Governor Crist of Florida Stands Up for Public Education

Governor Crist (R) of Florida seems to have committed a rare act of political courage yesterday when he vetoed SB6, the education reform bill. He took this action although he is locked in a rough primary campaign with Marco Rubio for US Senate and this all but assures his defeat in that race.

SB6 was an unusually bad bill with 4 main issues:

1) Under the cover of tenure reform, it essentially eliminated tenure, and, in fact, eliminated all job security for new teachers hired in Florida. Teachers hired after July 1 would be on 12 month renewable contracts for their entire career. Existing teachers would suffer extreme cutbacks in their job security. This would almost assure teacher flight to other states or private schools.

2) Teachers would be evaluated and compensated based on "student improvement." This would allegedly have been calculated by end of year test scores, but the bill failed to establish a starting point. Kind of a basic math oversight.

3) The student tests do not exist, so each county school board was going to be assessed a 5% fee that would go to Tallahassee to develop the tests. In the case of already cash-strapped school districts, this could amount to as much as $150 million per year (Miami-Dade).

4) It was pushed through the legislature with almost no debate. One third of Republicans, and all Democrats, voted against it.

Polls have shown that up to 85% of Floridians were opposed to the bill, even Republicans were against it 3-1. However, Jeb Bush and other party leaders, including Bill McCollum who is running for Governor, were supporters, although no one knows why. They claim they are for the students, but the bill seemed to be just the opposite.

The St. Pete Times editorial on this issue is interesting:

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1087775.ece