F.A.C.E. to FACE
F.A.C.E. BULLETIN
6/22/06
ALERT
Thousands of New Scholarships Available for Low-Income K-12 Students
(More scholarships available! See bottom of Newsletter!)
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This link (http://www.edweek.org/ew/toc/2006/06/22/index.html) is to this week's education week story and detailed report on the Bill Gates Foundation recently released report on graduation rates of various states and districts. It contains some special features like-A special state-focused online supplement to Diplomas Count. Features detailed data on high school graduation rates at the national, state, and district level. The report also examines how states calculate graduation rates, tracks state policies related to high school graduation requirements, and explores ways in which states and districts might improve graduation rates based on research.
Voucher change strands students, Orlando Sentinel. There is no doubt the suit will be filed, and it might be filed at the latest right after the November election. NOT TO FEAR, BUT BE READY TO ENGAGE NOW.
Gilchrist gets A for effort as its schools all get A's on FCAT, Gainesville Sun.
State Passes Schools But The Feds Don't, Tampa Tribune
School grades continue to improve, but Edison can't escape F, Miami Herald.
The Florida Times-Union, EDUCATION: Demand the best
New York Post, RUDY GOES NUCLEAR
Thank you for Stepping Up For Students,
Michael A. Benjamin
Executive Director, F.A.C.E.
Florida Alliance for Choices in Education
Voucher change strands students
A court ruling ends scholarships that many needed for tuition.
Leslie Postal
Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
June 11, 2006
Asia Brown loves her Christian school in Orlando and the state-funded scholarship that paid her tuition for two years. But judges have shut off the money for her and more than 700 other Florida students.
Now Asia and other children who attended private schools under the state's pioneer voucher program could be forced to return to the public school systems they fled.
This means an uncertain summer for parents and students involved in the Opportunity Scholarship program, which the Florida Supreme Court struck down in January.
The program offered students at public schools given F's by the state twice in four years the chance for a taxpayer-funded scholarship to a private school. After years of litigation, the state's high court ruled that arrangement violated the state constitution.
Justices said the 733 students using the scholarships, which included Asia and about 100 others in Orange, could remain at their private schools for the rest of the academic year. But the program ended when the school year did.
Some of the voucher students graduated this month. When summer is over, the rest must find another way to cover private school costs or return to public schools -- but not necessarily the F-ranked ones.
The voucher program also gave students at failing schools the option of transferring to better-performing public schools, and the court said that choice remains.
Many are applying for so-called corporate scholarships, available through another voucher program created under Gov. Jeb Bush's administration. Last week, Bush signed legislation giving the 733 students priority under that program.
Those scholarships, however, have family income rules and do not necessarily cover full tuition and fees, as opportunity scholarships did.
Mom worries for daughter
The difference matters to Asia's mother, Deloris Griffin, who cried "Praise the Lord!" when she received a letter offering her daughter a scholarship two years ago.
Instead of attending F-rated Jones High in Orlando, Asia enrolled in private South Orlando Christian Academy.
"I prefer that school because it was a Christian environment, and I felt like she would get more attention," Griffin said. "She's been doing well there."
Griffin is applying for a corporate scholarship for Asia but also has considered sending her to Boone High, an option for students assigned to Jones. Even if the corporate scholarship comes through, the $3,500 voucher falls short of the $4,800 tuition tab at South Orlando Christian.
"I don't have the rest of the money that they need. I still don't know what I'm going to do yet," Griffin said. "I was praying that the Lord gave us the finances so we could keep her there."
Voucher worth $4,200
The Opportunity Scholarship program was the nation's first statewide school voucher program. State officials touted it as a way of freeing children -- mostly poor, minority children -- from failing public schools. This past school year, the program paid, on average, $4,200 per child.
Although it touched only a tiny fraction of Florida's more than 2.6 million public school students, the program was a lightning rod for controversy.
The Florida Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, and other groups filed a court challenge the day after Bush signed the program into law in 1999. They objected to transferring public money to religious schools. Last year, 72 percent of the participating schools were religious.
The state's top court sided with those groups, although its 5-2 ruling was decided not on the religious issue but on a provision in the constitution that requires a system of "uniform" and "high quality" public schools, which justices decided the vouchers violated.
Other choices at risk?
