Lorrane Ausley writes a letter to the editor of the Palm Beach Post and clearly indicates her opposition to FCAT. Here’s a bit:

It’s time to replace the FCAT with true testing measures that help our students reach higher goals. It’s time for Florida to rethink policies that dole out core and vital government functions to politically connected private contractors whose only real skill is knowing how to offer the lowest level of service at the lowest bid. It’s time for the political insiders to accept the fact that the FCAT is an experiment that has failed us, our schools and, most important, our kids

As a would-be CFO, Ausley is quite right to speak directly to the cost of FCAT for Florida’s taxpayers. She pointedly calls out the failure of “leaders to do anything about it.”

The current GOP legislative leadership has no intention of doing anything about FCAT as it is crucial to SB6. They intend to resubmit the Bill again under a GOP govenor. Both Rick Scott and Bill McCollum favor SB6 while state wide Democrat candidates have clearly come out against the measure. This distinction between the two party’s offers voters one of the fall’s clear choices.

FCAT and SB6 are not winners for Republicans. McCollum is far too invetested with his party and Jeb Bush to change. If the race for the GOP nod tightens, it could benefit Scott with some voters to pull the rug on FCAT and SB6.

Posted under EDUCATION, FLORIDA POLITICS

From Jeff Solocheck’s fabulous education blog, The Gradebook, come’s this letter to the editor:

SaveDuvalSchools.org.

Posted under EDUCATION, FLORIDA POLITICS

Leader John Boehner will send $1 million of his own to the effort:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has pledged to contribute $1 million to congressional Republicans’ campaign efforts this fall.

The top House Republican has said Republicans could compete in as many as 100 congressional districts this November, and the NRCC’s support could be key in converting many of those opportunities.

Competitive in 100 seats? Wow. Florida #2 has already been established to be one of those races. The Democrats will do alot to defend the seat whether their nominee is Allan Boyd or Al Lawson as their majority will depend on it. Alot of money is going to be spent in the district after the late August primary by both parties.

Posted under FLORIDA #2

From Monty Neill of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing:

FairTest and our allies propose a robust and effective assessment and evaluation system that would include three key components: limited large-scale standardized testing, extensive school-based evidence of learning, and school quality review process

Neill points out that multiple-choice tests like FCAT and End-of-Course exams are not utilized in other countries:

Many nations with better and more equal education outcomes test only one to three times before high school graduation and largely avoid multiple-choice questions. The emphasis is on quality, not quantity. Better tests would help U.S. schools, but based on criteria set by the Department of Education, the next batch of tests aren’t likely to be much better than current ones. And we’d still waste time and money testing too many grades. Congress should require statewide tests once each in elementary, middle and high school. States could cut back to what many did before No Child Left Behind, when improvement was faster than it is now.

Neill’s position details why so many oppose current reform efforts and legislation such as SB6. Floridians have a decade of experience with FCAT and understand that it has created a dominating culture of testing in our schools that overwhelms learning. Both NCLB and the Obama administration’s Race to the Top mean more of the same.

The Answer Sheet provided this link.

Posted under EDUCATION, FLORIDA POLITICS

Rattler Nation calls attention to Allen Boyd’s troubling membership on the Farm Subsidies Appropriation Committee and the fact that his farms have received $1.5 million from it.

Federal farm subsides aren’t private funds, but your tax dollars paid to farmers. It seems that Allen Boyd hasn’t been shy when it comes to receiving a substantial share of your tax dollars — his farm ranks among the top 3 percent nationally.

Rattler Nation also posts a YouTube ad attacking Boyd from the Florida Whig Party. Independent Paul McKain formerly was a member of the party.

Posted under FLORIDA #2

You really didn’t think Willie Meggs would be prosecuting any Democrats did you?

At any rate, the Boyd campaign disagrees with Meggs:

“The facts are that Sen. Lawson has already admitted to taking property that was not his, and only returned the property at the request of the Tallahassee Police Department three days later,” said Boyd campaign manager J.R. Starrett. “The video camera that he aggressively took out of the hands of one of our staffers was damaged beyond repair.”

The camera was damaged, so Lawson’s staff said an identical model was bought and, because the congressman had left the parade, given to Boyd’s son David later Saturday. The original camcorder resurfaced and Lawson’s campaign posted a 30-second clip of the confrontation on YouTube.

The YouTube video is further evidence that Boyd intends to get his opponent on camera:

Lawson is heard in the clip, asking Mason who he works for and why he was at his offices.

The clip ends with Mason saying, “Sir, can you let go?”

Here’s more on the amount of campaign cash available to the candidates.

Posted under FLORIDA #2, Uncategorized

From Valerie Strauss:

But after looking at the data — one of the mantras of today’s misguided education leaders — Ravitch reversed her position on NCLB, calling it a failure. And she has become a strong critic of using business principles to run public school districts.

Republican lawmakers probably don’t know that Ravitch was a one-time member of the Bush adminstration and advocate for NCLB. She’s looked at the numbers, and has changed her mind. But here’s an extremely disturbing exchange she had with top officials in the Obama administration:

I was recently invited to meet with high-level administration officials in the White House. I told them my concerns. I told them what I have heard from teachers and parents. They told me I was misinformed

Misinformed?

For any public official to tell the nation’s foremost authority on the history of education that they are misinformed is incredulous. And horrifying in it’s arrogance and insanity.

And this is from a Democrat administration.

