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Warping recent history in Florida

Gotta hand it to the Lakeland Ledger–as demonstrated here, they’re nothing if not consistent. 

The old rap on the Pentagon is that the generals keep wanting to refight the last war. You could say the same thing about Florida’s Board of Education. Let’s see now: The Florida Supreme Court has struck down Jeb Bush’s much-touted Opportunity Scholarships voucher program. In response, Gov. Bush asked for a constitutional amendment to authorize vouchers. But the Republican-led Legislature declined to send one to the voters. (Having read the polls, lawmakers, most of whom are running for re-election, understood that voters don’t like vouchers.)

Actually, the vote was almost entirely along party lines, so it was more of a partisan affair than the sort of ship-jumping affair this editorial makes it out to be.  And it took six Republicans defecting to bring the amendment down.  On top of that, both amendment votes had simple majorities but not the supermajorities required under the Florida Constitution.  Upshot: the votes weren’t nearly the bloodbaths this editorial would have you believe. 

Lawmakers did pass a bill lumping Opportunity Scholarships into another voucher program that has not yet been declared unconstitutional. Whether that will pass legal muster is anybody’s guess.

Not quite.  As pointed out here, the bill in question is basically a grandfathering measure–it puts the 733 kids in the Opportunity Scholarships program that was struck down into the corporate tax credit program.  However, the measure doesn’t create any new vouchers as such.  It may or may not survive court battles, but the program as it is presently constituted will not exist under the new law. 

What’s wrong with this picture? The Board of Education exists to make policy for public education. The Florida Supreme Court threw out Bush’s voucher program because it diverted money away from public schools and into private schools in violation of the state constitution’s mandate to maintain a free and high quality system of public education.

There is something subversive about Board of Education members — literally, stewards of public schools — making it their official business to champion vouchers.

First off, that wasn’t quite the court’s reasoning–the decision rested largely on a question of "uniformity".  As we’ve mentioned before, Andrew Rotherham and Frederick Hess addressed this back in January:

While the majority in the court decision seems not to have thought of it, any effort to honestly or faithfully apply their decision spells a death sentence for a number of popular reforms in Florida and sets an unfortunate precedent for elsewhere. Public charter schooling? Certainly not uniform in provision or operations. Specialty schools and tutoring programs? Neither uniformly available nor operationally standard. Programs for gifted students? Hardly uniform. Efforts by some districts to promote collaborative management, reward outstanding teachers, or adopt new curricular models? None of this is uniform either.

Nor should these or other ideas be uniform. Standardization was a reasonable goal sixty years ago, when fewer than half of Americans graduated high school and attention to sameness may have been the only sensible way to pursue equitable educational provision. We have seen how that experiment turned out, however. It worked okay for many students, especially those in comfortable communities, but standardized schools proved to be profoundly unsuccessful at educating those with nonstandard needs.

(snip)

In searching for every conceivable wrench to throw at the Florida voucher program, the Florida decision brings to mind Roe v. Wade. Just as many supporters of a woman’s right to choose now realize how the shaky legal reasoning of Roe and the ensuing politics have hurt rather than helped their cause, so those who oppose vouchers but believe in choice and customization may find themselves grasping a Pyrrhic victory in Florida. Let the NAACP and the National School Boards Association beware. 

But let’s examine the Ledger’s premise–that the enactment of school choice in Florida undermines the state’s constitutional mandate to provide a "free, high-quality system" of public schools.  As pointed out here:

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a standardized test given periodically to a national sample of students in select grades. NAEP is often called "The Nation’s Report Card." Florida ranks fifth in improvement in fourth-grade reading out of 37 states for which scores are available both in 2002 and in 1998, the last time the reading test was given. Florida’s improvement in eighth-grade reading scores was even more impressive, ranking second out of 34 states.

This means that Florida education has improved faster than in almost any other state since the NAEP was last given. The major event in Florida education in that time has been the implementation of two major school reform movements: accountability and choice.

(snip)

The new NAEP scores also show that throwing more money at education without structural reforms doesn’t produce results. Florida made top-tier gains on NAEP despite school spending increases over the same period that ranked 47th in the nation. Meanwhile, big-spending states that haven’t made significant reforms showed lackluster gains in NAEP scores. Of the five states that have made the largest increases in per-pupil education spending since 1998, counting only states in which test scores are available, three states have neither school choice nor tough accountability programs. These three states (Rhode Island, Wyoming and New Mexico) ranked in the bottom half of the nation in NAEP score gains. States with the highest absolute level of spending (rather than the biggest spending increases) but no serious education reforms also landed in the bottom half of the nation.

The new NAEP results should encourage Florida to stand by education reforms as they come under louder and more strident attacks from the defenders of the status quo. While it is reasonable to allow seniors to graduate despite failing the FCAT exam if they have good SAT scores, Florida should resist other policy changes that might allow students without basic skills to get diplomas or that would limit parents’ ability to choose their children’s schools. The Nation’s Report Card shows that real reform has brought real results, while states that just throw money at the problem are falling behind.

So did it ever occur to the Ledger that maybe–just maybe–the Florida DOE is trying to protect some remnant of school choice because they see that it is helping produce results? 

Here’s an education "reform" that’s sorely needed. Let’s hope that Gov. Bush’s successor, who will be elected this fall, will appoint Board of Education members who support and believe in public education.  

And how does the Ledger define "believe in" and "support"?  Probably by increasing spending and raising taxes–because, you see, $21 billion simply is not enough.