TALLAHASSEE RALLY 6/7/05

 

On June 7, the Florida Supreme Court could rule that Opportunity Scholarships 

violate the constitution. If they do, other scholarship programs like McKay and 

Bright Futures are in danger. To prevent that from happening, we need your 

presence at our rally in front of the Supreme Court building.  Don’t let them act 

without knowing how many families it will effect!

 

Dear Friends,

 

The teachers' union lawyer finally admits that the Opportunity Scholarship ruling will affect the new pre-k program (Florida Sets Pre-K Price). We hope they will admit that it will affect Bright Futures college scholarships.

Our legislative session ended on the 6th. Unfortunately, the Senate refused to pass the accountability bill for the second consecutive year even though they could have taken up the bill and passed it. They did so even after the House agreed to their demand of a higher standard of background checks. The press (Palm Beach Post) is already misrepresenting what happened (Bush education reforms rejected).  The Senate also killed the rest of Gov. Bush's education priorities, including his reading voucher and putting the class size amendment back on the ballot.

 A certifiable falsehood by the Palm Beach Post. "Bush's biggest victory may have been to stave off the financial and academic oversight law on his existing school vouchers that Lee's Senate had pushed." All parties, including the Governor, wanted a bill. The Senate turned it down (Analysis: This time, Gov. Bush gets the lame-duck treatment).

 

The press misrepresentation of the accountability bill effort persists (Increased voucher scrutiny fizzes out).  Below that article is a statement that was sent to all reporters by Denise Lasher, including the ones who wrote the article. It seems to have been ignored (Statement on 2005 Legislative Session and Voucher Accountability).

 

Once again the Palm Beach Post (Schools get no new rules but still too little money) is factually erroneous. The House gave the Senate the level of background checks it demanded, and the Senate refused to pass the bill.  It still astounds that Florida newspapers knowingly print falsehoods.  Note:  The Post feels that a 6.2% increase in public school spending isn't enough, but never says what per pupil spending is. In Palm Beach County it's over $8,000 per pupil just in operating costs.

 

 

Thank you for Stepping Up For Students,

 

Michael A. Benjamin

Executive Director, F.A.C.E.

Florida Alliance for Choices in Education

Florida Sets Pre-K Price

By MARILYN BROWN
mbrown@tampatrib.com


TAMPA - The dollar figures are in for Florida's new prekindergarten program, meaning it's time for interested providers to sign up so parents can see their options.

Although the basic rate the state plans to pay per student is about $2,500, some counties such as Hillsborough and Pinellas will get a bit more. Most, including Pasco and Polk, will get less.

Counties also will get an additional 5 percent for administrative costs, legislators said Tuesday.

Wendy Viles, owner of Hand in Hand Academy in Lutz, said that's better than she expected, but Viles is not sure she can make it on the state pay because she pays her teachers competitive salaries. Parents now pay $6,300 a year for a full day of preschool, and several have signed up for the half-day to be covered by the state.

``I could lose my shirt if we have a slew of people walk in the door wanting half a day,'' Viles said.

The payment covers 540 hours during the school year or 300 hours in the summer, time that can be divided a variety of ways.

Joe Pickens, R-Palatka, chairman of the House Education Committee, calculates Hillsborough providers will get $2,511.75 per child plus $125.59 for administration. Pasco will get $2,447.25 per child plus $122.36. Other officials have calculated Pinellas at $2,517 and Polk at $2,450.50, plus the 5 percent. Payments differ by school district because the state is going to apply its complex school funding formula to its new pre-K program. That formula attempts to equalize money in different counties with higher living costs.

The big question for parents is who will be providing prekindergarten.

``We're getting lots and lots of phone calls,'' said Dave McGerald, chief executive officer of Hillsborough's Early Learning Coalition. Such coalitions in each county will receive the administrative fees.

Few Catholic Schools

Some providers are sure they are in, some were waiting to decide until the state released payment figures and at least one major potential provider, Catholic schools, are mostly out.