The ruling left untouched Florida's two other, larger voucher programs but raised questions about whether they, too, could be challenged. The McKay Scholarship program is designed for students with disabilities and the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship program provides tuition vouchers to poor children. Nearly 30,000 students used the two programs in the 2005-06 school year.
Ron Meyer, the attorney who led the voucher challenge, said there are no plans to file another lawsuit, but the corporate program, in particular, is being looked at because it has the "same flaws" as the Opportunity Scholarship program.
"I think it's fair to say we have some of the same concerns," he said. "This is a program that is simply replicating in the private schools what the public schools are able to do."
Clark Neily, a lawyer with the public interest law firm Institute for Justice, which represented Florida parents in the voucher case and has argued school-choice cases nationwide, has a different take.
"I, obviously, strongly disagree with that," Neily said.
His group contends that the corporate scholarships can pass legal review -- and should, as they provide a valuable option for children -- but knows that view will not be tested unless a lawsuit is filed.
"The ball is really in the court of school choice opponents," he added.
To parents and private school educators, the now-defunct program gave students better educational options.
"I think it was a great program," said Michelange Bertrand, an administrator with Agape Christian Academy in Orange, which had about 25 students using the scholarships this past school year. "It gave the parents and the students a choice to get the education wherever they wanted."
Agape enrolled students from Jones, Evans and Oak Ridge high schools, all branded "double F" schools in 2004.
"They were looking for a better environment. Teachers that care . . . smaller classes," Bertrand added.
At South Orlando Christian, students get "Christian principles," "good morals" and small classes, usually no larger than 17 students, said Elizabeth Campo, the school's director.
Campo said the pre-K-to-12th-grade school already has about half its 210 students using corporate scholarships and hopes the dozen who have lost the other vouchers also can qualify. Her school, she added, helped students fleeing failing public schools.
"Some of them were behind, especially in their basic skills, in reading and math," Campo said. "They've made much, much improvement, even in their behavior."
New school, better grades
Horatio Headlam, 17, spent his 10th-grade year at Oak Ridge, after moving to the region from New York. His grades fell and his mother, Sandra Sterling, did not like the atmosphere.
When the scholarship became available, she enrolled him at South Orlando Christian. Horatio's grades bounced back to A's and B's.
"They notice if his work falls off. They call me. I like that," Sterling said.
Sterling, who works as a nursing assistant, said she has not yet applied for the corporate scholarship but likely will.
"I don't want to move him," she said. "He's doing so good here."
Asia, Griffin's daughter, doesn't want to leave either. "You get more attention from your teachers," she said.
"I want to stay here."
Leslie Postal can be reached at lpostal@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5273.
Article published Jun 20, 2006
Jun 19, 2006
Gilchrist gets A for effort as its schools all get A's on FCATWhile school leaders stress year-round about school grades and the high-stakes Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, one tiny North Central Florida district may have it all figured out.
Gilchrist County School District was the only one of the state's 67 school systems to get an A grade in all of its schools this year, and Superintendent Buddy Vickers said it's the only straight-A district in the history of Florida's school grades.
The grades, based on student FCAT scores, can make or break a school's reputation, and while A schools are rewarded with bonus money, repeat F schools face a risk of losing students to higher-performing schools and giving up electives to instead offer remedial courses.
At first glance, Gilchrist's victory could be shrugged off as an easier feat than getting straight A's in a larger district with more schools and more struggling students. The rural district between Dixie and Alachua counties has just four schools totaling about 2,900 students; that's one-tenth the size of neighboring Alachua County Public Schools. There are two combined middle and high schools, Bell High and Trenton High, and two elementary schools, Bell Elementary and Trenton Elementary.
But the small county has much the same makeup of its larger counterparts, with about half of its test-takers falling under the "economically disadvantaged" classification and about one-third of them with disabilities. The first year FCAT tests came out, in 1999, Gilchrist's scores were nothing to brag about: the district had three C's and a D.
After that first tough year, Gilchrist County's grades steadily increased, topping off at three A's and a B each year for the past three years.
The straight A's were a long time coming. Just ask Vickers.
The superintendent said the secret to the county's success is that a number of pieces came together after years of work, including an aggressive team effort that involves year-round student performance analysis, professional reading training for every teacher, even book studies for administrators.
"We're a very data-driven school system," Assistant Superintendent James Surrency said in a conference call with The Sun. "We look at each student's performance from one year to the next, but we also look at their performance in between."
