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,
In (FCAT: Most Florida 3rd-graders
testing at grade level in math, reading )78
percent of white third-graders, 61 percent of Hispanics and 52
percent of blacks scored at or above grade level in reading
this year. That compared to 70 percent of whites, 46 percent
of Hispanics and 36 percent of blacks in
2001.
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A most excellent
piece in the Tallahassee
Democrat by Clark Neily, a senior attorney at
the Institute for Justice, who represents Opportunity
Scholarships in the case before the Florida Supreme
Court. This article appeared side by side with the
article in the Miami Herald
(Improve public
schools). |
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In the Miami Herald (Improve public schools),
the ACLU is at it again… Thousands of students use
taxpayer funds to attend faith based colleges (some to study
for the ministry) and most children will use taxpayer funds to
attend faith based pre-k programs in for the new Voluntary
Pre-K program. Yet they have not sued to prevent the
implementation of these popular programs.
Interesting…
In the article, (Behavior issues, testing focus: Will
9-year-old want to learn?) the writer is unaware
that schools that have poor performance in Florida get more
money (not less) and that one must be a high school graduate
to enter the military.
Gubernatorial candidate Tom Gallagher
makes some strong statement on school choice in (Gubernatorial
Race).
Thank you for Stepping Up For
Students,
Michael A. Benjamin
Executive Director,
F.A.C.E.
Florida Alliance for Choices in
Education
FCAT: Most Florida
3rd-graders testing at grade level in math,
reading
By BRENDAN
FARRINGTON
Associated Press
Writer
CHARLOTTE HARBOR, Fla.
Gov. Jeb Bush visited students whose school was destroyed by
Hurricane Charley to announce Florida Comprehensive Assessment
Test scores, saying Wednesday he is awed by gains made after
four hurricanes slammed the state.
Overall, two-thirds
of Florida's third graders performed at grade level or above
on this year's FCAT in math and reading, up slightly from the
year before.
And counties most affected by last year's
storms made greater gains than other areas, Bush said after
talking with Peace River Elementary School pupils. The
children had to attend afternoon classes at a neighboring
school after theirs was destroyed, yet 80 percent of third
graders scored at or above grade level, up 24 percentage
points over last year.
"In Escambia, in Santa Rosa
County, on the Treasure Coast, in Hardee County, DeSoto
County, there was lots of suffering and a lot of pain going
on, but in the counties impacted by the hurricanes, but for a
handful of examples, the gains were higher in those schools
then they were in the schools that were not hit by the
storms," Bush said. "I'm in awe of you all."
Statewide,
67 percent of third graders this year scored at grade level or
above in reading compared with 66 percent last year. The math
results improved too, with 68 percent of third graders scoring
at grade level, up from 64 percent last year.
The FCAT
is key in determining which third graders are promoted to the
fourth grade and whether high school students graduate. Twenty
percent of third graders scored at level one and may be held
back. That's down from 22 percent last year.
Eighteen
percent of this year's senior class of 150,000 students have
yet to satisfy the FCAT requirement for graduation - but many
of those students wouldn't be able to graduate anyway because
of low grades or missing credits, according to Education
Commissioner John Winn. Seven percent of the seniors fall
short of graduation requirements only because of FCAT, Bush
said. That compares to 10 percent of the senior class last
year.
In March, nearly 19,000 12th graders who hadn't
already passed the FCAT reading test took it and 80 percent
failed; nearly 11,600 12th graders who hadn't already passed
the FCAT math test took it and 65 percent
failed.
Students who failed can take the test again in
June.
The FCAT includes a section of questions that
allows Florida students to be compared to a national group of
students. In 2005, Florida's third graders scored in the
middle in reading, with a percentile rank of 50 on a scale of
1 to 100 with 100 being best. Florida third-graders did better
in math, placing in the 62nd percentile.
Winn said that
scoring system was realigned this year and a comparison with
prior years was invalid. Those rankings were markedly
different from last year, when Florida's third-graders ranked
in the 62nd percentile in reading and in the 68th in
math.
Statewide, black and Hispanic students are
continuing to make gains at a slightly greater rate than white
students, though their scores remain significantly
lower.
For example, 78 percent of white third-graders,
61 percent of Hispanics and 52 percent of blacks scored at or
above grade level in reading this year. That compared to 70
percent of whites, 46 percent of Hispanics and 36 percent of
blacks in 2001.