``It's not economically feasible for most of the Catholic Early Childhood programs to participate at this point,'' said Larry Keough, the Florida Catholic Conference's education associate.

Catholic school classes are usually a full day with 20 to 25 students, Keough said, so the 18-pupil maximum required for the state program would mean turning away families.

Plus, the state won't provide screening for speech and hearing problems or a test to evaluate students when they enter pre-K, features Keough said are vital.

Catholic schools could provide more than 6,000 slots, Keough said, but right now, ``I expect minimal participation.''

Other faith-based schools are more than ready.

``We're just leaping at the opportunity,'' said Julia McMillan, head of school at The Christian Academy at Bible- Based Fellowship Church in Carrollwood. She has been recruiting with radio and newspaper ads and open houses.

With a 42,000-square-foot building and 16 classrooms, McMillan said she is ready to convert up to 10 of them for pre-K. She already has new furniture, computers and other equipment. Tuition for an 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. day is $3,600 a year with a before- and after-school program available for another $3 per hour.

McMillan said her school can afford well-paid teachers and equipment because, as with many other faith-based schools, the church pays for everything but salaries.

Parent Mike Boone said he plans to invest the $2,500 or so he will save on tuition next year when his son, Timothy, enters preschool. He says he can put that money into Florida's prepaid college fund for his son's future.

Besides academics, parents also said they like the discipline, emphasis on values and religion. Boone's daughter already attends The Christian Academy.

``I like that she is able to learn the Bible,'' Boone said, a feature he said would keep his children at the school even if it didn't participate in the state pre-K program.

Voucher Challenge

One factor hanging over the faith-based schools is a court challenge to the legality of another state voucher program. Lower courts found the program violates the Florida Constitution, and the suit is scheduled to be argued before the Florida Supreme Court June 7.

``The lawsuit has nothing to do with pre-K,'' said Ron Meyer, the attorney for the plaintiff. But, if the ruling is upheld, ``I think there is a real potential for chaos.''

In other states that use faith- based schools for prekindergarten, such as Georgia, Bible lessons and prayer are prohibited. Not so in Florida.

If the courts don't allow it, McMillan said she won't participate.

``We will not compromise our faith for a dollar,'' she said.

Meanwhile, others who have private schools said they may end up opting out for financial reasons.

How well legislators fund the program in the future is to be seen.

The budget they approved, which still must be signed by Gov. Jeb Bush, sets aside $387.1 million for pre-K for the estimated 150,000 students whose families may want it, said Joe Negron, R-Stuart, chairman of House appropriations.

``I'm confident the $2,500 per student is an appropriate amount to begin a new program,'' Negron said. ``We'll monitor it the next 12 months, then see about raising it, keeping it the same or even lowering it.''

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069.

Broward third graders raise math, reading FCAT scores

By Bill Hirschman
and Chris Kahn Education Writers

May 4, 2005

For the fourth year in a row, fewer Broward third-graders are in danger of being held back a year because of weak reading skills, according to preliminary FCAT results released Tuesday by the public school district.

Despite the improvement, one-fifth of the third-grade class -- about 4,250 students -- might not be promoted because they did not pass the reading FCAT required by state law.

A school district analysis was mostly positive. Scores by Broward third-graders in reading and math showed slow, steady improvement over the past four years in every category.

The report was based on yet-to-be-verified test results from the state Education Department. Official results are expected to be released next week, a state education spokeswomen said. Some scores could change with the official results.

Superintendent Frank Till was encouraged by the improvement. "We're slowly moving the students from a low-performing level to a higher-performing level," he said. "We're not going to get the big gains we made a few years ago because we've made that jump already."

But it frustrated other educators. Linda Schmidt, a teacher at Plantation Elementary, said her school's administration has spent the past week trying to understand why scores barely improved, with 35 percent failing the reading FCAT this year compared with 36 percent last year.

