Flablog

Eduwonkette has highlighted education policy researcher/labor economist Cecilia Rouse as an official Cool Person You Should know. Rouse studied the effects of vouchers in Florida and elsewhere and found them, well, underwhelming.

With Lisa Barrow, Rouse has a new literature review out (School Vouchers and Student Achievement: Recent Evidence, Remaining Questions) about the effects of vouchers on both the students who receive them and the students who remain in public schools. Basically, the take-home story is that we shouldn't expect much from vouchers. No surprises there for those who have watched vouchers closely, but do check out Rouse's great review of the literature.

Labels: Education

Ron Cunningham gives us a timely reminder about Article IX, Section 1 of the Florida Constitution. Which part of "paramount duty" don't we get?

(Via The Gradebook)

Labels: Education

On Sept. 3, Florida Supreme Court said it was taking the voucher amendments off the ballot. Today it says why.

Short version: They call it "the Tax and Budget Reform Commission" because it's supposed to deal with (1) taxes and (2) budget process. If the Legislature and the public wanted the Tax and Budget Reform Commission to do more, they would have specified what else they had in mind. Plain language meanings and all that.

But the part I really like is Justice R. Fred Lewis' separate concurrence:

The highlighting of one significant change implemented by a proposed amendment in the ballot title, but to omit the second, equally or more significant change—by total omission from the title and, instead, relegating its sole reference to the last sentence in the ballot summary—constitutes nothing more than word play in an attempt to achieve passage of the proposed amendment. This is a classic example of “hiding the ball.”

. . . The voters of Florida should not be subject to sleight-of-hand word games when they enter the voting booth. Rather, the title of a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution should fairly apprise voters with regard to a proposed amendment.

... Florida law requires the use of straightforward and direct language in a ballot title and summary, not creative “wordsmithing” in an attempt to ensure passage.

Labels: Constitutional Amendments, Courts, Education

I am stunned. The Florida Supreme Court tossed Amendments 5, 7 and 9 off the ballot. Hooray for the Florida Supreme Court. (Herald version here.)

The court apparently decided that the Florida Tax and Budget Reform Commission went way, way beyond its mandate and proposed overreaching and deceptively worded amendments to the voters.

The justices shocked Florida’s political establishment by declaring that the Florida Tax and Budget Reform Commission was put into place to consider –hold on to your hats here –tax and budget reforms. The commission — or as I usually refer to it, “the Florida Tax Cuts, Religion, Education, Life, the Universe and Everything Commission” – went far beyond what it was set up to do and came up with remarkably deceptive ballot wording. Even by Florida standards.

“It’s starting to become a game and these things ought to fly on their own merit,‘ Justice R. Fred Lewis said during Wednesday’s oral arguments.

Up until now, the court had been pretty permissive about constitution amendments getting on the ballot even though they kinda deceptive. The title and wording of proposed amendments – particularly those coming out of the Legislature -- didn't t need to be a whole lot much more accurate than the title of a summer movie because courts “must act with extreme care, caution and restraint” before calling off a vote of the people.

But these amendments took the usual amendment gamesmanship to new levels.

I can't wait to read the opinion.

Later: Here's the opinion order in pdf.
+ My column on the ruling.

Labels: Constitutional Amendments, Courts, Education, Taxation

A good piece in today's New York Times about the difficulties of teaching Florida's new standards on biology and evolution. It follows an Orange Park biology teacher as he tries to do his job in the face of indifference and opposition from students and push back from other teachers, parents and local churches. Hope he does a good job this year because there's a good chance the Florida Legislature will actively undermine him next year.

Labels: Education

The Herald's underappreciated Fred Grimm talks about something I've heard several times among Florida Dems and educators: That the combination of the tax swap amendment with the voucher and out-sourcing to churches amendments creates the perfect combination for a radical dismantling of public education in Florida. And it's not all paranoia. Creating an artificial state fiscal crisis in 2010-2112 would, for the Jebbites, be an irresistible "starve the beast" opportunity. And the beast they have in mind is public education.

Labels: Constitutional Amendments, Education

Following in the illustrious footsteps of Mike Haridopolos who has a $75,000 lite-work job as a "guest lecturer" at UofF, former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio will get $69,000 lite-duty gig at Florida International University. Like Haridopolos, he doesn't need no doctorate to be professor. He has a doctorate in access!

