DEMOCRATS WILL BRING UP SCHOOLS OFTEN
By Leslie Postal and Sentinel Staff Writer
Most of Florida's 2.5 million public-school students can't vote. But they're the focus of this year's governor's race.
The three Democratic candidates who will face off in a Sept. 10 primary -- Daryl Jones, Bill McBride and Janet Reno -- all tout education as a top issue. And with good reason.
Opinion surveys show most voters are concerned about the quality of Florida's public schools, making education the most important issue of the governor's race.
Gov. Jeb Bush, who is angling to become the first Republican governor to win re-election in Florida history, has made school reform a hallmark of his administration. And while polls show Bush remains far ahead of all three Democrats, voters remain ambivalent about the education reforms Bush pushed through the Republican-led Legislature his first year in office.
Florida's reading-test scores, graduation rates and teachers' pay lag other states', and polls show voters think the state's schools are no better off now than when Bush was elected in 1998.
A June survey, for example, showed that while 67 percent of Florida voters thought Bush was committed to improving education, just 34 percent thought his "A-Plus Plan for Education" had made schools better.
Jones, McBride and Reno all argue to scrap Bush's plan for grading schools based on students' scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. And they all support proposed constitutional amendments to reduce class sizes and create voluntary pre-kindergarten classes for all 4-year-olds.
Such efforts, they say, coupled with increasing teacher pay, would boost student achievement and raise the stature of Florida's public schools. To help finance improvements, they all support reducing the number of state sales-tax exemptions, among other measures.
NAME RECOGNITION HELPS
Reno remains the Democratic front-runner, despite having released few details about how she would improve Florida's schools or pay for reforms. McBride, a Tampa-area attorney, and Jones, a state senator from Miami, have far more detailed plans, but in this primary, those specifics may not sway voters.
Voters care a lot of about education, but typically pay little mind to the nitty-gritty, said Lance de Haven-Smith, a political scientist at Florida State University.
"Most voters will not attend to the details of the policy proposals," de Haven-Smith said. "For that matter, most don't attend to policy at all."
Instead, if they care about education, they'll vote for someone they think does, too, in a broad sense.
"It's not the details," he said, "but the relative importance the candidate is seen attaching to the issue."And all three Democrats are stressing their support for better schools.
De Haven-Smith said that means name recognition, at this point, is far more important and Reno, the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney general and a former Miami-Dade prosecutor, has the edge.
Her opponents argue, though, that they've got better plans.
THE JONES PLAN
Like his Democratic rivals, Jones is a lawyer and an academic success story. He was valedictorian of his Mississippi high school, and the first black student from that state to win an appointment to a U.S. military academy. He graduated from the Air Force Academy and then the University of Miami Law School.
The father of three, Jones said he has found quality public schools for his children in the Miami-Dade school district. But in too many Florida schools, poorly paid, sometimes poorly trained, teachers work in crowded classrooms that focus too much on the FCAT, he said. Florida's dropout rate, teacher turnover and school morale all need improving.
Jones proposes an eight-point education plan that includes replacing the FCAT with a computerized, diagnostic test that would compare Florida students to national and international benchmarks. The FCAT uses state standards and rates student performance by comparing them to other children at their grade level. His proposed test would be far more useful to teachers and parents, Jones said.
He also proposes giving all teachers a $2,000 raise and providing additional pay increases for those who earn advanced degrees or national certification, an effort to attract and retain high-quality teachers.
And Jones calls for building 100 new schools a year for the next 10 years to help reduce crowding.
"If we can build our way out of prison overcrowding, then we're obligated to build our way out of school overcrowding," he said.
And he would encourage the creation of charter schools for students struggling in regular schools. These schools would be required to hire certified teachers but would get more money per student than regular schools. This would provide struggling students with smaller, more intensive classes, while removing troublemakers and those lagging academically from regular classrooms.