"Honestly, I think we've done all we can do," said Schmidt, who offered to buy her students anything on the McDonald's restaurant menu if they made an average score. The principal also offered them a radio, she said, but too few of Plantation's third-graders scored well enough on the test.

"You can't make them learn," Schmidt said, "and a lot of them just don't want to do the work."

Given in different forms since 1996, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is an annual exam to ensure that students meet state standards at the end of each grade level, and to judge the quality of schools.

But third-graders have other ways of proving they can read, including success on a Florida version of the national Stanford exam.

Those results will not arrive for another week. Those options matter. Last year, 4,666 third-graders failed the reading FCAT, but only 1,512 were held back a year.

Unlike in previous years, FCAT results have been dribbling out this spring. Last week, the Education Department released FCAT writing scores.

The Education Department is expected to release other test results over the next six weeks. In each case, parents will receive their individual students' results in the mail three to seven days after the state results are released.

The Broward study cited the following trends:

In reading, 80 percent of third-graders passed the FCAT, compared with 77 percent in 2002.

In math, 88 percent passed the FCAT, compared with 84 percent in 2002.

More than two-thirds of third-graders were reading on grade level or better, a five-point jump over the past four years.

Fifty-two percent of the elementary schools had a larger percentage of students reading on at least grade level. Six percent stayed the same. Forty-two schools lost ground.

Till said educators no longer assume that all children come to school with the same vocabulary and knowledge of phonics.

Instead, teachers work to ensure that children are given those skills.

Additionally, the district has increased the use of computers to drill children on basic reading skills.

The greatest successes and biggest disappointments were at Title I schools, campuses with federal programs serving primarily low-income and at-risk children.

Westwood Heights and Rock Island in Fort Lauderdale, Orange Brook in Hollywood and Sanders Park in Pompano Beach all had posted a double-digit improvement in the percentage of students passing the reading exam.

However, Lauderdale Manors in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood Park and Palmview in Pompano Beach saw the percentage of reading failures increase by 12 to 19 percent.

Title I schools are those most affected by the FCAT. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, if students don't show progress each year, administrators could be forced to bus children to other schools or provide tutoring services.

Bill Hirschman can be reached at bhirschman@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4513.

Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Bush education reforms rejected

By Kimberly Miller

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, May 07, 2005

TALLAHASSEE — In an historic rebuke of Gov. Jeb Bush, his major education reform plans died quietly on the last day of the legislative session Friday as the Senate refused to second-guess voters on the class-size amendment, grant more school vouchers or allow lesser criminal background screening for private school teachers.

"The governor's not always right," said Sen. Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunellon, who was among the seven Republican "no" votes on sending the class-size amendment back to voters.

Bush's "A-plus-plus" plan (HB 6007) to increase standards for middle school graduation and give vouchers to students who fail the reading portion of the FCAT three years in a row was dealt death blows both Thursday and early Friday.

First, the Senate stripped the vouchers from the bill on Thursday. Then on Friday, it refused to lower criminal background testing standards for teachers in private schools that take vouchers. Instead, the Senate unanimously approved the "A-plus-plus" bill without the vouchers and with the higher background screenings, and sent it back to the House about noon Friday.

The House sat on both bills until after 10 p.m., when it combined them and added a number of other items, including a study of steroid use in high school, an evaluation of how arts are used in the schools and parts of a bill that will expand the use of automated external defibrillator devices.

The higher level background screening for teachers, which caused the stalemate to begin with, is delayed in the new bill until a high speed electronic fingerprint scanner can be purchased by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. That scanner is subject to lawmaker approval of new money in FDLE's budget.

"We have tried to put something that everyone should like in this bill," said Rep. Joe Pickens, R-Palatka.

The bill, by now 280 pages, headed back to the Senate for consideration at 10:30 p.m. but the Senate never took it up before adjourning at 11:49 p.m.