The district regularly tests students to gauge which classrooms need work on a specific topic, explained Trenton Elementary Principal Jean Ledvina. In fact, a team of administrators requires that school-based data-analyzing teams report to them each month with a list of areas that need improvements.
The progress-monitoring isn't a flat pass/fail assessment, said Janet Bradley, the district's curriculum director and reading specialist. She said the district uses "diagnostics" in reading, for example, to determine whether a child is struggling with reading fluency, with vocabulary, with phonics or a number of other specifics.
And for Exceptional Student Education, or ESE, students, who have disabilities, Director of Special Programs Mary Bennet said integrated classes have helped the students make gains they probably wouldn't have made in secluded classrooms.
The district also tightened the focus of its curriculum, not teaching to the test, but rather teaching to the Sunshine State Standards, which are Florida's education requirements. If sections in textbooks address topics that aren't part of the standards, teachers stopped teaching them to instead focus on what's required, Bradley said.
"That was probably one of the toughest challenges, getting the teachers away from (teaching everything in the text)," she said.
Even with all those administrative efforts, Vickers said, "You can have all these pieces in place and still not make gains. It all boils down to what happens in the classroom. Our teachers have bought in to this, and I think the results are clear."
Not to take teachers' role in the district's performance for granted, Vickers said the school system takes a portion of its budget to pay bonuses to good teachers, in addition to bonuses issued by the state. Gilchrist's in-house bonuses are based on how principals grade the teachers in their performance. The state bonuses are tied to FCAT scores.
The reading and math FCATs are the only tests that count toward school grades, but Trenton High Principal Lynette Langford said it's not just reading and math teachers who are working toward getting A's. She said everyone - even physical education teachers - has training in teaching reading, and they work it into their programs.
The staff stressed that the hard work is about much more than the FCAT. When the test is over in March, they don't slow their pace for the rest of the year. "Literally, we turn around and we're back to work 15 minutes later," Vickers said.
They're trying to prepare students for the workforce of the future, which means they're continually working to improve their career academy and set up more partnerships with community colleges. They're also studying up on what's new in education, Vickers said, with book studies on topics like the global economy, the flat Earth concept and other forward-looking texts.
There's a banner that hangs in each of Gilchrist's four schools that puts their mission into words: "Gilchrist County Schools: an A school system with the vision of being world class."
Though small, and though rural, they're planning to keep their students on the cutting edge of education.
Tiffany Pakkala can be reached at 338-3111 or pakkalt@gvillesun.com.
State Passes Schools But The Feds Don't
Published: Jun 15, 2006
TAMPA - The vast difference in the way the state of Florida and the federal government count school achievement - and reward or punish it - was more apparent than ever with Wednesday's annual report card release.
Seventy-five percent of Florida schools earned an A or B from the state, the highest percentage in eight years of state grading. At the same time, 72 percent of Florida schools failed to meet the federal standard.
Many of those will be forced to offer student transfers or private tutoring. In Hillsborough County, Shaw, Robles and Oak Park elementaries have to start a restructuring plan and are a year away from possible state takeover because they've never met the federal mark.
It's the same pattern as previous years, but numbers and sanctions keep growing.
Last year, 71 percent of Florida schools were graded A or B by the state, and 64 percent did not make "adequate yearly progress" under the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind law.
Still, in a news conference and information released Wednesday, state leaders chose to focus almost exclusively on their own grading system, clinging to a designation it created last year to try to keep more Florida schools from failing on the national report.
They label schools that earn an A or B but fail to make federal adequate yearly progress "provisional." It's the same as a "no" when it comes to federal sanctions.
"It's a zero with a bow wrapped on it," said Sam Whitten, the Hillsborough County school district's testing director, who, like others, celebrated the district's top grades while trying to match them with the federal marks.
No regular Tampa Bay area schools failed on the state report card this year; 24 in the state made an F. Hillsborough's only F went to Central City Charter School, already identified as a low performer last year. The district threatened to not renew its charter.
In Tallahassee, Gov. Jeb Bush declared victory, skimming over details of schools failing his brother's federal measure.
"This is an outcome-driven process, and we are getting great outcomes," Bush said, pointing to schools such as Tampa's Alexander Elementary, which pulled itself from a grade of D in 1999 to an A this year.