Key quote: "He said his support in the Legislature for a new medical school at FIU had nothing to do with his getting the job."

+ The Buzz verison
+ Orlando Sentinel

Labels: Education, Legislature, Marco Rubio

At a time when every school district that's laying off teachers, every city that's laying off firefighters, and every county that's laying deputies is blaming the effects of Amendment 1, it's probably pretty tone-deaf PR to pitch Amendment 5 with the claim "This is Amendment 1 on steroids." Just sayin'.

Labels: Constitutional Amendments, Education, Legislature, Taxation

Creationists' legislative strategy, uh, evolves.

Genesis literalism > intelligent design > "strengths and weaknesses"

Labels: Education, Legislature, Theocrats

The Quinnipiac University folks released a new Florida poll today. Nothing too surprising, except for the degree that voters actually believe the 65 percent classroom spending gimmick.

Highlights:

+ Gov. Charlie Crist's approval rate rises slightly to 61 percent. He's strongest in the Southwest, weakest in the Panhandle. Even 60 percent of Dems like him.
+ The state Legislature found a sure way to increase its popularity -- stay out of town. Now 38 percent approve of its work for some reason.
+ Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment: Yes: 58 percent; No: 37. Among college educated: Yes: 46; No: 50.
+ Guns at work: Yes: 47; No: 49. Among evangelicals: Yes: 60; No: 36.
+ Private school vouchers: Yes: 42; No: 55.
+ 65 Percent classroom: Yes: 63; No: 25.

Labels: Charlie Crist, Constitutional Amendments, Education, Polls, Theocrats

The Carpetbagger Report writes about Governor for Life Jeb Bush, and the Tax and Budget, God and Education, Life the Universe and Everything Commission.

Labels: Constitutional Amendments, Education, Theocrats

The St. Pete Times editorial page talks about the deceptive ballot language of the voucher amendments:

Two of the constitutional amendments on this fall's lengthy presidential ballot are described to voters the following way:

No. 7: "Religious freedom."

No. 9: "Requiring 65 percent of school funding for classroom instruction; state's duty for children's education."

Here's a pop quiz: How many of you just guessed from the amendments' official titles that they are intended to invalidate a 2006 Florida Supreme Court and separate appellate court ruling against school vouchers?

Although the majority of Florida voters oppose vouchers, this might pass due to pure voter confusion -- not an unknown thing in Florida.

Labels: Constitutional Amendments, Education, Theocrats

The Florida Citizens for Science site points to an interesting New Scientist article about creationist beliefs among high school science teachers in the US . Among the results:

+ A quarter of the teachers also reported spending at least some time teaching about creationism or intelligent design. Of these, 48% – about 12.5% of the total survey – said they taught it as a "valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species".

+ 16% of the total, said they believed human beings had been created by God within the last 10,000 years.

+ Teachers who subscribed to these young-Earth creationist views, perhaps not surprisingly, spent 35% fewer hours teaching evolution than other teachers, the survey revealed.

No wonder the many in the Legislature want to give teachers the right to teach creationism and magical design -- it won't mean that every science class will become a Bible study group, but with a combination of community pressure and teachers' religious beliefs, a lot of them would.

The whole survey can be found here.

+ Wired version

Labels: Education, Theocrats

Wizardry! It may look like the ol' disappearing toothpick trick, but you can't be too careful about witchcraft , so a substitute teacher is essentially suspended for for unauthorized use of magic ... and worse, deviating from the lesson plan.

+ San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll (of whom I'm a huge fan) picks up the story.

Labels: Education, Theocrats

Take that, you pointy-heads who think you get to set state education standards! The Florida House says kids can so be taught creationism in Florida schools -- creationism bill passes 71-43 in a party-line vote with "critical analysis" language intact.
+ Citizens for Science summarizes the leadup to the vote and a roundup of breaking-news coverage of the vote.

Labels: Education, Theocrats

Well, at the Tax and Budget, Education, Religion, Life the Universe and Everything Commission, the deal's been made, the fix is in -- trade vouchers and the 65 percent rule for the tax swap. Tax swap-proponent John McKay has seen the light:

McKay denied a quid pro quo was at work. He said he did not fully understand the voucher program before.