In the end, the deal killer was criminal background checks for teachers at private schools taking vouchers. The House wanted only the so-called Level 1 background screenings, which entail a background check based only on state criminal records, while the Level 2 screening sought by the Senate checks state and national criminal records through the FBI.

Public schools also require a level 2 screening, as did bills in both chambers regarding testing for slot machine employees, including janitors and cafeteria workers.

Also on Thursday, the Senate defeated Bush's plan to ask voters to give teachers base salaries of $35,000 in exchange for diluting the class size amendment by basing class-size caps on district averages rather than class by class as voters approved in 2002.

"Instead of trying to put this back on the ballot, let's put money in the budget," said Sen. Les Miller, D-Tampa.

Another major education reform bill (SB 2) that would have provided more accountability for Florida's three voucher programs also died Friday in the House after members refused to take a third vote on it. That, however, was a priority for former Senate President Jim King, not for Bush.

Besides the Level 2 screening, the voucher accountability bill, which King, R-Jacksonville, tried to pass for the first time last year, would provide more oversight for Florida's three voucher programs, which enroll about 27,000 students in private and religious schools. He said more accountability is necessary because of several incidents of fraud and theft of tax-payer dollars by private school operators taking public money from Florida's three plans - McKay vouchers for disabled students, Opportunity Scholarships for students in failing public schools, and Corporate Tax Credit Scholarships for poor children.

The A-plus-plus plan, a follow-up to Bush's A-plus plan of 1999 that created the state's first voucher program, includes tougher provisions for middle school graduation, reading requirements for students and directions on how to teach character education and history, such as "The history of the United States shall be taught as genuine history and shall not follow the revisionist or post-modernist viewpoints of relative truth."

It also would replace a teacher career ladder with a requirement that teacher salaries be based partly on performance standards, increase reading help for high school students scoring poorly on the FCAT and create the Florida Center for Reading Research to assist school districts in teaching reading.

In addition to the background screening, the voucher accountability bill would strengthen financial oversight of private schools taking vouchers, prohibit students from receiving more than one type of voucher at a time; require an annual, notarized sworn compliance form from each private school, cross-check the list of voucher students with public school enrollment to ensure there is no duplication, and give the Department of Education the power to removed private school eligibility if they do not meet state standards.

 

Analysis: This time, Gov. Bush gets the lame-duck treatment

By S.V. Date

Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau

Sunday, May 08, 2005

TALLAHASSEE — Senate President Tom Lee wanted a lot — and got some. House Speaker Allan Bense wanted less — and got most.

And, less noticed but probably most remarkable in the just-ended legislative session, Gov. Jeb Bush, the 800-pound gorilla of Florida politics for six years, wanted a whole lot — and got almost nothing.

Medicaid, class sizes, a new voucher program — all stopped outright or, in the case of Medicaid, dramatically watered down from Bush's idea.

Then, as if to put an exclamation point on it, the legislature also passed, with healthy majorities in both chambers, bills that limit Bush's ability to outsource state work to private companies.

Bush's biggest victory may have been to stave off the financial and academic oversight law on his existing school vouchers that Lee's Senate had pushed.

Nevertheless, Bush was upbeat about the session during a speech Saturday in St. Petersburg.

"This was a pretty good session," he said, although when later asked about his loss on watering down the class-size, he confessed, "I try not to think about it." As for the legislature's rejection of his other proposals, he said, "It doesn't bother me a bit that they weren't all embraced. A lot of them were. Having an L in my win-loss column doesn't bother me. I'd rather have that than not try."

Democrats, after years of suffering defeat after defeat, were quick to gloat.

Sen. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale Beach, called Bush's class-size vote "the first quackings of a lame duck."

Even Tom Slade, the Republican Party then-chairman when Bush became governor in 1998, agreed that Bush — now only a year away from the election that will determine his successor — had passed the zenith of his power.

"He gets increasingly insignificant in the minds of the legislators," Slade said.

