F.A.C.E. to FACE
F.A.C.E. BULLETIN
4/25/06
Dear Friends,
The school choice amendment went to the Ed Appropriations committee in the Senate and with a narrow vote it now moves to the Senate floor. It was a narrow escape. WE MUST, YOU MUST, make sure all legislators have every opportunity to hear from their constituents that supporting the protection of the scholarships by putting an amendment on the ballot (SB 2170) is the right thing to do. NOW IS THE TIME. The final vote for Senate Bill 2170 could be as early as this week and session ends May 5th.
Senate panel OKs voucher bill, proposed amendment pending, Associated Press Writer. As you can see from this article Senator Bullard changed her vote the second time she voted on the bill. We must contact Senator Bullard to convince her that she should protect the scholarships.
A great article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Florida fights for vouchers; we should, too.
A pretty good article about the Senate activity on 2170 and 2234 from the Palm Beach Post, Committees move along voucher proposals
A rare and reasonably accurate article from the Palm Beach Post, Senate rift jeopardizes session's agenda. We are bringing about as much grassroots pressure as we can on legislators regarding the school choice bill.
Thank you for Stepping Up For Students,
Michael A. Benjamin
Executive Director, F.A.C.E.
Florida Alliance for Choices in Education
Senate panel OKs voucher bill, proposed amendment pending
By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press Writer
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- An unconstitutional plan that let students from failing public schools transfer to private schools at public expense would be re-established as part of another voucher program under a bill that cleared a Senate committee Tuesday.
A second Senate panel then approved a proposed amendment that would exempt all voucher programs, including new ones created by the Legislature, from two key parts of the Florida Constitution. One requires a uniform system of free public schools and the other bars state spending to benefit religious organizations.
The goal of both measures is to get around court rulings against the Opportunity Scholarship Program, a key cog in Gov. Jeb Bush's "A Plus" school accountability and improvement program.
The Education Committee, which previously had approved the amendment, voted 6-2 for the voucher bill (SB 2234). It would let students at failing public schools participate in the existing Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program for children from poor families.
"We're allowing a road to escape, but we're not giving up on that (failing) school either," said Sen. Daniel Webster, R-Winter Park, sponsor of the bill and the proposed constitutional amendment.
The Senate Education Appropriations Committee later voted 5-3 to approve the proposed amendment (SJR 2170). The panel first removed an unrelated provision that would have required school districts to spend 65 percent of their money in the classroom as opposed to support and administrative services.
Voucher opponents, including the state's teacher's union, have not yet challenged the corporate program, paid for through tax credits businesses get for contributing to the plan, or the McKay Scholarship Program for disabled children.
The amendment, which states it would offer every child an "equal opportunity to obtain a high quality education," would permit vouchers for any "legislatively specified criteria."
"It would allow us to create every kind of voucher program under the sun," said Sen. Ron Klein. The Boca Raton Democrat is on both committees and voted against both measures.
The bill next goes to the Education Appropriations Committee, which was the last stop for the amendment before a floor vote.
The amendment would offer clearer protection for the voucher programs but may have difficulty winning a three-fifths vote of both chambers. The House appears solidly behind the proposal but the Senate does not. Even if approved by both houses, voters then could reject it.
The bill has a much better chance of being enacted, but it's not a sure thing either. One potential problem is that a similar bill hasn't been introduced in the House. A proposed voucher amendment, which includes the "65 percent solution," has cleared all committees in the House and is awaiting a final review by the Education Council before going to the floor.
Although Education Committee Chairwoman Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, voted for the voucher bill, she had some reservations. She questioned the lack of a specified role for local school boards in a provision designed to improve failing schools and a requirement that students give up vouchers under certain circumstances.
A student from a failing elementary school would return to the public system when ready for middle school if the school at that level has a passing grade. The same policy would apply when going from middle to high school.
That differs from opportunity vouchers that a student could use until graduating from high school.
Another difference would let failing schools keep state money for the students that get vouchers. They lost those dollars under the opportunity program.
Klein and Sen. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, cast the only votes against the bill.
Wilson questioned giving vouchers to children from failing schools. She said attention should be focused on failing students no matter where they go to school.
"It's against everything that America stands for," she said.
The only other Democrat on the committee, Sen. Larcenia Bullard of Miami, voted for the bill.
"I want what is best for the student," she said. "Which parent would want a child to stay in a failing school?"
Bullard also voted for the amendment when it went through the Education Committee but changed her mind in the Education Appropriations Committee.