The so-called tax swap would replace most school property taxes — the part referred to as the "required local effort" — and give the Legislature guidance in how to replace the loss revenue, estimated between $9-billion and $11-billion.

The plan includes language requiring that schools be "held harmless" and a formula for growth in funding.

Options for replacement money include a 1-cent sales tax increase (raising $4-billion, at best), elimination of existing sales tax exemptions, budget cuts and other revenue sources.

There is some disagreement whether "other" could mean another penny sales tax increase.

(Remember the last time you heard the phrase "education will be held harmless"?)

So here's the deal: repeal constitutional language requiring a "uniform system of free public schools" (the voucher amendment) and also put the Legislature in the position of either drastically cutting schools or creating a state sales tax on services along with a punishing sales tax rate. Result: Line up for your church-school vouchers, kids, because Florida is we're getting out of the public education business.

Meanwhile an interesting legal question arises:

Constitutional amendments require a 60 percent majority to pass. Amendments that propose a "new" tax require a two-thirds majority. That raises the possibility of courts determining whether the proposal is actually a tax "swap," which supporters assert, or creates a new tax, and what margin of approval would be required.

So if you force the Legislature into the position of either creating a new tax or abandoning the idea of a public school system is that the same thing as putting a new tax on the ballot? That's one for the courts.

If the voucher and money-for-churches amendments fail and the tax-swap passes, the pressure for taxes on services will be irresistible. If everything passes, the legislature will raise the sales tax and jettison the school system.

+ Herald's story
+ Tally Dem
+ Palm Beach Post
+ News-Journal

Labels: Constitutional Amendments, Education, Theocrats

The Senate passes the Teach Creationism Bill. The vote was 21-17. Does anybody doubt that it will pass in House?

+ The Buzz
+ Naked Politics notes that the only Dem voting for it was Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, the legislative mind behind the droopy drawers bill.
+ The Gradebook
+ Fla. Citizens for Science gives a blow-by-blow account of the debate

Labels: Education, Legislature, Ronda Storms, Theocrats

The vigilant Florida Citizens for Science blog finds that the creationists in our Florida Legislature put anti-evolution "academic freedom" language in the sex ed bill. Oops, never mind. Nothing to see here, folks. Cits for Sci explains and so does Gradebook.

Labels: Education, Legislature, Theocrats

Bad Idea #14 -- (HB 1259) Hey, public schools have so much money for construction, why don't we force them to hand over some of it to private groups operating charter schools? Sure, the failure rate of these operations is pretty amazing, but if we give them tax money to build their own buildings without normal oversight, they'll thrive. What could go wrong?

Labels: Bad Ideas, Education, Legislature

The Florida Citizens for Science blog asks a question that your Florida Legislature is unwilling to ask -- just what the heck is this "critical analysis" that the House's creationism bill is talking about? And if critical analysis is so important in education, why is evolution the only scientific concept that is singled out for it? And just what critical arguments are they talking about, anyway? I mean other than that it Offends the Almighty and He is an Angry God and, you know, the whole Nazis-believed-in-stuff-like-that argument?

Labels: Education, Legislature, Theocrats

The Tax and Budget, Education, Religion Life the Universe and Everything Commission votes down a voucher amendment to the state constitution.

And it puts off the TABOR vote for its final meeting. If they're having this much trouble backing this -- despite the arguments, pleas and arm-twisting by Speaker Rubio and Gov. for Life Jeb Bush, despite their own ideological predisposition to vote for any tax/budget automatically, what chance does this measure really have for getting 60 percent of the vote in November? And rather than getting stronger with each rewrite, it's getting weirder each time the cocktail napkins come out and it's rewritten again.

Labels: Constitutional Amendments, Education, Taxation, Theocrats

The US Census released new figures on pubic school spending, 2005-6. (A tip o' the hat to Al's Morning Meeting at the Poynter site. It's not all Romanesko, you know.) No surprises here, Florida is still way down there. Figures you can use:

+ Florida's rank in total school spending: 35th, $9,542 per student.
+ Rank in state spending: 42nd, $3,835 per student.
+ Rank in local spending: 18th, $4,783 per student. (Dramatically different from the above, right? People always overestimate how much of the ed budget comes from the state.)
+ Rank in federal funds: 28th, $928 per student.
+ Rank in spending as a share of personal income: 45th place.
+ Rank in state spending as a share of personal income: 47th place.
+ Rank in spending on general administration (superintendent's office, district administration and the like): 48th.
+ Rank in spending on school administration: 38th.
+ Percent spent on instruction: 57.8 percent.
+ Percent spent on support services: 21.1 percent -- including 5.5 percent spent on school administration and 0.9 percent spent on general administration.

