F.A.C.E. to FACE   F.A.C.E. BULLETIN 5/18/06   Dear Friends,     The NAACP's fight against private school vouchers, article by Star Parker, Scripps Howard News Service.   Great article in the Lakeland Ledger, Nonstandard Schools Improve in FCAT. Column by Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options (HCREO) in Tampa Tribune, Vote Violates Senator's Principles.   Letter to the Editor by Bill Beers, Senate Caved To Union Pressure, which responds to the original article, GOP Votes Suggest Centrist Future.     Thank you for Stepping Up For Students,   Michael A. Benjamin Executive Director, F.A.C.E. Florida Alliance for Choices in Education   Copyright 2006 Scripps Howard, Inc. All Rights Reserved Scripps Howard News Service May 12, 2006, Friday 10:51 AM EST SECTION: COMMENTARY LENGTH: 814 words HEADLINE: The NAACP's fight against private school vouchers BYLINE: STAR PARKER, Scripps Howard News Service BODY: Why would an organization that calls itself the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, whose motto is "Making Democracy Work Since 1909," oppose individual choice and freedom and dedicate itself to promoting public policy that guarantees the perpetuation of black poverty? As incongruous as this might sound, it is in fact true. Consider the prominent role that the NAACP played recently in killing the Opportunity Scholarships Program created by Gov. Jeb Bush in Florida, which granted vouchers to students in failing public schools to attend a different school of their choice - public or private. As soon as the program got underway, the NAACP joined the unions to challenge its constitutionality under Florida law. The challenge was upheld in divided court decisions up through Florida's Supreme Court. Governor Bush attempted to salvage the program through a proposed amendment to the State constitution; however, this was narrowly defeated in the Florida Senate two weeks ago. During the past school year, 740 students participated in the Opportunity Scholarship Program, of which 64 percent were black and 30 percent Hispanic. The students are practically all from low-income families. So why would the NAACP work to kill a program that gives low income minority kids a chance to get a good education at a private school? "Vouchers siphon off money from public education," according to the president of the NAACP's New York Chapter. But, of course, vouchers do not siphon off money from the public school system. However, they do cause the public school system to compete for those funds. Vouchers shift power to parents from bureaucrats. Here, as elsewhere, NAACP leadership automatically equates big government with black interests. The public school monopoly serves the black community so notoriously poorly that many blacks themselves poll in favor of vouchers. The GAO reported in 2004 that there are almost three million kids nationwide in schools failing by No Child Left Behind criteria. These are disproportionately poor black kids. Half of these kids do not graduate and the ones that do, graduate with eighth grade reading skills. So what's going on here? You would think that NAACP leaders would be rabid in pushing for change and opening new educational opportunities available for black children. Yet, they doggedly defend a proven and hopeless failed status quo. The need for school choice for black kids goes beyond the argument for efficiency and competition. The education problem in the black community is really a social, moral and family problem. One black mother supporting vouchers in Florida testified about why it is important to her to have the opportunity to send her child to a religious school. "I make sure her religious values are coming from home ... Then when my child steps out of my home and into this institution, she's receiving the same thing. That's consistency." It is crucial that poor black kids, coming overwhelmingly from single parent homes and from communities where promiscuity and out-of-wedlock births are commonplace, have the opportunity to attend schools where traditional values and character building are part of the curriculum. A religious education cannot be forced and should not be forced on any American kid. But denying parents, particularly the ones that need it most, the opportunity to choose a religious school for their child is blatantly un-American. In a recent column, Edward Lazear, the chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, noted, "Half of those who are in poverty escape that status within three years. One-fifth of those in the bottom quarter of the income distribution move up within a year." Yet, despite the fact that escaping poverty is a routine occurrence in America, pockets of black poverty persist generation after generation. At the heart of the problem is the failure to educate black children. And despite this clear failure, the NAACP fights change because change would challenge government control and would shift responsibility directly into our own communities and families. Let's again recall Einstein's definition of insanity as repeating the same behavior but expecting different results. Yes, it is incongruent that the nation's oldest civil rights organization opposes the right of black parents to choose where to send their child to school. And it is incongruent that those who celebrate a civil rights movement that was led by a black pastor insist that black children be trapped in schools where it is prohibited to teach Christian values. Maybe one day the NAACP will wake up and recall that its mission is supposedly to expand not limit opportunities for black Americans. (Star Parker is president of CURE, Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education (www.urbancure.org) and author of the new book, "White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay.")   