Ravitch speaks to the politics as well after meeting with some Democrats in congress:

But frankly, these same Congressmen and women tell me that they are probably helpless to stop the President’s agenda. The Democratic leadership will give the President and Secretary Duncan what they want, and they will have the support of Republicans. That leaves the Democrats in a quandary. They were not happy to see Secretary Duncan campaigning for his approach with Newt Gingrich. Maybe it will turn out to be a winning strategy for Secretary Duncan. He may get what he wants. It just won’t be good for American education or our kids.

It doesn’t help any chance for change from GOP philsophy that Gingrich is on board with Obama on Race to the Top. The GOP’s cheif policy makers and mouthpieces continue to see the fight against reform and opposition as union agenda driven.

This poor judgement on their part is costing them in Florida. The state’s GOP legislators ignored polling from it’s own party. Registered Republicans didn’t want SB6 by a 3-1 ratio.

Education Commissioner Eric Smith said that people were misinformed. People just didn’t understand. It seems that eveyone was wrong or misinformed except the bill’s proponents.

And Florida Republicans are paying a price. Driven out of the his won party for his veto, Crist continues to widen his lead on Marco Rubio in his Senate bid. Unremarkable GOP gubernatorial candidates Bill McCollum and Rick Scott both support SB 6 and a strong Democrat candidate in Alex Sink will be able to make hay against either in the November election.

It’s hard not to see the 3-1 opposition to Republicans on SB6 as favorable for the party. Crsit’s veto was a winner with voters over a wide political spectrum. The state’s GOP leadership will have to stop their “we know best” on education or continue to be hurt be it. Maybe the RPOF’s John Thrasher’s, Jeb Bush’s and Steve Atwater’s should start listening to people like Diane Ravitch and stop dismissing important voices as simply misinformed.

Hat tip to Testing is Not Teaching on Facebook.

Posted under EDUCATION, FLORIDA POLITICS

My friend E. Royce White tells me that Republican Ron McNeil showed up unexpectedly at the Okaloosa County Republican Executive Committee meeting last night. He was a late filer and a surprise addition to the May 18 Panama City debate. Here’s what I wrote about McNeil’s performance:

Ron McNeil: Talk about a throw back. The oldest of the candidates and least tech savvy…… Check that. McNeil probably couldn’t care less about technology. No web site either. He ended his evening telling the audience that they can probably tell he doesn’t need a teleprompter or a poll to do anything. The only candidate to speak off-the cuff, his responses were choppy. But McNeil was clearly the evening’s entertainment. A delightful combination of Fred Thompson, Jerry Clower and Robert D. Raiford, McNeil was a hoot. He had a down home southern colloquialism for everything. Like everyone else in the room – including the other candidates – I couldn’t wait for McNeil’s takes. While McNeil is sadly a candidate of days gone by and won’t be winning the primary, his appearances on the stump will be worthy of admission.

McNeil now has a web site. I’ve not heard anything about McNeil since the debate. He had no website and still does not utilize social networking in any way, but he’s back. Or here finally. Perhaps he intended to hold fire until now, but I can’t wait to see those McNeil volleys.

Posted under FLORIDA #2

The St. Augustine Record, interestingly the hometown paper of RPOF chairman Sen. John Thrasher, calls the state onto the carpet over news that FCAT results would be delayed:

NCS Pearson, according to the state, won the contract over the previous state contractor, CTB-McGraw Hill. NCS Pearson offered its services for $254 million, $200 million less CTB-McGraw Hill. The state’s defense is that the a 10-member evaluation team judged the bidders and then recommended NCS Pearson after a public meeting on the contract.

Many students’ educational careers are at stake.

The Record is onto something. With it clear that NCS Pearson had a flawed record in delivery of service, why would the state’s GOP dominated education apparatus take a chance? Especially with the stakes – politics included – being so high.

Is it that they didn’t want you know how expensive it was to administer a test that’s so controversial in the first place? And that furthermore it was a big part of their radical reform efforts such as SB6?

The $254 million price tag that NCS Peason charges is concerning to voters when compared to splitting that money between the state’s 67 school districts. Think of the outcry that would occur if the pervious firm, CTB-McGraw, had been awarded the contract for $454 million.

John Thrasher and FCAT’s champion Jeb Bush don’t want voters to know just how much FCAT costs. It doesn’t go over well knowing that SB6 is dependent on spending a half a billion dollars every year as only a portion of it’s costs.

Posted under EDUCATION, FLORIDA POLITICS

It would seem so.

This week’s story about a confrontation that occured between Democrat Al Lawson and a Boyd staffer is a pattern that’s developing in the campaign. Lawson took a videorecorder away from Boyd reasearch assistant, Ralph Mason who was filming Lawson in what he felt was a private momnet with supporters.

Boyd probably has other research assistants. Republican Steve Southerland said last week on his Facebook page that a young man had been filming him during his campaign stops. Sources have said that David Scholl and Eddie Hendry have also had unknown videographers following them as well. Barbara Olschner’s campaign says that have not witnessed any around their candidate.

The recent highly charged incident involving North Carolina Democrat Bob Etheridge is further indication of how some campaigns are going to be operating in the fall. While Democrats have been burned quite a bit of late by ambush journalism from the right, Etheridge might have been worried about GOP operatives this time.

Allen Boyd could be doing the same thing and he’s got the money to do so. The presence of videographers means that Boyd’s campaign is collecting the sort of footage they can splice together to make unflattereing clips of opponents for TV ads in key demographic areas. Democrats effectively used such a clip from Newt Gingrich by taking a comment out of context about Medicare that they used against republicans with senior citizens.

Cutting and running TV ads is expensive. It’s clear that Boyd will be going negative in the run-up to the primary against Lawson. At the same time his campaign is collecting footage from potential GOP opponents to use during September and October to cast them as extremists or out of touch.

Posted under FLORIDA #2