Alexander Principal Manuel Duran and Hillsborough Superintendent MaryEllen Elia stood beside Bush for his statement. Elia later lauded other district schools such as Just, Potter and Edison elementaries, which pulled themselves up from failing grades last year. Potter and Edison jumped to C's and Just to a D.
Schools such as Alexander, Potter and Just are among the growing number statewide in line for state reward money and federal sanctions.
State officials later said in a media conference call the state continues to use the provisional designation because the U.S. Department of Education said they can. They want to acknowledge excellent schools, even though they are still subject to sanctions.
Florida does poorly on the federal standard because, allowed to set their own standards under No Child Left Behind, education leaders chose stringent ones. Other states didn't.
Under the state grading system, schools graded A or those that improve a letter grade earn about $100 per student. But, if those schools serve large percentages of children from poor families and don't hit the federal mark two consecutive years, regardless of their state grades, they must offer families transfers to higher performing schools.
After three years, they must also offer private tutoring.
Eventually, those schools may be taken over by the state, although state Education Commissioner John Winn said of those performing well on the state report card, "I'm going to be hard pressed to put federal sanctions against our own high-performing schools."
This year, more schools are having to offer transfers, and districts have fewer and fewer schools to transfer to. Money set aside to pay private tutors - taken out of federal grants to high-poverty schools - may not cover all those who want them.
Fortunately for Hillsborough and other districts nationwide, only a small percentage of families have taken advantage of transfers and tutoring required by federal law. Both educators and parents are struggling to figure out what the sanctions mean as they pile up at their schools.
Principals such as Gloria Kolka at Shaw Elementary, which raised its grade from F in 2002 to a C this year, said they wonder what their fate will be.
Shaw, Robles and Oak Park are in the first phase of restructuring, the last stage before the state could take them over or require a charter or private company to do that. The district already has changed principals and restructured at the poorest performing schools.
Now it must decide just what that first stage of restructuring will mean, then explain it to principals and parents, said Jeff Eakins, Hillsborough's director of federal programs.
"A, B, C, D, F is easy to understand," he said. "Why yes or why no is not so easy."
Raymond Williams, a volunteer and former parent at Shaw, said he hopes the schools are carefully examined before any changes are made.
"I think leaders need to visit these schools, and not just for a day," Williams said. "They need to find out why these schools aren't making AYP [adequate yearly progress]. Is it because of the teachers? Is it the leadership? I can tell you that's not the case at Shaw."
Reporters Catherine Dolinski, Doug Stanley, Michele Sager, Courtney Cairns-Pastor, Ronnie Blair and Steven Isbitts contributed to this report. Contact Marilyn Brown at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.
Q & A
What happens in the Title I schools that do not make adequate yearly progress?
After two consecutive years, students have the option to transfer to a school that made adequate yearly progress. After three consecutive years, schools must offer transfers plus tutoring services from an approved list of providers. After four years, all prior choices must be offered, plus the school must implement a strategy defined by federal law - changing organizational structure, using new curriculum or making staffing changes. After five consecutive years of not making AYP, the school must be restructured and can be taken over by the state or a private company.
Federal Report Card
What are the repercussions for not meeting the federal standards?
None, unless the school has a high percentage of students from low-income families. These are called Title I schools.
What is Adequate Yearly Progress?
AYP is the federal measure for each public school in the nation under the 2002 No Child Left Behind legislation.
How does a Florida school make AYP?
Several factors, all of which must be met:
• At least 95 percent of students in the school must participate in FCAT testing.
• The school must be graded C or above on the state grading system.
• Forty-four percent of students must be considered proficient in math and 37 percent in reading. By 2013-14, 100 percent are supposed to be proficient.
• Each of eight subgroups plus the overall student population of the school must meet the proficiency target. The subgroups are students who are white, black, Asian, Hispanic, American Indian, disabled, have limited English skills or are from poor families.
• The school must have at least a 1 percentage point improvement during the previous year in the percentage of students proficient in writing. High schools also must show a 1 percentage point improvement in graduation rates.
How does Florida define proficient?
Students who perform on at least level three (out of five) on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
If my school is a Title I school and has been identified as not having made AYP for at least two years, what do I do?
Parents in Hillsborough County were notified in April if they may opt for transfers or tutoring, and students qualifying for tutoring will be notified again in late summer. In other counties, parents should call their school principal's office if they have questions.
