Effort to relax class-size caps dies in the Florida Senate

[seafan]

Effort to relax class-size caps dies in the Florida Senate

BY MARY ELLEN KLAS
April 28, 2006

TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Senate put an end Friday to the session-long question of whether Republican leaders could muster the votes to send the controversial class-size amendment back to voters: They can't.

By a 20-20 vote, with six Republicans splitting with President Tom Lee and his successor, Sen. Ken Pruitt, the Senate killed the plan to ask voters to relax the caps voters approved four years ago.

snip

The vote also guarantees that class-size caps -- an issue that has been the Achilles' heel of Gov. Jeb Bush's administration since it was chiseled into the Constitution in 2002 -- will remain on the books after his term ends.

Bush has warned that the construction and operating costs of the rigid class-size caps will ''block out the sun'' by consuming the budget. For three years, he called for the caps to be repealed. Last year he offered an alternative that would have replaced the caps with higher teacher salaries.

snip

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14454998.htm

[joemurphy]

1. Every educational promise left behind. n/t

[wakeme2008]

2. Devious Jeb is term limited but the rest of the Repugs are NOT

and they have an election in Nov. Had they pushed this, IMHO, not only would the voters vote for it again but vote out a lot of the Repugs.

[seafan]

3. Mr. "Devious Plans" has failed to attain one of his top priorities.

This is a good day for the people of Florida.



Effort to relax class-size caps dies in the Florida Senate


http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/floridapolitics/entries/2006/04/28/jeb_loses_class_size_fight.html


From the Palm Beach Post:


TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Jeb Bush's latest and likely his last attempt to undo the class-size amendment failed Friday, with six Republican senators joining with 14 Democrats to block a ballot question to water down the current strict limits.

snip

Some Republicans have accused those who planned to vote against Pruitt's proposal of disloyalty to their party. But the Republican dissenters, led by Majority Leader Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, said they are loyal to their constituents and to the 70 percent of Floridians who, according to recent polls, support the existing class size standards.

snip

The vote also means that - short of an unlikely change of heart by the Senate in this legislative session's final week or an even more unlikely special session on the issue - Bush has failed on one of the top agenda items of his second term.

Bush, as the operator of Liberty City Charter School in the mid-1990s, supported both small classes and small schools, offering his own start-up, inner-city school as a perfect example.
But upon becoming governor, Bush rescinded the legislature's multi-year, $100 million a year effort to reduce public school class sizes as part of his 1999 ``A-plus" education plan. And when Meek pushed a constitutional amendment mandating smaller classes in 2002, Bush opposed the effort from the start.

snip

A month before his re-election, he was recorded in a candid moment promising ``devious plans" to undo the amendment even if it passed. Bush apologized for the word ``devious," but not for his intention to push a repeal, which he started pursuing in the legislative session of 2003 and has continued, to varying degrees, ever since.

snip

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/state/content/state/epaper/2006/04/28/0428size.html

[Diane R]

6. Did the bush boys attend school with 32 other children?

Of course not. I imagine they attended small, private schools with very small class room sizes.

I wish, for just one year, the bush boys could live like the rest of us live. george could work out in the sun all day, just to make enough money to pay for gas in his car. Their children could actually get jobs. The list goes on. This family is the bain of our existence.

[seasat]

9. I looked it up during the last elections.

Jebbie's kids attended an elite private school that advertises a teacher student ratio of 1 to 8. He actually means that class size doesn't matter for the cheap labor needed to work supporting the wealthy who benefit from his killing the only really progressive tax in Florida, the intangibles tax. You know they need good butlers and maids. :eyes:

[bullimiami]

4. and 4 years later he hasnt done shit to act on a constitutional mandate.

except for trying to overturn it.

[seafan]

5. Yep. The bullet train.... class-size....Jeb thinks we're all just stupid.

He has never concerned himself with what Florida voters want. The closer January 1, 2007 approaches, the brighter our days will be.

Then we will commence to reversing and trashing the junk Jeb leaves behind. The laboratory experiments on our schools, the FCAT debacle, the A plus/plus silliness, the renewed threat of oil drilling off our shores, insulting us by forcing us to revote on amendments we already decided, secret biotech deals out of the public eye, you name it.

January cannot come soon enough.

[JCMach1]

7. I will dance a jig the day JEBtm leaves my state

Hopefully for good!!!

[geomon666]

8. Wonderful.

Let's just keep voting on the same issue until you get the answer you want.

Gee that sounds familiar. Echoes of counting and recounting are floating through my brain and the rethuglican James Baker saying, "They're going to keep counting until they get the results they want."

Bastard.