Jones acknowledges his proposals would cost more money. He said he would pay for them by cutting costs, such as by buying CD-ROMs instead of textbooks for schools. Jones also favors improving enforcement of sales-tax collections and then bonding that new revenue.
Finally, Jones also has proposed a complex corporate donation system that would give businesses tax credits for donating money to nonprofit social-service agencies. The state would then reduce its contributions to those agencies and shift that money to schools.
THE MCBRIDE PLAN
McBride, a lawyer who ran Florida's biggest law firm before resigning to run for governor, is making his first bid for elective office. He is a graduate of Leesburg High School and earned his bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Florida. McBride has issued a 60-page plan that covers everything from teacher salaries to character-education programs. The plan won him the support of the state teachers union, which has purchased television ads on his behalf.
McBride has two children in public schools in Hillsborough County and said he knows first-hand the frustration of the state's grading system.
"My son's school is a C school according to this governor," he said. "It's not a C school. My son's going to have a great education. I know the principal. I know the coaches."
But, he added, "Who wants their kids going to a C school?"
McBride said he'd change the school-accountability system to one that "parents believe in." He'd provide parents information about class sizes, teacher qualifications, expenses and results of parent surveys, not just FCAT scores.
His system would use the FCAT, but mostly to assess student progress and to determine who needs extra help. Using FCAT to "punish" schools and label them as failures would end, he said.
McBride said he'd raise the average teacher salary by $2,500 immediately to help recruit and retain teachers and work to bring it up to at least the national average. Teachers, particularly those working in low-performing elementary schools, would have increased opportunities for professional development and more incentives to become nationally certified.
Pre-kindergarten programs, run by school districts, would expand, giving more 4-year-olds likely to struggle in school opportunities to attend quality pre-school programs, McBride's plan promises.
He'd also work to reduce class sizes, particularly in the early grades and in schools where children struggle the most.
To pay for smaller classes, he'd institute a new school-construction program, bonding about $100 million in lottery money. Some school administrators might also need to be shifted back into the classrooms, he said.
To help pay for his other initiatives, McBride said he would eliminate wasteful spending and would ask the Legislature to impose a 50-cent-per-pack cigarette tax. He'd also consider shifting money from other parts of the state's general budget.
"I think, in the end, it's a good economic investment," he said.
RENO'S EDUCATION GOALS
Like her rivals, Reno, who served for 15 years as state's attorney in Miami-Dade County before heading to Washington, D.C., points to her own public-school background when she discusses education. She attended school in South Florida, graduating from Coral Gables High School. She's also a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Law School.
Improving public schools, she said, is critical to Florida's efforts to diversify its economy beyond tourism and agriculture. Businesses won't look to relocate here, if the public schools are poor quality.
Reno offers far fewer specific proposals than her rivals, though she discusses many of the same ideas. She emphasizes, in particular, doing more to prepare youngsters for kindergarten. Florida spends too much money on remedial programs, she said, that "would not be necessary if we made the investment up front."
In fact, she added, "Florida, for too long, has done things on the cheap and waited for a crisis to occur."
Efforts to help children from birth to age 5 -- efforts that could include providing health care, parenting classes, better-quality day care and pre-school -- should be pushed, she said, and eventually would help the public schools.
Reno said she would use the FCAT as a "diagnostic tool," but not to grade schools and doesn't approve of using state money to give some parents vouchers for private-school tuition.
"I think public money should be spent on public schools."
The grading system, which has changed every year since it was implemented, also has frustrated teachers and principals, who never think they have a handle on the rules, she said.
High schools, Reno added, must do more to provide useful vocational training to students, particularly those not aiming for college, and to make sure that training matches the needs of state industries.
Reno also calls for paying teachers better, especially compared with neighboring states, and for lowering class sizes.
All these proposals would, she admitted, cost money. The first way to find more money is to root out all waste. Then it would be a matter of "making a case" to the public that the state needed more money. But Reno said she would never ask for new taxes until she was convinced all existing money earmarked for schools was being well spent.