Nonstandard Schools Improve in FCAT By Andrew Dunn The Ledger MAKING PROGRESS Twelve Polk County schools made the state’s list of 100 most improved schools on the FCAT writing test. Three were in the top 10 for their categories. The schools were measured by percentage of students scoring 3.5 or better on the writing test. Here are the schools, their rankings, and their percentage point increases. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS •  Apple School - No. 9 - 40 points •  Janie Howard Wilson Elementary - No. 22 - 34 points •  Hartridge Academy - No. 54 - 24 points •  Polk Avenue Elementary - No. 77 - 22 points •  Lake Shipp Elementary - No. 84 - 21 points MIDDLE SCHOOLS •  Homer K. Addair - No. 7 - 45 points •  Donald E. Woods - No. 9 - 42 points •  Foundation School - No. 23 - 30 points •  Bill Duncan Opportunity Center - No. 26 - 29 points •  Roosevelt Academy - No. 34 - 27 points •  Compass Middle Charter School - No. 84 - 18 points HIGH SCHOOLS •  Donald E. Woods - No. 2 - 39 points •  Homer K. Addair - No. 6 - 29 points •  Roosevelt Academy - No. 25 - 14 points *Donald E Woods and Homer K. Addair are both alternative schools that serve middle and high school students. LAKELAND -- Three nontraditional Polk County schools were among the top 10 in the state for improving their FCAT writing scores this year. The state released three lists of 100 schools that showed the most improvement on this year's FCAT writing. Because FCAT writing is given to students in the fourth, eighth and 10th grades, the three lists are of the top elementary, middle and high schools. The Donald E. Woods Opportunity Center in Dundee, the Homer K. Addair Career Academy in Lake Alfred and the Apple School in Lakeland all were in the top 10 on the state's lists. All serve students who are at risk of failing or dropping out. Sherrie Nickell, associate superintendent of learning for Polk schools, said it gives the district "great hope" to see schools that rarely receive academic recognition get their due. "We're very proud any time our schools can make learning gains with our students," she said. Donald E. Woods had the highest rank in Polk at No. 2 for high schools with improved scores. The alternative school was also No. 9 among middle schools. Students who score a 3.5 out of 6 or better on FCAT writing are considered to be writing at their appropriate grade level. The proportion of Donald E. Woods 10th-graders writing at grade level grew from 44 percent to 83 percent from last year to this year, a 39-point increase. The proportion of 8th-graders writing at grade level grew from 23 percent to 65 percent, a 42-point increase. Homer K. Addair also ranked highly on two lists. The school ranked No. 6 among high schools and No. 7 among middle schools. "That says a lot for Homer K," said Principal Asonja Cross. "That is my students. It is their hard work." The proportion of Homer K. Addair 10th-graders writing at grade level grew from 24 percent to 53 percent, a 29-point increase. And the proportion of eighth-graders writing at grade level grew from 28 percent to 73 percent, a 45-point increase. Cross said teachers worked with students on writing prompts and focused lessons on correlating writing with reading. "Reading and writing go handin-hand," she said. "So whatever they read, they wrote about it." Homer K. Addair currently serves students who have not been successful in traditional school settings. Cross said her school's high ranking proves that her students can learn and succeed "no matter what." Next year, the school will convert to a regular middle school. Cross said she plans to place plaques in the school recognizing students with the top FCAT scores in each category each year. The Apple School, which serves students with Attention Deficit Disorder, was No. 9 Last year, the Apple School had no student writing at their appropriate grade level. This year, the school had 40 percent. Apple Principal Beth Nave said her teachers worked with students one-on-one to improve their writing skills. She said the school is "tickled pink" over its recognition. The Apple School, a K-8 charter campus, has been a grade D school for two years. Nave is optimistic the writing improvements signify an improvement for the rest of the school's FCAT scores. "We're just hoping the rest of them, when they come, are better that they have been." FCAT scores for students in grades four through 10 are slated to be released by the state on Tuesday. While top 10 in the state is certainly an achievement, several other Polk schools ranked in the top 100 for their FCAT writing improvement. The following list provides the schools, their rank in the state and their percentage point increases from 2005 to 2006. Andrew Dunn can be reached at andrew.dunn@theledger.com or 863-802-7588. Vote