The state Web site lists many schools with "provisional" federal status. What does that mean?
In 2005, the state asked the U.S. Department of Education to approve a new status called provisional for schools graded A or B by the state that failed under the federal standard while the state and feds tried to align their standards. That didn't happen, but the state was allowed to keep using that designation. Provisional schools did not make AYP, however, and are subject to all sanctions.
State Report Card
How does the state assign a letter grade to a school?
The state Department of Education uses a formula primarily based on FCAT reading, writing and math scores.
What are the consequences of A's or F's?
Since 1999, schools that earn an A or improve a letter grade from the previous year receive a state bonus of about $100 per student. Most schools use that money for staff bonuses. Students in schools graded F two out of four years were eligible for public voucher money to attend private schools until this year, when that law was struck down by the state Supreme Court.
School grades continue to improve, but Edison can't escape F
By MATTHEW I. PINZUR and HANNAH SAMPSON
mpinzur@MiamiHerald.comFor the first time, more than half of Miami-Dade schools received A grades, part of a years-long trend of improvement across South Florida and the state, according to a list of grades released today by the Florida Department of Education.
Broward received no F grades, but Miami-Dade had six among district-run schools -- more than last year, including the continued struggle of Edison Senior High.
Miami-Dade had 179 A-rated schools, compared to 153 last year, and the number of Bs rose to 60 from 49. The number of Ds dropped from 31 to 13.
Among the successes were five elementaries that moved from D to B grades: West Homestead, Frances S. Tucker, Shadowlawn, Santa Clara and Broadmoor. Another 15 moved from Cs to As -- all but one of those received their first-ever A.
Also, a number of relatively new schools that were graded for the first time this year debuted with As, including five charter schools and Ada Merritt Elementary, the boundaryless downtown school designed for commuters to drop off and pick up their children.
But the list of F schools was longer than last year and included three schools that had never before failed. The overall percentage of F schools in Miami-Dade shrunk from 4.8 to 1.8, largely because the state stopped grading the alternative schools that handle at-risk children.
Two of the four district-run schools that received Fs last year improved in 2006 -- Holmes Elementary to a C and Homestead Senior to a D. Homestead had the scores for a D last year, but was penalized for having less than 95 percent of its students take the exam.
Edison Senior High in Little Haiti received its fifth F in a row, coming within a whisker of a D while becoming one of only two schools in the state to fall short of standardized-testing standards for so many years. It's nearby feeder school, Edison Middle, continued to improve: an F in 2004, a D last year and now a C, giving administrators hope that incoming Edison Senior students will be better-prepared.
Central Senior High earned its third straight F, but district administrators immediately claimed that nearly 200 students were accidentally excluded from the calculation. Those students, freshmen who attended classes at a satellite campus on the grounds of Westview Middle, could push Central to a D; an appeal was already being planned Wednesday morning.
Jackson Senior High, which had a D last year after three consecutive Fs, fell back to an F in 2006. Westview Middle received an F, adding to questions at the school, which received no grade last year after suspicions of FCAT cheating.
The two other Fs were especially surprising -- Nathan B. Young Elementary fell from an A last year, and Lenora Branyon Smith Elementary fell from a B.
None of Broward's schools received an F grade this year.
Arthur Ashe Middle, an F school for the past two years, jumped to a C this year.
But information was unclear about the district's only other double-F school, Lauderdale Manors Elementary.
A grade has not yet been released for that school, which received an F in 2003 and 2005. It was expecting a better grade after posting significant gains.
Districts are required to submit improvement plans for all failing schools, which will be presented to the State Board of Education later this year.
Edison is scheduled for a curriculum overhaul this fall, converting to a group of small, career-themed academies that Superintendent Rudy Crew believes will more effectively engage students. That plan was announced nearly a year ago and approved by the state board, but those board members have shown growing impatience with chronically failing schools and has suggested they should be dismantled, converted to charter schools, run by private managers or shut down entirely.
The sting of failure is a little smaller this year, following the elimination of a controversial voucher program, the Opportunity Scholarships, that permitted students in multiple-F schools to receive tax dollars to attend private school. The Florida Supreme Court struck down that program in January, but students in those struggling schools can still elect to transfer to a higher-scoring public school.
Statewide, nearly three-fourths of schools received either an A or B.