Bullard, who is black, said she voted against it after tearfully complaining Sen. Stephen Wise, R-Jacksonville, had played "the race card." Wise argued in favor of the amendment by saying it would prevent the loss of millions of dollars in state scholarships that go to black colleges that have religious affiliations.
"I'm tired, I'm tired," Bullard said. "I don't drop a tear easily."
Another voucher-related bill is on hold in the Education Committee. The measure (SB 2406), would put all corporate income tax revenue in a trust fund that could be used for anything but education. That could thwart a legal argument that the corporate vouchers are depriving public schools of funding.
That bill initially failed on a 4-4 vote with Lynn joining the three Democrats against it, but Bullard moved that it be reconsidered at the panel's next meeting.
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Florida fights for vouchers; we should, too
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Jim Wooten - Staff
Tuesday, April 18, 2006In his final year as governor of Florida, Jeb Bush is going down swinging.
Faced with a state Supreme Court ruling that a school voucher program for children in chronically failing schools is unconstitutional, Bush is putting it on the line in his last year as governor, trying to convince the Florida Legislature to amend the state constitution.
Bush's efforts there offer a lesson to those who seek to provide parents alternatives to traditional public schools for their children.
The lesson is that any reform of public education that involves something other than pouring more tax dollars into it requires resilience and, as with the war in Iraq, a willingness to change tactics in response to entrenched opposition. When one approach is blocked, try another.
Florida actually has three voucher programs affecting about 30,000 children. One, the McKay Scholarship, is for disabled children. Another, the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship, is for needy children. The third, the Opportunity Scholarship, provides private school tuition to students in consistently non-performing public schools.
The Florida Supreme Court --- the liberal Florida Supreme Court that forced the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the state's hanging chad election controversy in 2000 --- struck down Opportunity Scholarships affecting about 700 children in January. The court said the program violated a state constitutional requirement that government provide a high-quality "public" education.
Bush responded by asking the Legislature to amend the constitution. The House, which is more conservative than the Senate, passed a proposed amendment. The Senate is still debating --- and the language is encountering rougher sailing. Adjournment is expected May 5.
Georgia backed into the voucher issue while debating a proposed constitutional amendment to clear up doubt about when state money can go to faith-based organizations. Georgia's constitution contains these words:
"No money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, cult or religious denomination or any sectarian institution." The proposed amendment would have added 12 words: "except as permitted or required by the United States Constitution, as amended."
There's no question Georgia is vulnerable. The state does appear to be on the shakiest of constitutional ground in funneling money to schools and organizations in ways that would seem to violate the blanket prohibitions of the state constitution --- HOPE scholarships, for example.
It continues to get by with it because voucher supporters don't file suit, forcing the General Assembly to act on the language.
Resolutions to add the 12 words have now failed in both the Georgia House and Senate, primarily because Democrats locked down as a voting bloc.
State Rep. Len Walker (R-Loganville), who carried the proposal in the House, is among those who believes no constitutional change is needed for a voucher program --- and he and others believe at least a pilot voucher project will be proposed next year.
He notes specifically the Arizona tax credit, which allows any taxpayer to claim a dollar-for-dollar tax credit of up to $625 for donations to the "school tuition organization" of their choice.
Georgia and Arizona have the same anti-Catholic Blaine amendment in their constitutions. Despite that, the credit has been upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take an appeal.
"I think something in Georgia could be modeled after that particular strategy," says Walker. He thinks the state could also pass legislation on vouchers similar to the Florida programs.
"I can envision that, and I would hope the Legislature would take a serious look at some of the lowest-performing public schools and at least target some kind of pilot project that would address the needs of those students," says Walker. "I believe that if a poll were taken today, I cannot envision less than 85 percent of parents in failing schools supporting some kind of tax credit or some kind of voucher for their kids."
Florida is seven years ahead. Seven years ahead in beating down the critics who cling to the status quo, just as the charter school reformers have had to do.
Seven years. Time's a wasting.
> Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
jwooten@ajc.com
Committees move along voucher proposals
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
TALLAHASSEE — Two separate plans to save a school voucher program ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court passed through Senate committees Tuesday.
Gov. Jeb Bush's proposed amendment to protect Opportunity Scholarships, which are for students at repeatedly failing public schools, was approved 5-3 by the Senate Education Appropriations Committee but only after its sponsor removed contentious "65 percent solution" language and also broadened its reach to potentially include all children in Florida.