Far greater push than '04

Bush had a similarly empty session last year, but had the dual excuses of an election year — when major legislation is difficult to pass — and a House speaker whose ambitions for the U.S. Senate tied the session in knots. Bush, understanding that dynamic, appeared not to even try very hard.

This spring, with his brother safely ensconced in the White House for another four years, Bush came back with a vengeance.

He told lawmakers that Medicaid had to restructured, or else the program that provides health care for one out of every seven Floridians would bankrupt the state.

He orchestrated his most detailed campaign yet to undo the class-size amendment that voters passed over his objections in 2002.

He pushed education reform with a massive new voucher program.

He got none of it.

When the gavels banged the session to a close late Friday, Bush was left with the Senate version of his Medicaid reform idea, which scales the privatization idea down to a few test counties and pointedly gives the legislature, and not the governor, the authority to proceed to subsequent phases.

His new voucher plan was unceremoniously stripped from the education reform bill on a voice vote, and then the bill itself died when the Senate loaded it with demands that the existing vouchers be subject to more oversight.

And finally, his class-size plan failed to get even a majority of votes in the Senate, let alone the three-fifths majority needed to pass a ballot question. Seven Republican senators joined all 14 Democrats in voting no. And two other Republicans voted yes simply out of party loyalty — and likely would have voted no had they known how badly Bush was going to lose, one of them said.

"Even the uber-governor couldn't get this passed," said Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach.

Such talk is to be expected from members of the opposing, minority party, but even Republicans seem less impressed with him this year than when he came into office.

In 1999, Jim King, newly elected to the Senate after more than a dozen years in the House, stood up to say that he was voting for vouchers despite his deep reservations — because Bush had asked him to.

This year, the Senate Republican leader, Alex Villalobos, citing his conscience, was the first to stand up and speak against Bush's proposal to undo class-size limits.

In 1999, Bush dragged reluctant lawmakers to his office, cursing a blue streak at them when necessary, to win votes for his voucher plan. He was able to set up camp behind the Senate chamber, and out of public view, to twist arms more conveniently.

This year, when Bush requested the same privilege, Lee refused.

Later that day, Lee launched a tirade against Bush, warning him not to meddle in a legislative process in which "he has no role" — a rebuff reminiscent of Senate President Dempsey Barron's famous warning to Gov. Reubin Askew to "stay the hell out of my Senate."

Lee grows as Bush fades

Lee's growing influence has likely been the biggest factor in Bush's weakening grip on the Capitol.

Even as a relatively junior lawmaker, Lee in 2001 almost single-handedly blocked a Bush attempt to deregulate electrical power generation, which at the time was still all the rage.

In 2003, Lee became the lead negotiator for the Senate when it wrote a watered-down version of limits to medical malpractice lawsuits and offered Bush a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. Bush took it.

So it was no great shock when Lee, now the Senate president, allowed Republican senators to vote their conscience on Bush's priorities this year rather than forcing party discipline.

What was a surprise, though, was how quickly Bush appeared to be marginalized in the process. As late as last year, he was heavily involved in brokering legislation to his liking. This year, he was reduced to asking former political allies who are now lobbyists to help get his message through in the final days.

In the end, the major legislative products to emerge from the session were, in a departure from most recent years, largely the result of two presiding officers with radically different styles and approaches.

Lee came into this session with three goals: forcing the state to use longer-term outlooks when writing budgets, which he passed with relative ease; rewriting the state's growth management laws, which was much harder; and forcing detailed financial disclosures on the lobbying corps, which proved impossible.

Contrast this to Bense, who, when the 2004 session ended, told reporters that it was only then dawning on him that he was on the verge of leading the chamber: "I feel like the dog that's been chasing the tire and finally catches the tire," Bense said. "I'm not sure what to do with it."