Labels: demographics, Education

Editorials
+ Daytona Beach News-Journal -- Particularly insulting to the people of Florida is that the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission is proposing to remove a stable tax base for public schools while opening public coffers to religious schools.

+ Gainesville Sun -- Attempting to resurrect school vouchers under the guise of budget and tax reform is a duplicitous maneuver that ought to be thoroughly rejected by Floridians. If commissioners refuse to reconsider this outlandish ploy, voters should have the good sense to defeat it in November.

+ Miami Herald -- These proposals are less about taxation and budget reform than about promoting state-funded religious programs and school vouchers that have been struck down by Florida's Supreme Court.

+ Sun-Sentinel -- The commission's decision would belaughable, if it weren't such a disconcerting departure from the panel's stated mission. Instead of addressing the state's budgetary and fiscal needs, the panel simply passed along a hot-button ballot question that most likely will end up in the courts.

Columnists:
+ Hiaasen: It's outlandish that the topic of church-state separation was seriously debated and voted upon by a tax-and-budget commission. It tells you all you need to know about the panel's political sense of mission. In case these goobers hadn't noticed, Florida's fiscal health is a wreck.
+ Lane: The Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission -- or as I call it, the Tax Cuts, Religion, Education, Life, the Universe and Everything Commission . . .
+ Schultz: Last week, it became clear that whatever this supposedly prestigious commission does until it disbands in May, Floridians can't take it too seriously.
+ Troxler: Beyond the tax swap, the commission has done little more than churn out a puny menu of new tax breaks and push ideological agendas . . .

Labels: Constitutional Amendments, Education, Taxation, Theocrats

The School-in-July Bill died in the Senate PreK-12 Committee yesterday.

Labels: Education

Unconcerned about looking like about looking like yokels, rubes, mouth-breathers and members of the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the Senate Committee on K-12 Education surprised nobody by passing the creationism bill.

A lot of good it did for for the state Board of Education to water down those biology standards with all that talk about "theories." Your Florida Legislature was not appeased. Its members want to encourage those teachers inspired to use their classrooms as platforms to preach about intelligent design, our young earth, creationism and biblical biology -- just as long as use the word "science" somewhere after they commence to testifyin'.

I guess the only good news is that you can't t be punished for talking about the scientific gospel of The Flying Spaghetti Monster just as long as you do so "scientifically."

+ Read the staff analysis since the senators didn't.
+ Citizens for Science says "don't panic."
+ Sen. Bullard sez: Teaching evolution to kids "may be brainwashing."
+ Palm Beach Post account: "You cannot simply call a religious belief scientific information and thus open the door to teaching it in our scientific classrooms," said Courtenay Strickland, the daughter of a Baptist minister and a science teacher. Strickland spoke on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the Pennsylvania lawsuit that struck down the teaching of intelligent design. She promised another "massive" lawsuit here if teachers use it to discuss religion in science class.
+ Miami Herald account: Move along, nothing to see here.

Labels: Education, Ronda Storms, Theocrats

Bad idea 11 -- (The All School is Summer School Bill, SB 2816) - It's a lot easier administering the FCATs when school starts in July. No, we're not lengthening the school year, that would cost money. We just want Florida schools to run in the hottest part of the year because it works better with the testing calender.

Forget about all those complaints from families of school-aged kids. We shouldn't have given into them two years ago. Schools exist for the FCATs, and the convenience of testing companies and administrators, not a lot of kids and their whining parents.

Labels: Bad Ideas, Education

Bad Idea 6 -- Let's have the Florida Legislature get in the business of deciding what kids should wear in schools. Sen. Gary Siplin's much-ridiculed perennial, the Droopy-Drawers Act, might actually pass this year. (SB 302)

This used to be a statewide dress code with criminal penalties but is now merely a school dress bill.