Earlier, the Senate Education Committee approved another bill (SB 2234), that would allow all students in failing schools to get a Corporate Tax Credit voucher. The tax credit voucher is currently only for poor students.
The Supreme Court decision did not address that program or the state's other voucher program, McKay Scholarships for disabled children, but advocates on both sides of the issue say the court's broad language could affect those programs if they are challenged as expected.
The court ruled that Opportunity Scholarship vouchers were unconstitutional because they violated a provision in the Florida Constitution requiring a uniform system of free public schools. That court also let stand an appellate court's decision that the voucher program violates another part of the constitution barring state spending to directly or indirectly benefit religious organizations.
The proposed amendment (SJR 2170) would ask voters to change the state constitution to exempt all voucher programs from those two parts of the constitution, so that students in "pre-kindergarten through college who have disabilities, or are economically disadvantaged, or meet other legislatively specified criteria," could get taxpayer-financed vouchers to attend private and religious schools.
The three Democrats on the committee voted against the proposed amendment, saying that language goes too far.
"It would allow us to create every kind of voucher program under the sun," said Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton.
Bill sponsor Sen. Dan Webster, R-Winter Garden, was forced to remove the provision that would have forced school districts to spend 65 percent of their money in the classroom because of opposition by Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, which then would have defeated the measure on a 4-4 tie.
Senate rift jeopardizes session's agenda
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 17, 2006
TALLAHASSEE — What do you get when the state Senate is split into two factions of Republicans and a minority bloc of Democrats, with no group holding a clear majority and only three weeks left in the annual legislative session?
If you're Senate President Tom Lee, you get a high-stakes game of 21, with major Republican issues such as protecting vouchers, weakening the class-size amendment and fixing the state's insurance mess hanging in the balance..
Usually, presiding officers or their successors can push through high-profile legislation using a combination of persuasion and brute force. But this spring, during Lee's final weeks in power, he must contend with a prolonged leadership struggle that has divided Republicans into one camp of 16 and another of seven. There are also three neutral Republicans, including Lee.
That means that Republican leaders accustomed to "locking down" GOP votes to pass key legislation instead will need to worry about basic arithmetic: What plus what makes 21, the number of votes needed to pass a bill? And what plus what plus what gets you to 24, the votes needed to pass a proposed constitutional amendment?
"It's certainly more difficult to manage. I will say that," Lee said. "It is requiring a lot longer hours, and a lot more strategic thinking in how you build coalitions in the Senate to get 21 votes for a piece of controversial legislation."
Gov. Jeb Bush, who hopes to push constitutional amendments weakening the class-size amendment and preserving private school vouchers through the Senate, said he does not know what to expect.
"I've tried to stay away from fully understanding it," Bush said of the Senate schism. "I'm certainly not going to get involved in it. I think at the end of the day we'll be in good shape."
Bush's optimism, though, is not necessarily shared by Sen. Evelyn Lynn, a former teacher, a member of the smaller Republican faction and one of the new swing votes on Bush's signature education issues.
"Nobody's comfortable with chaos, and we have a lot of chaos right now," said Lynn, R-Ormond Beach. "Some big pieces of legislation probably won't make it."
Seven reneged on pledges
The trouble in the Senate, simmering since last year, boiled over in February, when a group of seven Republicans reneged on signed pledges promising their votes to make Sen. Alex Villalobos of Miami their president in 2008. They threw their support instead to Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, who was one of the seven to switch his pledge.
Villalobos, though, has refused to give in, dragging out what might have been a one- or two-day fight into something now stretching into its third month.
The Villalobos camp saw as the brains behind the coup not Atwater, but Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, and the scheduled Senate president for the two-year term starting in November. Pruitt, they say, then could have four years of power: two as president and two as a shadow president, pulling strings in the way that legendary Senate power broker Dempsey Barron had done for decades.
Pruitt did not return phone calls for this article. He repeatedly has denied any involvement in the replacement of Villalobos.
But Villalobos' backers have made it clear that they no longer feel obliged by party discipline to support Pruitt's legislation just because it is Pruitt's legislation.
And that, in turn, has endangered Bush's education agenda in his final legislative session before he must leave office.
Pruitt is the sponsor of the modification of the class-size amendment, a Bush goal almost from the day voters approved it in 2002, and Bush named him in his state of the state speech as the Senate champion of Bush's school vouchers programs.