"The achievement gap between white
students and minority students continues to decline," Bush
said. "There is no state in the United States that's seen
these kinds of gains."
The Florida Education
Association disapproves the use of the FCAT to grade schools,
retain students and determine high school graduation. Teachers
union spokesman Mark Pudlow said the test should be used to
let teachers and parents know where students need help, not to
hold them back or to punish schools where students don't test
as well.
But Pudlow said the FCAT results show students
and teachers can meet a challenge.
"As flawed as the
system is ... teachers and students are responding well to
it," Pudlow said.
The state plans to analyze the data
and see if it can tell why scores went up in hurricane zones,
such as students leaving school districts because of damaged
or destroyed homes, said Winn.
For now anecdotal
evidence suggests students and teachers simply rose to the
challenge.
"Everybody pulled together," Winn
said.
Before his announcement, Bush visited with third
graders, including Kaitlyn Greenstone who scored a perfect 500
on the FCAT reading test even though her home was destroyed
during Charley.
Bush called her up to the front of the
class and gave her a long hug.
"That's amazing," Bush
told her. "You made me cry. I'm so proud of you."
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Posted
on Sat, May. 14, 2005 |
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Readers'
views on legislative
session
Kudos
to Miami-Dade County GOP state senators and other
legislators who voted against Gov. Jeb Bush's most
recent attack on the 2002 voter-approved
class-size amendment. The Senate also refused his
A+ education plan because of the governor's
insistence to keep the so-called ''reading compact
scholarships,'' which would have allowed students
scoring Level 1 on the FCAT reading portion to
receive private- school
vouchers.
Although
the governor has accomplished some good things
relating to school accountability, the defeat of
these two measures signals the demise of a
right-wing education program that has demeaned
public schools and educators for years. The defeat
hopefully opens the door to a more-moderate
education policy, one whereby students and
teachers are respected and given the tools to
improve without the negative stigma of being
branded as a failure.
THOMAS
D. JAMES, Pembroke
Pines
It
has been erroneously reported by some members of
the Florida Senate and subsequently in the press
that private schools do not support
finger-printing and background screening for
teachers and employees of private schools. Many
private schools have been voluntarily conducting
background checks on teachers and employees for
years.
We
opposed the language of a Senate bill that gave
the Department of Education the responsibility of
determining whether a teacher or employee was
suitable for employment by a private school
without giving the private school any reason for
their decision. Many private schools believe DOE's
standards might be less stringent than their
own.
The
House bill created a system that allows private
schools to submit finger prints electronically to
the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and
receive the results of the screening. Since that
gave private schools the ability to make
employment decisions based on the law and their
own more-stringent standards, we withdrew our
opposition.
ROBYN
A. RENNICK, president,
The Coalition of McKay Scholarship Schools,
Tallahassee |
Posted on Sun, May. 15,
2005
TALLAHASSEE
DEMOCRAT |
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School-choice scholarships aid students,
not religion
CLARK NEILY
MY
VIEW
On June 7, the Florida Supreme
Court will hear arguments in a case that could decide
whether Florida continues to lead the nation in true
education reform or joins the ranks of states where
"reform" means business as usual.
The question the justices will
be asked to decide is whether the state constitution
prohibits the state from giving scholarships to parents
whose children are stuck in failing public schools so
they can transfer those kids to private schools of their
choice.
Opponents claim the program results in
impermissible "aid" to religion because it allows
scholarship recipients to send their children to
religious as well as nonreligious private
schools.
A major problem with that
argument, however - and one school choice opponents have
steadfastly refused to squarely address - is what
implications that argument has for Florida's three dozen
other social and educational aid programs that, just
like Opportunity Scholarships, allow participants to
freely choose among religious and nonreligious
providers.
On the education side alone, more than
200,000 Floridians receive publicly funded scholarships
through a variety of state aid programs, all of which
permit scholarship recipients to attend religious
schools if they choose. This includes more than 100,000
college students using Bright Futures and other higher
education scholarships, nearly 15,000 K-12 students
attending private schools through the McKay Program for
Students with Disabilities, and 12,000 K-12 students in
the Corporate Tax Credit program.
Moreover, starting this fall,
anywhere from 90,000 to 150,000 pre-K students are
expected to enroll in the new universal pre-kindergarten
program, and, like Opportunity Scholarship recipients,
they will enjoy a full range of religious and
nonreligious options.