See the Flablog Vault of Memory -- 2007, 2006, 2005.

Labels: Bad Ideas, Education, Legislature

Got back home after visiting Tallahassee for opening day. (Resulting column here.)

In the spirit of Speaker Marco Rubio's 100 Innovative Ideas from Conservative Think Tanks for Florida's Future, Flablog, as a public service, will launch a list of the 100 very bad ideas being kicked around in Tallahassee and around the state. They'll be listed in no particular order as they pop up over the next several months. This is Florida; we should get to 100 in no time.

Why not open with education? --

Bad Idea 1 -- Let's get give legislators a license to treat the university system as their own private pork pen and fire the Board of Regents which has been acting all uppity lately. -- SJR 2308

Bad Idea 2 -- Let's get independent educators out of educational planning and replace the head of state education system with a career politician who can raise the cash it takes to run a statewide campaign. It will probably some term-limited legislator who wants to stay in Florida pension system. (Be sure not to include any requirement that the person have an educational background or even a college degree. Heck, this is Florida; don't require a high school education.) -- SJR 2308

Bad Idea 3 -- While the Legislature is laying down the law to educators, let's make sure they teach creationism and magical intelligent design in the public schools. We bet an elected head of state schools would have taken the hint already. -- SB 2692

Bad Idea 4 -- Lets pull an arbitrary number out of air - oh, let's say 65 percent -- and require public schools to spend at least that percentage on the things we'll choose to call "classroom expenses.' Football will be a classroom expense - natch' -- but libraries and computers? depends on how we define them. Be sure to penalize the schools for spending money on the transportation required by the Federal No Child Left Behind law. Penalize them , too, for having school nurses and speech therapists. And don't include any flexibility for dealing with the costs of hurricanes or other natural disasters. Be sure to include lots of expensive paperwork requirements which schools will be penalized for obeying. You'll sound great on talk radio taking on educrats!-- HB 1463

Labels: Bad Ideas, Education, Legislature

Well, it had to come. The Fla. Senate now has a creationism bill. Excuse me a "academic freedom" bill. No surprise it comes from the Senates rightest winger, Sen. Ronda Storms. No House companion. Yet. Supporters say a House version will be filed.

(Via Florida Citizens for Science.)

Labels: Education, Legislature, Ronda Storms, Theocrats

Rubio: Science=communism. Well, not exactly, but teaching science is a lot like teaching communism.

Labels: Education, Marco Rubio, Theocrats

Florida Citizens for Science is liveblogging the state board of education meeting on science standards.

Labels: Education

+ Bradenton Herald -- With mountains of empirical evidence bolstering evolution, we believe that students should learn this important scientific information in school. We believe the faith-based alternatives - creationism and intelligent design - should be taught in the home and church.

+ DB News-Journal -- If Florida wants its children to be competitive in science fields, if they want to have a future work force capable of attracting science and high-tech jobs, the state board should adopt the new standards in whole.

+ Orlando Sentinel -- That evolutionary theory is not already an integral part of public-school science education is a travesty that has hurt generations of Florida students.

+ St. Pete Times -- On Tuesday, the state Board of Education will vote on new science standards that finally insist that Florida's students receive comprehensive biology instruction that includes evolution as its underlying concept. It is an economic imperative that these standards be aproved, despite the fierce backlash and pressure that has been rallied by religious elements.
. . . Right now, our unwillingness to accept well-established scientific theory is making headlines - just the kind of thing that keeps us a low-wage, tourist-dependant state.

+ Tallahassee Democrat -- The teaching of evolution isn't now required in Florida public schools, but it certainly should be — and the new standards move in that direction for the first time.
________

+ Lakeland Ledger -- While voting to uphold evolution as an appropriate subject for teaching in science class, the Education Board should advocate teaching about creationism and intelligent design in sociology class.

+ Ocala Star-Banner -- If Florida is to be a progressive place that can be a national leader in high-tech industries and biomedical research, we need to get serious about teaching science. The Board of Education can demonstrate such seriousness about improving our standards tomorrow by approving the new, albeit watered down, science curriculum.
__________
Palm Beach Post -- If Florida will not provide its public schools and university system with an adequate budget, at least the state Board of Education can prevent students from being saddled with a counterfeit curriculum. Today, without hesitation or weasel-wording, the board should approve new science standards that explicitly name evolution as "the fundamental concept underlying all of biology."