There was also a sharp decline in the number of schools that met federal standards under the No Child Left Behind Law. The federal standards and state-issued grades both rely upon exam scores from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, but they are calculated differently.
If a school receives a particular type of federal funding -- known as Title I and reserved for high-poverty neighborhoods -- failing to meet the federal standards causes an escalating series of consequences, from free tutoring services to total restructuring of the school.
MIAMIHERALD.COM: To read Matthew Pinzur's new blog, Miami Gradebook: Inside South Florida Education, click on Today's Extras.
The Florida Times-Union
June 14, 2006
EDUCATION: Demand the best
What if the standards commonly expected in Duval County's college preparatory high schools, Stanton and Paxon, are the minimum requirements to be competitive in the worldwide economy?
--------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------It's not a "what if" question anymore.
The skills once set aside for college students are needed by just about everyone now. According to data compiled by Education Trust-West for the Duval County public schools, here are requirements:
For tool and die makers: Algebra, geometry, trigonometry and statistics.
For auto technicians: A solid grounding in physics to understand force, hydraulics, friction and electrical circuits.
For plumbing, heating and air conditioning: algebra, geometry, trigonometry and statistics, physics, chemistry, biology and engineering economics.
Education deficiencies in the United States hurt business growth. Toyota chose Canada for a new auto plant due to the higher education level of the workforce.
"In Alabama, trainers had to use pictorials to teach some of the illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment," said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association.
Therefore, the Duval County School Board was smart last week to follow Superintendent Joseph Wise's recommendations to toughen graduation standards.
The new graduation requirements include four courses of science and math and two courses in a foreign language.
But everyone isn't interested in college. Won't higher standards just increase the dropout rate?
School Board members are confident that students will respond to expectations. Wise said students are capable of doing the work. There are neighborhood schools in Jacksonville that have shown students can do outstanding work.
Board member Nancy Broner said the next time she gives a diploma to a child walking across the stage, she wants to be confident that student has real choices in life. It's a moral, ethical and economic issue, she said.
For instance, a college graduate makes $45,708 compared to the $20,072 salary for a high school dropout.
Much of the issue centers on the achievement of predominantly African-American students.
A survey by the Community Foundation showed that 60 percent of local blacks believe that the quality of education in predominantly black schools is worse than in predominantly white schools.
And the facts show it: A-grade work in low-income schools often translates to C grades in affluent schools.
Yet, research shows that having five consecutive years of good teaching can overcome the average seventh-grade achievement gap in math.
Another issue is low expectations among parents or teachers.
There are too many examples of successful education, despite all the hurdles, to give in to defeatism.
It starts with leadership, which the superintendent and School Board
New York Post
RUDY GOES NUCLEAR
By RYAN SAGER
June 14, 2006 -- A small gathering in Mid town yesterday got a sneak peek at Rudy Giuliani's formula as he gears up for a likely 2008 presidential run. That formula: one-third leadership, one-third technocratic centrist and one-third radical conservative reformer.
There's a reason Giuliani outpolls Sen. John McCain regularly when it comes to who conservative Republicans prefer for the presidency - while also maintaining great popularity with centrists - and it was on full display in this Manhattan Institute-hosted talk on energy policy. (For the record, the ex-mayor's firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, does significant work for energy companies.)
Giuliani started off by parlaying a joke about the recent rumors of his (apparently non-existent) plan to buy the Chicago Cubs into an anecdote about a Chicago police officer who came to New York after 9/11 and was helping direct traffic - "I still wonder where he was sending those people," the ex-mayor cracked.
The centrism came in the policy speech, which found the former mayor in full-on Ross Perot mode with a series of charts and graphs detailing 1) how U.S. energy demand has far outstripped domestic production since 1960 and 2) how countries like France and Belgium are far outstripping the United States in their use of nuclear power.
Drawing on his experience managing New York City's power problems, Giuliani spoke of the government red tape that makes it virtually impossible to build power plants, oil refineries and (especially) nuclear-power facilities.
Summing up U.S. energy policy since the 1970s, he was blunt: "We haven't done anything." We haven't drilled in Alaska. We haven't built oil refineries. We haven't ordered a nuclear power plant since 1978.
We need to start doing these things, he said, to diversify. Energy independence, he said, is simply the "wrong paradigm," despite the idea's popularity in quarters of both the Left and the Right. Instead, in a global economy, "We have to diversify, that's our strength . . . You can be independent by being diversified."