Bense checks Lee's ferocity

The two styles were evident even in the media "availabilities" both men held following each day's floor session. Bense generally held brief sessions near the rostrum, answering questions with short, typically vague responses about pending legislation. A favorite answer: "We'll take a look at it."

Across the rotunda, Lee would go on for a half-hour or more, getting into small detail on a variety of issues, but most intensely on his favorite topic of the backlog of unbuilt roads and schools, and how the state's perennial inability to manage its sprawl was eroding the quality of life. If he could only explain the problem eloquently enough, he seemed to believe, Floridians would surely come to his side and beat down the moneyed interests standing in his way.

Bense was not particularly hurt in the comparison, particularly since most of his own members were comparing him to his predecessor, Johnnie Byrd, who by the end of his second year was almost universally loathed in the Capitol because of his autocratic style.

But it became clear by the middle of session that the dynamic between the two men would make it nearly impossible for Lee to accomplish what he wanted — precisely because Bense didn't seem to want anything with anywhere near as much ferocity as Lee did.

When one side wants something very badly, and other doesn't much care, the bargaining ability of the former is diminished.

True, Bense did have some goals. He would talk about wanting protection for businesses from lawsuits, and about making it harder to amend the state constitution and about cutting the intangibles tax on large investment portfolios. And he was partially successful in achieving all of those goals.

Still, he also made it clear that if any, or even all, of his goals didn't pass, he would just shrug it off: "I'm not going to go jump off a building," he'd often say.

By contrast, Lee, in the closing days of session vowed: "A lot of thing can happen this session, but the one thing that can't happen is that the lobbyists win."

Just after midnight Saturday, Lee had to concede: "The lobbyists won."

Increased voucher scrutiny fizzes out

The Legislature still doesn't require additional regulations of school voucher programs after cases of scandal.

CARRIE JOHNSON and JONI JAMES
Published May 9, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - Less than a year after seven private school employees were charged with defrauding the state of tens of thousands of dollars, state lawmakers failed to approve any additional regulation of the state's school voucher programs.

It marks the second time in two years, despite an assortment of scandal, that the Republican-led Legislature has failed to demand that Gov. Jeb Bush's Department of Education tighten scrutiny of the people who qualify to run voucher programs.

The lack of legislative action prompted Bush to pledge better oversight through executive orders. But he made the same promise last year and little, if any, action was taken.

Critics have long argued the state needs to keep a closer eye on the public funds flowing to private schools and to ensure children receive a quality education.

"No one can deny the fact that this is necessary," said Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, whose voucher accountability bill failed. "We need to know whether or not those facilities out there exist, whether the kids we're paying for are actually going to school and whether they're learning anything."

King's bill would have barred schools that accept vouchers from discriminating on the basis of religion, required student progress to be measured using one of four standardized tests and subjected voucher schools to unscheduled visits by an auditor.

But chances of success diminished considerably on the last day of the 2005 session when House members tacked on 281 pages of amendments. The Senate didn't take up the bill again.

"The House didn't want it," King said. "It was fairly obvious from the very beginning."

One of the major sticking points: background checks. Senators felt strongly teachers should be subjected to rigorous background checks, including a nationwide criminal history search. House members argued the checks would be too expensive and pushed for a more limited search, scanning only Florida records for criminal offenses.

"Who would be against requiring teachers to be fingerprinted?" asked Sen. Walter Campbell, D-Fort Lauderdale. "We have a duty to protect our children."

Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, said private schools aren't required to accept voucher students. Background checks are a reasonable trade-off for taxpayer money, he said.

"You want to be a private school manager? Too bad, you have to play by a set of very reasonable rules," Klein said.

Since Bush took office in 1999, Florida has launched three voucher programs serving roughly 25,000 former public school students. The Opportunity Scholarship is for students attending poor-performing public schools, the McKay Scholarship for disabled students and the Corporate Income Tax voucher for poor students.

The state Supreme Court is expected to decide this spring whether vouchers for religious schools are constitutional.