Sun-Sentinel -- Nobody is saying creationism or intelligent design can't ever be discussed in other classes in public schools. Nobody is banning that content from being debated. But when it comes to instruction in science class, those theories simply don't belong on equal footing with evolution.

Tampa Tribune - In making its decision today, the board of education should remember its core purpose - to ensure a quality public education for Florida's children, not to kowtow to people who want religious faith taught as fact in science class.

Labels: Education

The St. Pete Times polled Floridians and a startling 45 percent of them believe in creationism and 6 percent in magical design.

I guess moral to that story is when the schools won't teach something, a good percentage of people won't understand it. And the public understands this, too, because 21 percent say teach creationism only and 29 percent say teach magical design only. Only 22 percent say teach evolution only and leave the rest to churches.

Good thing our Legislators respect the Constitution too much to mandate that schools teach religion in biology class.

Just kidding. You know what will happen when the Legislature meets.

My own column on the Legislature's ambivalence on science and hostility to higher ed here.

Labels: Education

You know it’s hard times ahead for higher education when Republicans dust off the rhetoric they usually reserve for welfare recipients and use it on college students. From the Herald

[Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate] said it appeared to him that students were using Bright Futures to pay for tuition, and then turning around using the money from their pre-paid tuition plans to buy "BMWs." Jordan acknowledged that it would be hard to end what he called an "entitlement" but he said he was "K-12 guy" and that the money should be going "those in greatest need."

That’s right, we got scholarship queens tooling in around in their Bright Futures Cadillacs. With your hard-spent lottery dollars!

Meanwhile, House Speaker Marco Rubio says:

I think universities need to start looking at the system and saying, 'OK, how many more psychology and philosophy majors should we be producing?'

The answer, it is implied, is maybe three or four. And then, only if they don't believe in evolution.

Democrats, too, are jumping on the idea of liberal arts majors as social parasites. Sen. Jeremy Ring says Bright Futures scholarships should be reduced for those majoring in areas other than science, math, engineering and health care.

He calls this “economic development tool” because everybody knows nobody makes money from liberal arts, social sciences and business departments. You know because banking, insurance, publishing, broadcasting, the entertainment industry, urban planning and teaching just don’t contribute much to the state's economy.

Labels: Education

There are some who say* that Florida Legislators will be too concerned about looking like yokels, rubes, mouth-breathers and members of the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice to start interfering with state Board of Education's proposed science standards.

There are those who argue that a state trying to diversify its economy by attracting the latest in biotech research might find it at least a little undesirable to host a monkey trial or impose religious tests on scientific thought and teaching.

There are a few who claim that Florida politics has matured past the point where legislators would attempt to distract attention from the state's fiscal problems by wasting time on purely symbolic issues of interest to only a tiny number of people belonging to the most rural, isolated and voter-repudiated sectors of the Republican Party's base.

Such people, ladies and gentlemen, don't describe the Florida Legislature that I know and love.

Right on time, the Herald reports:

Top state legislators say they're ready to join the fight over putting the word ''evolution'' in Florida's public-school science standards to ensure that it's taught as just a theory and not as fact. (Shorter form here.)

No word yet on the Legislature's stand on the theory of gravity or the germ theory of disease, which are, after all, just theories.

Rep. Marti Coley, future House Speaker Dean Cannon and state Sen. Stephen Wise, all Republicans, say they're considering filing legislation this spring that would specifically call evolution a ''theory'' if the state Board of Education approves the proposed science standards Feb. 19 as currently written.

Wise wants schools to teach creationism and Colely is described as a proponent of magical intelligent design.

Cannon said intelligent design should ideally be taught, but would leave that issue up to the ''curricular experts.'' And Wise, who said he is considering ''legislative remedies,'' went a step further by saying that creationism should be taught in schools.

''Put them side by side,'' he said of evolution and biblical teaching.

Floridians need to demand that evolution, biblical teaching AND the Flying Spaghetti Monster ALL be taught side by side in biology classes.

No legislation has yet been prefiled, so maybe this is all just spouting off done in the hope that it will spook the Board of Education and satisfy the locals in north Florida.
__________________
*Rhetorical note: In political writing and speechwriting it is mandatory to use the phrase "There are some who say" before introducing a straw man or some variant.