Besides educational aid, many
state and local agencies contract with organizations
such as the Salvation Army to provide a wide range of
services including prison counseling services, drug
rehabilitation, and aid to the homeless. Likewise,
religious hospitals receive public money through the
Medicaid program. Does that count as "aid" to the
churches that run those hospitals? Fortunately, the
answer to that question is "no."
Florida has a long history of
neutrality when it comes to allowing religious
organizations to participate in all manner of social and
educational aid programs. Why doesn't it count as aid to
religion when a Bright Futures scholarship recipient
decides to attend a school like Hobe Sound Bible College
or Florida Christian College?
It's because the "aid"
is to the student, not the particular school he or she
happens to attend. Same thing with Medicaid; even though
state money ends up going to a religious institution,
the aid is to the patient who chooses that hospital, not
the hospital itself or the church that runs the
hospital.
The same is true of Opportunity
Scholarships. When the state gives parents an
educational lifeline - when it gives them, for the first
time in their lives, a choice of where to send their
children to school - that is aid to those parents and
their children. It is not aid to whatever schools they
happen to choose.
School choice is the civil
rights issue of the 21st century. Nothing more starkly
divides the haves and the have-nots in this country than
the question of who has the ability to ensure
educational excellence for their children by choosing
where they go to school, and who must simply take
whatever their local public schools have to offer, no
matter how clearly inadequate.
Florida is on the right side of
that debate and the right side of history. While many
states promise all students a high-quality public
education, only Florida delivers by saying to parents,
"If we can't get the job done, we'll give you a
scholarship so you can find someone who will."
Now that is accountability.
The Opportunity Scholarship program is a true
education reform that has already enriched the lives and
future prospects of hundreds of children. And, as
verified by a new Harvard study, it is also a means of
injecting into education a little healthy competition -
something from which public schools have been all but
immune until now.
As the Harvard study notes,
competition is even motivating the public schools to
improve. Nothing in the state constitution forbids the
state from continuing this vital reform. The parents and
children of Florida deserve nothing
less.
Clark Neily,
a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice,
represents Opportunity Scholarships in the case before
the Florida Supreme Court. He and Howard Simon,
executive director of the ACLU of Florida, recently
debated this issue at a forum sponsored by the James
Madison Institute, a Tallahassee-based policy center.
Contact Neily at cneily@ij.org.
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Miami Herald
Improve public
schools
BY HOWARD L.
SIMON
hsaclu@aol.com
Ever
since Jeb Bush became governor of Florida, he has championed
programs that undermine the state's public school system by
transferring tax dollars from public to private and church-run
schools.
The Governor's Opportunity Scholarship
Program (a.k.a. vouchers) was sold to the public as a way to
help children trapped in ''failing'' schools, despite the
Florida Constitution's clear language barring aid to religious
institutions. Relying on this clever strategy, Bush and
supporters of taxpayer financing of religious schools have now
created four voucher programs, three of which have little to
do with ''failing'' schools.
And now, finally, the showdown at the
Florida Supreme Court: It is one of the most important cases
in our state's history. It certainly will be crucial for
Florida families that rely on the neighborhood public school
for the formal education of their children.
For 137 years, the following words
have appeared in the Florida Constitution: ''No revenue of the
state shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or
indirectly in aid of any sectarian institution.'' Three courts
have reviewed the governor's voucher program. Based on this
principle, all have declared it
unconstitutional.
Because the Constitution is so clear,
the voucher program is being defended by scare tactics and by
calling defenders of public schools enemies of education
reform.
• The first tactic is to spread
fear that if aid to church-run schools is not permitted, then
the work of religious charities (e.g., Lutheran refugee
resettlement programs, Catholic adoption agencies, Jewish
Vocational Services, etc.) are also vulnerable to legal
challenge.
Our nation has been dependent on the
wonderful work of religious charities since the birth of the
Republic. But when religiously-affiliated charities choose to
contract with the government to deliver social services, they
commit to serving the needs of the community without
proselytizing and without regard to the religious affiliation
of who is served, and who is hired to serve. They are free to
do otherwise, but then they must rely on the donations of
parishioners, not contracts with government.
• A second scare tactic warns
that if the court upholds our constitutional tradition of no
aid to religious institutions, the education of hundreds of
children will be disrupted. But this rewards the governor's
exploitation of the prolonged legal process in order to create
''new facts.'' He has pressed forward with a scheme that was
unconstitutional at its inception -- and now claims foul that
he might be thwarted.
