even suited for the purposes they're proposed. Tests can be great tools, but only if they are implemented thoughtfully and are fair."

Education Commissioner Pam Stewart released a statement Monday that her department would conduct an examination of standardized testing in public schools and will analyze the data and produce "information about the number of standardized tests and how each of the test results are used by the state, school boards and teachers." Left unsaid was whether the state would examine its own requirements for standardized testing or its ill-advised rush to implement new tests aligned to the Florida Standards, the Florida-based version of Common Core.

"The state — despite a long history of flawed administration of the FCAT — has continued to fail to heed the growing and unified concern from school boards, superintendents and [God forbid, even the] teachers about the quality of the anticipated assessments. The state bought the tests earlier this year after abruptly resigning from a multi-state consortium. The assessments have only been field tested in Utah, a state with distinctly different demographics from Florida. And so far lawmakers are refusing to budge on expanding the one-year hiatus on punitive measures tied to students' test performance, such as holding back third-graders who don't pass or impacting a teachers' evaluations."

It all has a fly-by-night feel. Consider just this month — three months before the tests are expected to begin — the state released details on what kind of calculators students will be able to use on math assessments.

"Hazards of rush on testing."




If you must read them

"Want to read the Jeb Bush emails?"




Insert Money Here

"State Sen. Joe Negron, who represents most of the Treasure Coast, ran two political committees that raised more than $2.6 million since 2012 to help his bid to become one of the most powerful politicians in Florida, a Treasure Coast Newspapers investigation found." "Negron political committees raised $2.6 million Which corporations and committees are supporting Joe Negron by donating money to his political committees? Negron political committees raised $2.6 million (subscription)."




Yee haw!

"Death penalty states unmoved by botched execution."