Labels: Dean Cannon, Education, Legislature, Theocrats

FCAT season starts.

Schools long ago learned the easiest game, which is to get students to write according a formula sure to be scored highly by the temps who assign grades for the state. So what if the formula squelches creativity? . . .

History, foreign languages, arts - and even math, reading and writing above 10th grade - don't figure into a school's FCAT grade. Above sophomore level, the only FCAT is 11th-grade science. So, high school principals are judged on results in only a fraction of courses, and from only about half of the students.

Labels: Education, FCAT

The Palm Beach Post editorial page has noticed that the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission is straying from its mission and pushing vouchers for church schools. The editorial warns it to "keep ideological fights out of state constitution."

Not to gratuitously self-link, but I argued something similar a few weeks back. We'll soon see if these are just trial balloons or if we have a runaway commission.

Labels: Education, Legislature, Taxation

Regular Flabloggers have heard of the Fla Citizens for Science blog. My home paper, the beloved News-Journal, runs a story about the blogger behind the blog.

Labels: Education

A majority of the Pinellas School Board wants to teach magical design as an "alternate theory" to evolution in public schools.

No word on alternatives to the germ theory of disease, which after all, is just a theory. It would do children a disservice to fail to expose them to the alternative theory that Apollo sends disease to show the gods' displeasure.

+ Also see the entry in the Florida Citizens for Science blog.
+ The Florida ACLU sends a letter warning about injecting creationism, religion and magical design into the science classroom.

Labels: Education

You'd think the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission would have a pretty full plate handling, you know, taxation and budget reform. But the Jebbites want it to also set up a system of government-funded church schools.

Labels: Education, Theocrats

Florida Citizens for Science's blog runs a roundup of the weekend's columns about the state's science education standards and objections by proponents of intelligent design.

+ Wired's science blog sees Florida and Texas as the next next target states for creationists. Earlier story here.

+ One state school board member tells the Baptists she'll vote against the new standards because of the evolution section.

+ Don't forget about the Flying Spaghetti Monster in Polk County and here.

Labels: Education

I had long thought that the end of the FCAT as we know it would not be a return to its old, test-as-a-diganostic-tool status, but a more flexible testing regimen that acknowledges that a high school education isn't one-size-fits-all. That may already be happening. But expect fierce resistance from loyal Bushies.

In the meantime, colleges may be going down the FCAT/No Child Left Behind road, with legislatures using financial aid as the carrot and the stick. Yeah, I know the Jebbites have been pushing for this since 2003.

And how does a mandatory "citizenship" test sound, to make sure you're enough of an informated patriotic American to attend college sound? No, no, it can't possibility turn into test of political orthodoxy, the Florida Legislature and Dept. of Education would be overseeing it!

Labels: Education, FCAT

The Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission is supposed to look at issues bearing on, you know, taxation and budget reform. But since anything you can think of is in some way a budget and taxation issue, maybe they can just propose anything the hell they feel like. Such as repealing the class-size amendment and nullifying the state Supreme Court's ruling on vouchers.

And the group is packed with loyal Bushies who may not be concerned about overreaching, so don't rule this out. Mwa-hah-ha!

AP version: "I felt like I was in a time warp," FEA spokesman Mark Pudlow said.

Flablog Vault of Memory:
+ Devious Plan versions 1.0-4.0
+ Devious Plan version 5.0

And when did the Collins Center become an arm of the Republican Party? Have I missed something?

Labels: Constitutional Amendments, Education

I don't know if this is some kind of record, but A Plam Beach County mom is asking schools to remove no fewer than 80 books from high school libraries.

And not just the usual suspects like Harry Potter books and "Catcher in the Rye:

She targets literary genres ranging from reference books to short stories. Among the books she wants removed are "Medical Ethics: Moral and Legal Conflicts in Health Care," "Warriors of God: Richard the Lionhearted and Saladin in the Third Crusade," "Coping When a Parent is Gay" and "The Cider House Rules ...

Surprisingly, though, she was turned down. Naturally, legal action is threatened.

Labels: Education

Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post drops the wise-guy persona and writes about his Gainesville boyhood and