Violates Senator's Principles By ISABEL SANTA Published: May 14, 2006 On Nov. 15, 2004, Alex Villalobos was selected to be the first Cuban-American to serve as Florida Senate majority leader. Fellow senator Lee Constantine described him as "an effective leader and a consensus builder during his tenure in the Legislature." However, in the closing week of this session, he failed to be a consensus builder among the Hispanic community in my district. Villalobos turned his back on the 38th District in Miami by rejecting a constitutional amendment that would have been on the ballot for the November midterm election. The amendment would allow Hispanic parents in my district and throughout Florida to remove their children from failing public schools. Villalobos stated in a Miami Herald article that he voted on his "principles." However, his actions contradict his earlier principles of 2003, when he supported the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in the state Legislature. "How can someone oppose this?" Villalobos asked. "Why should my daughter not have the same opportunity as everybody else?" I ask Villalobos the same rhetorical question: Why should economically disadvantaged Hispanic students or students in failing public schools not have the same opportunities as everybody else? Ever since 1998, Villalobos has been a supporter of school choice bills implementing Opportunity Scholarships, McKay Scholarships and tax credits for corporate scholarship programs. His recent actions lead me to believe he was retaliating for the Republican caucus vote against him for the 2008 Senate presidency. So, who is he really representing? Villalobos said the constitutional amendment he voted against would have "destroyed" public schools, and he felt he was "repaying a debt" to the teachers who helped educate him and sent him to office. If these statements are true, then why did the senator - whose wife, Barbara, is a public school teacher at Glades Middle School - support school choice in the past? Nevertheless, these are the facts about the effects of vouchers on Florida public schools, according to a study by Jay Greene, a senior fellow for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research: Schools facing competition from vouchers have shown the greatest improvement of all five categories of low-performing schools; improving by 9.3 scale points on the FCAT math test and 10.1 points on the FCAT reading test. Florida's low-performing schools are improving in direct proportion to the challenge they face from voucher competition. Perhaps the senator ought to worry less about his personal interests and more about the kids in his district. Overall, in Dade County, only 59 percent of students are proficient in math, while only 52 percent are proficient in reading. I hope the senator isn't counting on this generation of students to support him when he retires because they won't be able to read or do math. Sen. Villalobos should be repaying the parents who helped elect him to office. Who is he to assume parents wouldn't approve the constitutional amendment in November? He surely has lost my vote of confidence. Senate Caved To Union Pressure Skip directly to the full story. Published: May 12, 2006 Regarding the front-page article "GOP Votes Suggest Centrist Future" (May 11): The overall message that I got from this article is that the vote against vouchers in the Florida Senate suggests a more moderate position for the GOP. I say, "Wrong." This was a Senate vote, not a vote from the citizens of Florida. In my opinion, it's simply a case of those who voted against the amendment caving in to the power of the teachers union. Had the amendment gone to a vote, it would have enlightened the public about the problems in our public schools. The bigger issue is that the Senate voted against needed reform in education. Now we will continue onward, not forward, and build more schools, lose more qualified teachers because of unmanageable class sizes, funnel tax dollars to management as opposed to the classroom, and raise taxes. BILL BEERS Lithia   ORIGINAL ARTICLE GOP Votes Suggest Centrist Future Skip directly to the full story. By WILLIAM MARCH wmarch@tampatrib.com Published: May 11, 2006   TAMPA - When the Florida Senate rejected two constitutional amendments on education in the closing days of the recent legislative session, it didn't just hand Gov. Jeb Bush a stunning setback. It also raised questions about the future direction of the Florida Republican Party. In the two votes, maverick Republicans joined Democrats to chip away at pieces of Bush's education reforms, the signal achievement of his political career. That struck at the foundation of the conservative political philosophy Bush has espoused as governor and party leader for more than a decade and raised the question of whether the party soon may move in a more moderate direction. "The message of those two votes is we [the Republican Party] are getting a little too far from the bulk of the population," said state Rep. Ed Homan, of Tampa. The mavericks were emboldened by the winding down of the Bush era - Bush's term as governor ends this year - and his brother's political difficulties in Washington. The GOP candidates for governor this year, Charlie Crist and Tom Gallagher, are competing to fill the