Clipping a Bush in Florida

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Clipping a Bush in Florida
by James Hall, Senior Associate Editor

October 23, 2002

"Leaning Left"

James Hall In recent polls Jeb Bush is in a statistical dead heat with Democratic challenger Bill McBride in the Florida gubernatorial election. That worried the White House, which dispatched its fundraiser-in-chief, President George W. Bush, to Florida last week to help out brother Jeb's faltering campaign. Then the Governor's father and mother, President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush, began touring Florida's Republican districts to rally the troops. Now the Republican National Committee is sending money earmarked for close Congressional races to the Florida Bush campaign. In other words, Republicans are treating this race as it might well be---an indicator of the President's own reelection prospects in 2004.

Ironically, McBride has been successful in using George W. Bush's own method of focused campaigning to advance on Brother Jeb. Like Dubya, McBride chose education as his principal topic and has stuck to education throughout the campaign, while policy-wonk Jeb has tried to talk about a range of issues that include law enforcement, taxes, preserving the everglades, and a half-dozen other issues that the voters seem to care less about in this election.

Education was and is Bush's weak link in Florida. Though Bush talks about increased spending and improved test scores, Florida ranks 47th in the nation in overall academic success. In 1997, before Bush took office, the state ranked 41st. SAT scores are down and a Chamber of Commerce Foundation report said only 20% of Florida high school seniors are moving on to attend college. Florida teachers are paid less than most of their southern peers---a Florida teacher can get a $10,000 raise by going across the border to teach in Georgia.

Many parents of school-age children are troubled by the Bush competitive education model and the high stakes testing used to measure academic success. Florida was one of the first states to adopt the Bush model of grading schools and penalizing "flunking" schools by letting their students transfer elsewhere. But many parents object to having their local schools ranked by a poor or failing grades based on a single test. There's an inherent lack of fair competition between schools in poor inner city neighborhoods, with a shifting, often immigrant population, and schools located in wealthy suburban counties with extra sources of funding and more experienced teachers.

These issues were raised in a Florida Department of Education study released in August, but not publicized by the Bush administration. The study found that Florida schools compared poorly compared with other schools from other states, and that Florida's schools have improved "relatively little" in the past few years.

The study spoke favorably of smaller class sizes, especially for minority-dominated schools. Smaller class size is also on the ballot in Florida with an initiative for a constitutional amendment that would place limits on the number of pupils in each class and require state funding to make that limit possible. Bush opposes this ballot initiative, citing its costs, while McBride has said he will vote for it.

And Jeb's strong support for school vouchers is thought by many to be a knife in the back of public education. McBride, on the other hand, supports public schools and has his children attending them.

These issues have national significance because of the education bill pushed through Congress by President George Bush earlier this year. Under this bill, states will be required to set up the competitive model of ranking schools by high stakes tests or lose federal education funds totaling millions. Thus a vote on education in Florida may prove to be a referendum on the national Bush education policy.

Intentionally or unintentionally, Republicans have made the Florida gubernatorial election a referendum not only on Jeb Bush, but his brother George. By pouring GOP money (over 40 million dollars at this point, twice what McBride and Democrats have spent) into the state and having the entire Bush dynasty campaigning for Jeb, they've set themselves up for the first test of the President's ability to be reelected in 2004. ***

Photo of the author courtesy of staff files