Bush had hoped to dramatically expand the state's voucher program this year. The Reading Compact Scholarship would have given a taxpayer-funded voucher to any student who scores at the lowest level on the reading portion of the FCAT for three consecutive years.

The Senate killed the program, saying it didn't want to expand vouchers before the Supreme Court rules.

King said the demand for more accountability will continue to grow as more scandals erupt. In June, Polk County officials arrested seven employees of Faith Christian Academy in Bartow alleging they had filed more than $53,000 in fraudulent claims under the McKay Scholarship.

The Ledger in Lakeland reported that the school's principal, Betty May Jives Mitchell, had once been tried on charges that she and an accomplice, Louise Henry, used arsenic to murder Mitchell's ex-husband. An Arkansas trial resulted in a hung jury and the state dropped the case.

"There's no way to avoid the sensationalism that comes with the problems that no accountability creates," King said. "We'll live to fight another day."

--Times staff writer Jeffrey S. Solochek contributed to this report.

© Copyright 2003 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved

 

Statement on 2005 Legislative Session and Voucher Accountability.

Step Up For Students worked tirelessly along with the Coalition of McKay Schools and the Florida Council of Independent Schools (FCIS) to bring across the board accountability to the state voucher programs. Their hard work unfortunately was not enough to get an accountability bill passed this year.

The Florida Association of Scholarship Funding Organizations is also very disappointed that an accountability bill has not passed for the second year in a row. FLA-SFO has pledged to continue with their own transparent accountability measures that have previously been implemented and which were replicated in the bills debated this year.

Much has already been reported on the House and Senate versions of the accountability bills. What has not been accurately portrayed is the position that the private school groups took on background screening. 

The Senate accountability bill (SB02) and A++ bill (SB2480) called for private schools to submit electronic fingerprinting to FDLE and the FBI screening results (level 2) would be sent to FDLE and the DOE.  The problems with the Senate Bills were:

? There currently is not a system in place that would enable the private schools to submit electronic fingerprints and the senate bills did not address this problem.

? The private schools would not be able to get the data from the level 2 background screening and hence DOE would be determining for private schools if an individual was suitable for employment.  The standards of DOE may very well be less stringent then those of some private schools.

?  The bill did not provide for sovereign immunity for the private schools with regard to DOE’s screening decisions; including the requirement for exemptions for failed screening that the law requires DOE to allow, such as a felony conviction that is over 5 years ago.

?  Most private schools currently do level 2 screenings through a voluntary system, Voluntary Employee Criminal History System (VECHS).  However, they would no longer be able to use VECHS once level 2 was required in State Statues. The private schools supported requiring level 2 screening if a system could be implemented that would allow for electronic fingerprinting and the schools would receive the screening data as well as FDLE.

When the Senate removed Reading Compact Scholarships from the A++ bill, the bill still retained regulation of private schools because the amendment failed to remove the requirements of private school language including level 2 screening.  The remaining bill only dealt with public school programs and such private school language was no longer germane to that bill and as stated above had requirements that could not be implemented.

After much research and dialogue with law enforcement agencies the House drafted language that would require level 2 screening once a system was in place to allow for electronic fingerprinting and the data would also be provided to private schools.  This language addressed all the legitimate concerns that had been voiced by the private schools.

It is unfortunate that the Senators opposed to recrafting the level 2 language did not recall the testimony provided by Brenda Dickenson of FCIS at all committee meetings or the talking points provided by Ms. Dickenson to Senators on this topic which detailed the problems associated with the senate language.

Tragically, a majority of the Senate would not accept any other language and their refusal to hear the house SB 02- a bill that passed the House by a unanimous vote on the last day of session-resulted in no accountability bill at all.

Now that the facts have been fully explained, future reports on this issue will hopefully reflect accurately voucher supporters’ positions on accountability and background checks.

Step Up For Students and the Florida Association of Scholarship Funding Organizations are disappointed that this one issue appears to have prevented reasonable accountability measures from being implemented in the Florida voucher programs.

