Gov. Jeb Bush still trying to kill the smaller class-size amendment

[seafan]

'65 percent solution' could erode class size restrictions
By RON MATUS, Times Staff Writer
Published December 28, 2005


State lawmakers who want to water down the 2002 class-size amendment have latched on to a national movement that aims to pump more money into classrooms through a rigid funding formula.

Dubbed the "65 percent solution," the proposed constitutional amendment - which is backed by Gov. Jeb Bush and powerful lawmakers - would force school districts to spend at least 65 percent of their operating budgets on classroom expenses such as teachers, computers and student supplies.

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In return, the amendment would ease the stringent and multibillion-dollar class-size caps that voters approved four years ago.

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Bush, Handy and Republican legislative leaders have made no secret of their dislike for the class-size amendment, which they say will channel billions of dollars away from other pressing education needs, such as attracting quality teachers. So far, efforts to repeal or limit the amendment's directives have failed.

The 65 percent idea is another repeal attempt in disguise, said Damien Filer, who served as spokesman for the effort to get the class-size amendment passed.
"They can't win simply by going back to the voters" with a direct call for repeal, Filer said. "They've got to confuse and muddy the issue."

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http://sptimes.com/2005/12/28/State/_65_percent_solution_.shtml

[donco6]

1. 65% Solution - I'm a school district CFO

We can make that happen. We're at about 63% right now, but we don't attribute every expenditure that benefits a school to the school itself. For example, we have a multi-million dollar staff dev budget that is centralized, because that's the way we spend it. If three schools need training in guided reading or ESL, we pay for a trainer centrally and have the three schools attend. If I part all that out to individual schools, we'd easily make the 65%.

The point is THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM.

There are hundreds of OTHER things we could be doing to improve student performance, but we just don't have the money to pay teachers to stay after contract, send them to other training, bring in mentors, whatever.

They're pushing this to say that if schools would just spend the money appropriately, they'd have enough to work miracles.

It's bullshit.

[madeline_con]

5. Does no one ever admit that the schools can only do so much...

in the way of miracles?

I mean, we have to work with what the parents are sending us. They can't all become Nobel laureates, as some seem to believe.

[seafan]

2. And near the end of the article are THESE little gems:

snip

First Class Education is aiming to get all 50 states to pass laws requiring the 65 percent solution by 2008. So far, at least 10 states are considering it. In Texas, Republican Gov. Rick Perry mandated it by executive order. In Kansas, the Legislature passed a bill making it a public policy goal.

In Florida, the movement's fate is firmly hitched to class size.

The proposed amendment would make 65 percent the legal standard and adjust the class-size amendment. Compliance on class sizes would be determined by a district-wide average, which is much easier - and much cheaper - for districts to meet than the classroom caps that would be required several years from now.

snip

An August story in the Austin American-Statesman suggested the group pushing the 65 percent solution has a bigger agenda. A First Class Education memo obtained by the Texas newspaper said pushing the 65 percent plan as a ballot measure will yield political benefits for Republicans by pitting teachers against administrators, distracting the "education establishment" from other issues and building support for private school vouchers and charter schools.

snip



Now, isn't THIS interesting.... looks like the children aren't the Republicans' priority after all. /Heavy sarcasm


These people make me ill.

[madeline_con]

3. The problem is not a lack of funds....

but mismanagement. We got DiPatri imported from N.J. to accolades here in Brevard County, and now we have three area supers, all overpaid, IMO.

Meanwhile, in a classroom with kids who have disabilities, it took almost four months to get an additional assistant hired.

[donco6]

10. So, because the problem in YOUR district

in Florida is mismanagement, you can omnisciently conclude that that is the problem in every district in America.

I don't even know how to begin to combat that illogic.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. You gotta admit mismangement IS a problem in lots and lots of

school districts.

Here is what MY district is doing to fix things. It should make you ill.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=162x4730

[donco6]

14. I see what you mean.

There's no shortage of scandals, for sure. But in my experience, almost all of these occur in districts larger than 10,000 kids. The vast majority of DISTRICTS are much smaller and don't seem to run into these problems so often. Hmmm, wonder if there's a correlation there.

Of course, though districts with more than 10,000 kids make up only 1.7% of the total number of districts in the country, they enroll 1/3 of the students in the country! So it's no wonder perception about malfeasance is so ubiquitous.

We've talked before, proud2b, and you know that I don't think there should be districts larger than 10,000 kids. If this guy in KC really wanted reform, he would break the district into multiple districts - at least three. And I mean broken up, split apart, assets distributed, separate boards created, attendance boundaries erected (or create an open boundaries policy within the total boundary and allow kids to choose).

It may not seem "efficient" to create smaller districts, but efficiency has to factor in the quality of the product. If the product (educated kids) is not satisfactory, then what's the point of the process?

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. You're preaching to the choir donco

My district is currently around 20,000 kids. At its top enrollment, it served around 40 - 50,000 kids. There have been many changes over the years, but one constant has remained. It is an incredibly dysfunctional bureaucracy.

I have hoped for it to be broken up for years.

Our elementary schools are largely successful. The secondary schools are not. I am tired, as a hard working elementary teacher, of being held back as a district because of the failures of our middle and high schools. We are denied opportunities because we are not fully accredited by the state. Again, the failure to gain full accreditation is due to problems in our secondary schools, mainly attendance, dropout rate and test scores. There is nothing we elementary schools can do to solve these problems for the middle and high schools. Our attendance is above 95%; theirs is usually below 80%. Our test scores meet state standards year after year; theirs never have. We keep our kids in school and then they leave the district in droves once they reach middle school age.

I am one of a growing number of elementary teachers who have left our union because it is dominated by secondary teachers who focus on labor rather than educational and professional causes.