Both Villalobos, Lee's majority leader, and Lynn, Lee's Education Committee chair, have stated their problems with both of the proposals, making it that much harder for Bush or Lee to muster the 24 votes to pass them.
Just two months ago, Pruitt said he was one vote from nailing down his 24th supporter on the class-size measure, and in fact had secured 20 Republican co-sponsors. Many, including Lynn, had signed on before the legislation had even been drafted.
Some of that support, though, was based on Pruitt's stature as the incoming Senate president, and that support has diminished during the power struggle. Lynn said her co-sponsorship of a not-yet-drafted proposal was a mistake — "That was a foolish thing to do, I admit"— and said she has now removed her name.
Pruitt firmly in control
How this plays out in the remaining weeks is still unclear.
Some measures, such as a fix for Citizens Insurance, transcend party and factional divisions, and threaten every incumbent legislator unless something is passed this session. But for the divisive issues such as class-size and vouchers, a lack of GOP cohesion has put passage of those matters in serious doubt.
Privately, those in the Pruitt-Atwater camp grumble that those in the Villalobos camp are asking difficult questions of their bills on the Senate floor to embarrass them. In the first week of the session, when Lynn cast the key vote to stall a business-backed proposal to make it harder to gather citizen initiative petitions, Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, accused Villalobos' people in a news release of "petty bill killing."
But he says the power struggle is over and Atwater has won. "The leadership issue is resolved. Has been from the start," he said.
Another of the seven pledge switchers, Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, also said the battle is a thing of the past.
"In my opinion, that has already faded away," he said. "Members are getting along as if nothing ever happened."
As to how things will fare in the final weeks, Alexander said: "The Atwater team has been concentrating on getting the president's agenda done."
Regardless of the Senate rift, Pruitt remains a powerful figure. As "president-designate," he and his political consultant ally, West Palm Beach's Randy Nielsen, retain control of millions of dollars in Republican Party Senate campaign money. That control means that most GOP lawmakers nervous about facing a primary challenge in the coming election are reluctant to cross Pruitt, a dynamic that does not change until the close of candidate qualifying week in July.
For Villalobos and his vocal supporters, such as Lynn, things appear well past the point of mending fences for the sake of a harmonious close to the session.
"I don't know if there's any honor among thieves," she said of the Atwater group, adding that she resented being told that asking hard questions on the chamber floor about the other team's bills is somehow disloyal to the Republican Party. "If I have a question, I think I have a responsibility to the people I serve to ask it."
Villalobos also said he is tired of having his Republican credentials questioned, such as Pruitt supporters' labeling him "villain-lobos" and "RINO-lobos," for "Republican in name only," on Web sites popular with Capitol lobbyists.
"I think our group is sticking to the party line. And we're a substantial number of the party," he said, adding that his support of leaving the class-size amendment alone was based on his county's 68-percent support of the initiative in 2002 as well as continued strong support in polls among voters statewide. "As for class size, I think that 70 percent of the electorate favors smaller classes for children."
VALUE ADDED
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State Farm is preparing to select a diverse group of approximately 30 young people ages 17-20 (applicants must turn 17 by 6/30/06 and not turn 20 until after 6/30/06) to serve on this distinguished Youth Advisory Board. The Board members will represent each of twelve U.S. State Farm zones and one State Farm Canadian zone (Alberta, New Brunswick or Ontario provinces only) with three at-large members nominated by State Farm's national service-learning partners.
And that's not all!
In addition to a challenging and fun experience, Youth Advisory Board members in good standing will receive a $5,000 scholarship that may be used for post-secondary education at a four-year, two-year, or vocational training program (see application for more details). Associate Youth Advisory Board members will receive a $3,000 stipend/scholarship under the same terms and conditions as the Youth Advisory Board member for their first year of service.
Applications must be postmarked by April 28, 2006.
Apply today! http://www.statefarm.com/sfyboard.htm
Questions, please do not hesitate to give me a call. We would love to get a diverse group of candidates apply for the Youth Advisory Board and would love if they came from the many fine organizations/districts you each represent.
I appreciate your help and support!!!
Ena M. Alcaraz
State Farm Insurance Companies
Corporate Relations Manager - Hispanic Communities & Financial Education One State Farm Plaza, B4 Bloomington, IL 61710-0001 Phone & Fax: 309-766-1972
Email: Ena.M.Alcaraz.BRZI@statefarm.com Providing Insurance & Financial Services
Florida Alliance for Choices in Education (F.A.C.E)
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