Charlie Crist is No Lawton Chiles

Lawton Chiles started it.

That’s it, Charlie. Blame the flunking FCAT on a Florida icon.

Just to set the record straight.

Although created under the late Gov. Lawton Chiles, it was Jeb Bush who made the test central to a child's education.

Bush misused the FCAT.

Against your kids.

Your kids have been abused by Jeb Bush.

Somebody call the Department of Children and Families.

Let’s time travel back to why Crist would take such a catty-Meow-swipe at the late governor.

Lawton Chiles appointed a Governor's Commission on Education in 1997-1998 to examine the Florida school system. One of the significant recommendations that came from that commission eventually led to the highly controversial 2002 state constitutional amendment restricting Florida's school class sizes. The Commission focused primarily on school crowding and construction needs and on expansion of school readiness opportunities in Florida.

Crist’s buddy Jeb, lost to Chiles in 1994. Shortly after his defeat, Bush founded the Foundation for Florida's Future, an organization which many critics believe to be nothing more than a fund-raising vehicle for Bush's political aspirations and a way to circumvent campaign contribution laws.

Hard to believe.

Oh, and by the way, Bush refused to reveal the names of those major contributors.

There was little doubt that the Republican hard hitters contributed to FFF. With Georgie still in the Texas Governor’s mansion with an aspiration of a 2000 run for the Presidency and the thought of baby bro running Florida, an extremely important political state…well, Republicans call that “political strategy”. Democrats call that a “poltical coup”….and not in a good way. Now that we know how it all wound up, it all seems like quite the bad dream at this point.

But back to Lawton.

Chiles and his Lt. Governor, Buddy MacKay steadfastedly opposed the use of public tax dollars to send kids to private schools throughout their eight years in Tallahassee. Jebbie, of course, wanted to develop an education caste system.

To widen the gourge between the educational “have and have nots”, Jebbie was big into school testing. Assign grades A-F to underperforming schools. Give more dollars to those schools making an “A” and punish those “F” schools by stripping away funding.

Which makes no sense at all…wouldn’t an underperforming school NEED FUNDS to help the kids?

The Bush goal. Close those suckers down and provide vouchers to those students to enable attendance at private schools.

All on the tax payer’s dime.

Play it again, Frog.

Chiles and his Lt. Governor, Buddy MacKay steadfastedly opposed the use of public tax dollars to send kids to private schools

FYI-Crist wants to amend the constitution to restore the opportunity scholarships and protect two other voucher programs from similar challenges

Fast forward to present time.

Thirteen and fourteen year old students are enrolled in sixth grades all over Florida...two time FCAT losers...retained to the elementary school trenches. High school graduation rates are in the cellar and apparently, the Sunshine State's SAT scores are 49^th in the country.

But Bush continues to deny the effect of the FCAT on Florida's kids.

The "fail third graders" and "no high school graduation for you" effect.

Bush also blasted a common criticism of the FCAT, that teachers teach to the test instead of teaching children to learn. General knowledge is what's required to pass the test.

"There's no evidence that teachers teach to the test," he said. "You can't teach to the FCAT."

Interesting. Explain that to the physical education teacher who is required to teach FCAT problem-solving questions, somewhere between dodge and ball.

When Republicans are faced with the real world implications of their right-wing policies, the strategy of choice becomes the old "point the finger."

If all else fails...

Blame it on the dead guy.

"The old he-coon walks just before the light of day."

--Lawton Chiles

Jim Davis Thoughts on the FCAT

"As a parent, as a governor, I believe the FCAT should be used as a learning tool for children, parents and teachers," Davis said. "Right now the FCAT is used to punish children, teachers and schools, and I think that's wrong."

Davis would do away with grading schools A, B, C, D or F and go to a three-tiered system: "excellent," "achieving" and "needs improvement." Instead of relying exclusively on FCAT scores, he wants to include other factors such as discipline, parental involvement, class size and teacher input in the grading system.

Davis also wants to lift a requirement for third-graders to pass the FCAT's reading section to be promoted, eliminate $100 per student prizes for top-performing schools and abolish a new performance pay program that rewards teachers based in large part on how much their students improve on the FCAT or other tests.

Take the 2001 FCAT!