And there's room to reach out to the Left on building more nuclear plants now. The technology has grown safer - and nuclear use could reduce emissions that lead to global warming. Giuliani cited support for the idea from the liberal New York Times columnist Tom Friedman and Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore (though, to be fair, Moore has been something of a pariah on the enviro Left since he left that group in 1986).
He also plugged clean coal technology and, yes, ethanol, both of which can be harvested at home, as well as natural gas, which is less geopolitically dicey than petroleum.
The red meat for conservatives, however, came in the Q&A: An audience member asked Giuliani what he would do on education as president.
Without deflecting the loaded premise of the question (no announcement yet, folks), the former mayor launched into an impassioned brief for school choice. "A president has to know the role" of the federal government, he said. "It's more of a leadership role." But as that leader, he would emphasize, "choice and vouchers."
As mayor, he said, he thought he could do for the schools what he did for the police department and other city agencies. But he learned he was wrong. The education bureaucracy and the teachers unions were too deeply entrenched. What's needed, he said, "is to go to a choice system and break up the monopoly."
Even if they believe it, "most Democrats can't say to you what I just said," he told the crowd. "They're not allowed to."
What's more, he said, there's not as much support even among Republicans for school choice as one might think. The GOP's electoral base is largely suburban, and suburban schools are doing just fine. Some suburban parents might even see school vouchers and other choice programs as a threat to their cushy status quo. These suburban Republicans simply aren't affected by what's happening to our urban schools.
"They're just not thinking of the good of the country in general," he said - taking a forceful swipe at the selfishness of a group of voters that he may soon be courting.
But he's not going to forget about choice, he said, because it's a civil-rights issue. He recalled when a private philanthropy offered low-income kids in New York City a chance at scholarships to private and parochial schools - a sort of private version of the public voucher program he'd like to see. There were 167,000 applications for a relative handful of spots. The rest of the kids were left stranded.
"I'll never forget that number," he said.
And conservatives are unlikely to forget his political courage.
editor@rhsager.com
8,000 New Scholarships Available for Low-Income K-12 Students
Florida P.R.I.D.E. and Children First Florida, Florida Corporate Tax Credit scholarship funding organizations, will award approximately 8,000 new scholarships for the 2006-2007 school year to Kindergarten through 12th grade students who qualify for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program. Applicants must be currently enrolled in a public school, unless they are entering kindergarten or first grade. Those who qualify may receive up to a $3,750 scholarship for tuition at an eligible private school of their choice or a scholarship for up to $500 for travel expenses to an out-of-district public school. The scholarships provide a fresh start for students who are not succeeding in their current school setting.
This year, $70 million in scholarships will be awarded to qualifying Florida students until funding is exhausted so applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. Income limits for scholarship recipients are determined by household size. For example, a family of four can earn no more than $37,000 to qualify. To apply, log on to www.floridapride.org or call (813) 258-2700 for Florida Pride and www.scholarshipfunding.org or call (904) 247-6033 or (407) 702-2607 for a Children First Florida application.
The Florida Corporate Income Tax Credit scholarship program provides K-12 scholarships that currently allow over 14,000 low-income Florida students to attend an eligible private school or out-of-district public school. One hundred percent of corporate contributions go directly to funding scholarships – not a single penny can be used for administrative costs.
Children First Florida - Serving Orlando, Central Florida, Jacksonville and PanhandleHYPERLINK "http://www.childrenfirstcf.org/" \t "_blank"
P.O. Box 49099
Jacksonville Beach, Florida 32240
(904) 247-6033 or (407) 702-2607
cforster@scholarshipfunding.org
Florida P.R.I.D.E. - Serving Tampa Bay, South Florida and Marion County
P.O. Box 1670
Tampa, Florida 33606
(800) 782-9140
info@floridapride.org
School Year 06 - 07 Income Eligibility Guidelines
Persons in Household
Annual Household Income
2
$24,420
3
$30,710
4
$37,000
5
$43,290
6
$49,580
7
$55,870
8
$62,160
9
$68,450
10
$74,740
11
$81,030
12
$87,320
13
$93,610
For each additional person, add
$6,290
Effective from June 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007
Florida Alliance for Choices in Education (F.A.C.E)
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