Our high schools are currently being funded by the Gates Foundation in a radical reform effort which shows little promise. The high school teachers have a half day a week without students so they can focus on professional development. What I wouldn't give for such an opportunity!

Our superintendent was recently fired and rumor has it that the head hunters want someone from this high school reform movement to replace him. So a barely successful reform movement guru is going to ride in on a white horse and save us all? Call me skeptical. I also do not look forward to a leader who ignores the successes of our elementary schools and focuses his/her energies on our failing secondary schools. Been there, done that, threw the t-shirt out years ago.

So the perfect solution, IMO, is to break us up into two districts, one serving elementary students and one serving secondary students. It may seem unprecedented but so was the 25 year desegregation effort our district was court ordered to implement.

But since I have resided in this metro area all my life and have never seen true reform, I am not hopeful. My own parents moved out of the school district when I was an infant - in the 1950s - because the schools were bad then. How times do NOT change.

[peekaloo]

4. I'll bet Jebthro wanted to call it the "Final Solution" but thought better

of it.

He forges ahead with his tax cuts and Medicaid dismantling but no amount of protest from Joe Bag of Donuts will sway him on implementing the class size amendment.

I just lurve hearing the Bu$hits ramble on about democracy and freedom and voting.......:sarcasm:

[seafan]

6. 'Joe Bag of Donuts' is being taken for a ride. n/t

[Charlie Brown]

7. Republicans are enemies of the public school system

I think they want to make the system as ineffecient as possible so they can eventually try to justify privatizing the whole thing.

In any case, this bill seems to be against the oft-mentioned conservative talking-point of giving local school systems more independence and control. If schools have to spend 65% of their income on problems they may not have, that does not leave them better off.

[seafan]

8. Here are more good quotes about this from the Palm Beach Post:

Pruitt seeks larger class sizes to reduce costs
By S.V. Date

Wednesday, December 28, 2005


TALLAHASSEE — The latest attempt to weaken the strict requirements of Florida's voter-approved class-size amendment will be led by the senator slated to take over that chamber a year from now — despite his representation of five counties that cumulatively approved the amendment by a 60-40 margin.

Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, said he understands that most parents and teachers favor the idea of limiting public school classes to 18, 22 or 25 children, based on grade level, as the state constitution now requires by 2010. But the cost of implementing that goal makes limits of 23, 27 or 30 children more feasible, he said.

Pruitt said building enough schools and hiring enough teachers would be possible "if we lived in a perfect world," but that it was impossible without raising taxes.

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State economists said in 2002 that the annual cost for extra teachers and staff would be $2.6 billion a year by the time the amendment was to be fully implemented in 2010.
Those economists also predicted in the latest estimate in November that the state would have an "extra" $1.6 billion a year. Rubio acknowledged that if that $1.6 billion were applied to class size, it would pay for more than 60 percent of the problem.

But he said that was not a credible option, given the needs of Medicaid, disabled people, the child welfare system, the juvenile system and other programs.
"That $1.6 billion only goes so far," he said, adding that he also opposed raising taxes to implement the class-size amendment. "Some of the same people who voted for class size would oppose any tax increase."

snip

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/state/content/state/epaper/2005/12/28/m1a_classsize_1228.html



Republicans would rather stick pins into their own eyes than to even CONSIDER raising taxes for the common good. Or even ASKING whether the voters would be willing to raise taxes to support smaller class sizes.

And it's interesting that the state's surplus money noted above would cover 60% of the cost of implementing the amendment, but nooooooooo, the Republicans *conveniently* cling to Medicaid cost reasons, (which Jeb just signed legislation to move many Medicaid patients into managed care....) they *conveniently* cling to costs for the Dept of Children and Families, (which is in shambles under Jeb....) and they cling to costs associated with the Juvenile Justice System, (which is a cruel joke under Jeb's rule.)

[seafan]

9. And here is the famous Jeb Bush "devious plans" threat, revisited.

Another snip from the Post article"

snip

Last year, Bush suffered a defeat in the Senate when he insisted on a floor vote on a plan to trade the class-size limits for higher teacher salaries. The proposal cleared the House with the needed three-fifths majority, and Bush needed 24 of the 26 Republicans to support him in the Senate. Only 19 did so, and two of them said they would have preferred to vote "no" but felt pressured to support the governor.


In 2002, Bush campaigned nearly as hard against the amendment as he did against McBride. A month before the election, a reporter recorded his remark to Panhandle legislators that he had "devious plans" for the amendment if it passed — a comment that likely hurt his efforts to repeal it the past three years.

snip



So, Jeb has threatened us with his devious plans, he tried dangling the promise of increased teacher salaries in return for gutting the amendment and now he wants to force the schools to spend money on tangible things inside classrooms rather than implementing what Florida voters have said they wanted in the first place.

Some days, it is just too much. January, 2007 cannot come soon enough.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. The 65% Solution is the brainchild of the guy who founded

Overstock.com. He is a VERY conservative Repuke. That is enough for me to reject this 'solution'.
LOL

The best solution I can think of is one I would like to call the 65%+ Solution. It's where we INCREASE education funding by 65%. Sounds like a winner to me :)

[LuCifer]

13. Oh I just KNEW I couldn't go for more than a month without posting...

THAT IT IS TIME TO FLOOD Jethro The Tallahasseee Nazi Jeb!® BU$Hitler's email...AGAIN...
[email protected] <--POST THIS EVERYWHERE!!!!!

What a true PIECE OF SHIT.

And darkness engulfs the earth the day that email address doesn't give you nothing more than some shit form letter reply. HEY JEB, YOU ARE A PUSSY! Too busy with PNAC, huh asshole?!?!?!?!?!?