Claiming that defenders of public
schools are enemies of education reform is just silly in light
of the experimentation taking place throughout the country.
There are magnet schools, charter schools and schools within
schools. There are also reforms that could and should be
adopted, such as parental choice to send children to any
public school within a district and reorganizing ''failing''
schools. All these offer choices and increased opportunities
for the involvement of parents in the education of their
children.
Of course, the most effective reform
involves putting kids in smaller classes that allow for more
individualized attention. Research documents that this leads
to higher achievement, especially in the early years, and
particularly for poor and minority students. But Gov. Bush has
resisted this reform and, even after adoption by the voters,
has worked to undermine it.
Not
education reform
Vouchers for church-run schools are
part of a political and ideological crusade, not a plan for
education reform. True education reform would not include
programs aimed at facilitating the abandonment of the public
schools. Nor would true reforms exhibit such blind faith in
the private sector as does Florida's voucher program -- one
that does not require certified teachers, that permits
vouchers to be used at schools having no track record and
exempts students attending private and church-run schools from
state testing.
Private and parochial schools have
made great contributions to America. But neighborhood public
schools have been an engine of opportunity and a vehicle for
advancement for generations of Americans, especially the poor
and middle class.
Forget vouchers; work for the
improvement of neighborhood public schools. The children of
Florida and our democracy depend upon that.
Howard L. Simon is
executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of
Florida. The ACLU is co-counsel in Bush vs.
Holmes, the lawsuit challenging the voucher program.
© 2005 Herald.com and wire service
sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com
Behavior
issues, testing focus: Will 9-year-old want to
learn?
By
BILL ARCHER
COMMUNITY
VOICES
Last
update: May 16, 2005
There's much wrong
with an institution that becomes an instrument of stress and
depression for those whom it is supposed to nurture and whose
potential it is to develop.
When a 9-year-old
(I use this example as a composite to avoid identifying actual
pupils) is referred to me because he is depressed and fearful
that the results of one test he took may cause his retention
at the same grade level for another school year, it is
pitifully disheartening. And the pupil's depression is
exacerbated by the fact that he has already been retained one
year at an earlier grade level. He's got an information
processing problem that makes reading especially difficult and
writing even more so.
Physically, he's
larger than his classmates and, emotionally, he's more mature.
But this institution that is supposed to develop his
responsible social awareness and build his positive
self-esteem so he can grow up to make a positive contribution
to society has already cast him into that segment of society
that feels inadequate, unsuccessful and discouraged.
Coming to school
should be a positive event in the lives of all children. For
those who have stable families that provide love, care,
support and encouragement, with predictable routines that are
positive, school is that positive event.
But for the child
who is presently living in poverty and experiencing material
deprivations, with one parent in prison and the other a
substance abuser, school should be not only the oasis but his
way out of a predicament that is not of his own making.
With his free
school supplies and two nutritious free meals that are
provided on each school day, the ordered calm of his classroom
offers him solace from the constant crying of his infant
sibling back at the motel room. He can relax a little and be a
child again. And being away from his drugged parent's
unpredictable behavior, behavior that bewilders him, is
certainly a relief.
But the facts of
his family history and the reality of how the public school
system has now been forced to follow arbitrary state and
federal standards have pretty much sealed his fate. Perched as
he is now, on the edge of another retention, he may decide the
chaos of home may be preferable to another school failure.
And, in a few short years, he may be in prison too, or on
drugs.
Professional
educators who started their careers 30 to 40 years ago can
attest to the dramatic differences between the students they
taught then and the ones they are serving now. In a class of
30 students, there might have been two or three students who
were nonconforming and the rest were ready to learn. Now, the
pattern has reversed itself and the majority of students are
nonconforming, medicated, living in split families or foster
care, some with grandparents, others with friends of parents
who have been given permission to make medical decisions for
them if necessary and in family combinations that are anything
but traditional. Not only are the children not ready to learn,
but they are in desperate need of behavior management.
The early weeks in
school are now devoted to teaching them routines, classroom
procedures and rules while trying to teach academic skills
that are new to them. In the past, evaluation was a matter of
giving a pretest, keeping daily/weekly records of performance
and then, at the end of the year, giving a posttest to see how
much progress each student had made. It was a simple but
brilliant way to measure performance and decide the issue of
promotion and retention.
Now, that's all
changed with the imposition of the state's FCAT standards for
student promotion and individual school grades, and the
federal government's No Child Left Behind Act, with its Annual
Yearly Performance that determines if a school meets the
requirements so it can continue receiving federal funding.