void. The Republicans who voted against the amendments in the Senate, and most of those who opposed a similar measure in the House, support Crist, widely perceived as more moderate than Gallagher. Gallagher backers say he is more likely than Crist to keep the party headed in the hard-line conservative direction of the Bush brothers. "It appears at first glance that the more moderate faction of the party is gravitating toward Charlie Crist," said former party Chairman Al Cardenas, a Gallagher backer and longtime ally of Jeb Bush. He said, however, that the appearance of a moderate-conservative battle could change as the two elaborate on their positions. Some Crist backers say their candidate is more centrist than Gallagher, and therefore more electable. "Charlie's got the crossover appeal" for Democrats and independents, said Shane Strum, chairman of the Broward County Republican Party executive committee, which has taken the unusual step of endorsing Crist in the primary. Crist denies being a "moderate," a term that in today's state party is virtual anathema. Both he and Gallagher said they would have voted for both of the constitutional amendments that were defeated in the Senate. In his campaign, Crist hasn't courted the religious right as assiduously as Gallagher, nor has he attacked some liberal-conservative litmus issues, including tort reform, with the stridency of Gallagher. Crist also has distanced himself from the governor on at least one touchstone issue for social conservatives, Bush's controversial handling of the Terri Schiavo case. Crist has said he wouldn't have intervened to prolong the life of the woman, who was in a permanent vegetative state. Signature Issue: Education Bush became leader of the state GOP in 1994, when he won the primary for governor, though he narrowly lost the governorship that year to Lawton Chiles. He didn't become governor until 1998. On social issues, Bush has taken the party toward the religious right and social conservatives; on environmental, tax and regulatory issues, business and economic growth have been the top priority. Meanwhile, religious or social conservatives have replaced moderates as party leaders in one county after another, including Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco. Education has been Bush's signature issue. His long-standing goals have been to undercut the power of what he calls the public education bureaucracy, meaning teachers unions and education administration; to institute more testing in public schools, though not private schools; to oppose the idea that more money will solve the problems of the public schools; and to divert tax money to private schools. "Our public school system is foundering, and the problem isn't money," he said in an education position paper during his 1994 campaign. The antidote, he said, was "portable scholarships," or vouchers, to create competition for what he called "a government monopoly." The two amendments rejected in the Legislature were intended to uphold the progress Bush has made on that agenda since becoming governor: •In January, the state Supreme Court declared unconstitutional his centerpiece voucher program, tuition subsidies for students in schools considered by the state to be failing. One of the amendments would have removed the constitutional blockage to the program. •The other would have watered down a previous amendment, passed by voters in 2002 over Bush's vehement opposition, that required smaller classes in public schools. •In the state House, meanwhile, a small group of Republicans also voted with Democrats against a similar measure, including the class-size amendment and another backed by conservatives. The Honeymoon Ends Those votes contrasted sharply with 1998, when Bush was a new governor with a big mandate, and his education changes sailed through the Legislature despite a significant number of moderates who weren't comfortable with them. That year, "we were all drinking the Kool-Aid," said Sen. Dennis Jones, of Seminole, who helped pass the vouchers program as speaker pro tem in the House in 1998, though he has never favored vouchers. He was one of the four GOP senators to vote against vouchers last week. Jack Latvala, a former GOP state senator from Palm Harbor, also opposed vouchers but helped pass them in 1998 as Senate majority leader. He said Jones and the other Republicans who voted last week against the amendments "should be commended. I don't know why the Republican Party thinks they're smarter than the voters." Homan, a Democrat who switched parties to run for office, said he fears the Republican Party could get too far from the mainstream - a trap he said Democrats fell into. He was one of a handful of House Republicans who, like the Senate mavericks, voted with Democrats on the amendments. Homan supports Gallagher because, as a physician, he prefers Gallagher's harder-line stance on limiting malpractice lawsuits, but he thinks Gallagher will become more of a moderate in the general election, when he no longer has to appeal to GOP activists to get the nomination. "For a party to be successful, you can't deviate too far from that big bubble in the center," Homan said. "If the Republicans keep moving to the right, they're going to lose that fight."

 

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