FLA-SFO, along with private school organizations, will continue to closely work with all private schools to assure that everyone operates with the highest standards and accountability.

Denise Lasher, Step Up For Students and Spokesperson for Florida Association of Scholarship Funding Organizations

The language from the final House version of SB02 is shown below. It was added via an amendment sponsored by Rep. Pickens.  The final amended bill passed unanimously in the House.

Amendment to Amendment (873335)

Remove line(s) 6844-6856 and insert:

            Section 117: Subject to appropriations the Department of Law Enforcement shall purchase a high-speed electronic fingerprinting scanner and provide sufficient staff support to conduct level 2 background screening pursuant to s.943.0542, Florida Statutes, for private schools participating in the Opportunity Scholarship Program, the John M. McKay Scholarship for Students with Disabilities Program, and the Corporate Income Tax Credit Scholarship Program.  Within 90 days after acquisition of the scanner, level 2 background fingerprinting screening shall be required for all employees who have unsupervised direct contact with scholarship students in the private schools.  Results of the screening shall be provided to the participating private schools.

Schools get no new rules but still too little money

Palm Beach Post Editorial

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

It would be nice to think that the Legislature let Gov. Bush's latest education proposals die because lawmakers finally have concluded that the "education governor" has done enough damage to education. But that isn't what happened.

The House, which at Gov. Bush's insistence has helped to burden public schools with ever-increasing state mandates while refusing to pay for voter-approved class-size reductions, sunk his A++ Plan because private voucher schools objected to a Senate proposal requiring them to conduct thorough background checks on employees. Some voucher schools think the state would be heavy-handed if it made them check national databases — not just Florida records — to see if teachers and other employees were convicted of sex offenses in other states.

The unwillingness to inconvenience voucher schools indirectly helped traditional public schools because the spat prevented some bad ideas — such as directions for "teaching" history — from advancing. Most significantly, the governor had wanted to give vouchers to tens of thousands of students who failed the reading FCAT. But existing voucher programs are scandal-ridden, and oversight has not improved — and won't, given the attitudes. Expanding vouchers also would be irresponsible, because lower courts have ruled similar vouchers to religious schools unconstitutional, and the Florida Supreme Court will hear the case next month.

Gov. Bush's attempts to kill or escape the class-size amendment also failed. Voter repeal, his first choice, got hung up in a school-financing squabble that alienated South Florida lawmakers. His cowardly fallback, to delay smaller classes until after he leaves office in January 2007, died in the background-check fight.

The school-financing squabble is complicated, as is assessing whether the Legislature approved an adequate education budget. Statewide, lawmakers gave public schools an additional $1.3 billion, a 6.2 percent increase. In fact, $818 million of it comes not from the state but from increases in local property taxes. And $556 million of the increase goes to the required class-size reductions, leaving too little to pay for such things as higher salaries, insurance premiums and energy costs. Once again, lawmakers used sleight-of-hand instead of real increases to lower class sizes.

Moreover, because of last year's unfair change in the formula for allocating school money, South Florida fares badly. The average per-pupil increase statewide is $355, but in Palm Beach County it's $317, in Broward $334 and in Miami-Dade a paltry $268. At $380, Martin County does better than the average, but St. Lucie will receive $325. Gov. Bush's failure to lean on lawmakers enough to fix that formula cost him votes for his other education bills.

Adequacy of the budget for Florida's new pre-K program isn't complicated at all. The $2,500 per student is too little. At least lawmakers lifted a bureaucratic ban on letting many public school districts provide a pre-K program, though it isn't clear how many will take part and whether the state will have places for the estimated 154,597 4-year-olds who will try to enroll.

Not much got fixed — voucher schools still lack accountability, the state isn't paying enough for smaller classes and South Florida districts could get robbed again next year. But public school educators are relieved because things might have been so much worse. Given recent history, they're right.