Ironically, it is
now impossible to maintain the quality of education that once
was. The range of subjects tested has narrowed, so most of the
time has to be spent teaching only those specific ones.
Schools that fail to meet the standards of either of the
programs are denied financial support, and that money instead
goes to unconstitutional voucher programs that send students
and tax dollars into the unaccountable private sector that is
not required to meet the standards of either evaluation
process.
The 9-year-old,
and others like him, hasn't a chance to succeed in a system
like this one. In a time when public schools are having to
supply multiple services to meet the needs of children living
in communities with problems that the government neglects and
then blames them for, you cannot expect quality. His teacher
and I will work together to encourage him and persuade him
that school is his best opportunity to escape that which is
becoming more acceptable to him daily: failure.
Maybe he'll find a
sanctuary as a soldier in the military one day. Isn't that
where a lot of public school failures end up? Wait a minute!
Maybe that's the goal of this education reform with its FCAT
and its NCLB. Those who think we are making progress under
this arbitrary state and federal evaluation process probably
believe in the Tooth Fairy too.
Archer,
a public school counselor, lives in Daytona Beach.
GUBERNATORIAL
RACE
Gallagher lays out conservative
agenda
The state's chief
financial officer, Tom Gallagher, announces his bid for
governor in 2006 and speaks against gay marriage, judges and
taxes.
BY
MARC CAPUTO
mcaputo@herald.com
Shedding his reputation as a moderate,
Tom Gallagher, Florida's Republican chief financial officer,
announced his candidacy for governor Wednesday by outlining a
red-meat conservative agenda that calls for an end to ''judges
legislating from the bench,'' more tax cuts and a
constitutional amendment opposing gay
marriage.
Gallagher also paid tribute to Gov.
Jeb Bush, a fellow Republican, and promised to carry on his
legacy: pushing for ''meaningful lawsuit reform'' and for
vouchers steering public money to private schools. Gallagher
wouldn't say where he now differs with the governor, who can't
run in 2006 due to term limits, but said he would earn the
state's top executive office on his own merits. ''I don't
think there's an heir apparent to Gov. Bush,'' Gallagher said.
``I've never considered myself other than a conservative
person in regards to my values.''
But Gallagher's views have shifted
somewhat since he was first elected as a Coconut Grove
representative to the Florida House in 1974. Gallagher
subsequently ran for governor in 1982 before dropping out and
then tried again in 1994, when he lost to Bush in a
primary.
During that 1994 race, Gallagher
proposed a voter-approved penny tax to pay for more prisons.
Now he wants taxes
slashed.
Gallagher opposed parts of Bush's
voucher plan, which he nows supports. Also in 1994, Gallagher
told The Herald that he was ``pro choice.''
Now he says he's
``pro-life.''
Gallagher, who has been elected
education commissioner and insurance commissioner as well as
the state's CFO, didn't mention insurance issues in his brief
values-packed speech. In response to a question, Gallagher
said he's proud of his efforts to get insurance companies to
pay up after last hurricane season.
Another Gallagher legacy: the state's
KidCare program, which he helped establish to provide health
insurance to children from poverty-stricken
families.
Rather than focus on those successes,
Gallagher attacked the judiciary, saying out-of-control judges
have unfairly ruled against Bush's voucher plan. The judges
have based their decision on a provision of Florida's
constitution that says no public money shall indirectly or
directly pay for religious institutions.
Many voucher-taking schools are
religious, and a few teach creationism. The case is now before
the state Supreme Court. The courts are also to blame for the
gay-marriage controversy, according to Gallagher, who said the
state needs a constitutional amendment to ''defend the family
itself'' by defining marriage as solely the union between a
man and a woman.
Gay issues started to nag Gallagher's
Republican opponent, Attorney General Charlie Crist, months
ago when he was asked about his sexual orientation at a public
meeting. Crist, who is single, has repeatedly said he is
heterosexual. Crist made his tough-on-crime candidacy official
last week, when America's
Most Wanted host John Walsh filed papers on Crist's
behalf.
In contrast, Gallagher had 6-year-old
son Charlie file his campaign papers. Charlie and his mother,
Laura, stood at his side during his
announcement.
''There's nothing better than having a
wife and child who support you and work with you and that you
can go home to and relax with and enjoy,'' Gallagher
said.
© 2005 Herald.com and wire service
sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com
