Posted on 06/25/2002 5:11:07 PM PDT by TheRedSoxWinThePennant
Governor's One Florida Gives Minorities A Needed Boost
Published: Jun 23, 2002
G ov. Jeb Bush has every reason to feel vindicated by the One Florida Accountability Commission's findings that the governor's program to help minorities without racial quotas is succeeding.
But as the governor himself acknowledges, while the numbers are encouraging, additional work needs to be done to provide minorities more opportunities.
The panel found that Bush's One Florida program is helping minorities gain access to college and win more state contracts.
Refuting The Scare Talk
This should put to rest all that scare talk about how Bush's plan to eliminate racial quotas was going to resegregate the state.
When Bush announced One Florida in 1999, opponents quickly depicted it as being harmful to minorities. Two black lawmakers staged a protest in his office.
This was unfair. He devised the plan to defuse a referendum campaign to eliminate affirmative action, which would have greatly restricted the state's ability to aid minorities.
The governor's plan guarantees the top 20 percent of students in every high school senior class are accepted into a state university if those students have taken college preparatory classes. It also eliminated set-aside hiring of minority contractors by agencies that report to the governor and replaced it with his directive that agencies hire minority businesses whenever possible and that records on minority hiring be closely scrutinized.
These strategies, the commission's careful analysis showed, are working. It found that minority enrollment has risen or held steady since One Florida was adopted. Perhaps more significantly, the number of minority high school students taking advanced placement classes and taking the 10th-grade PSAT test that helps direct students to precollege courses has risen dramatically. Indeed, the number of minority test takers increased nearly 200 percent.
The commission also found that the governor's agencies had more than doubled spending with minority businesses.
Not all the findings were positive. Black freshman enrollment dropped 44 percent at the University of Florida, which has the state's most rigorous admission standards. Only about half of the minority students accepted at the University of Florida ended up going there.
This would seem to indicate that Florida's top black students are, for some reason, choosing other universities, and UF rightly plans to more aggressively recruit minority students. But this does not suggest One Florida caused any barriers to admission.
While the number of minority students in graduate school is holding steady, the commission said more needed to be done to increase graduate enrollment. It suggested the state fund more fellowships and teaching assistant jobs, which make graduate school financially possible for many students. The panel made a number of other sensible recommendations.
Helping Minorities Without Quotas
No one is claiming that One Florida is perfect. But the hard facts indicate it is effectively serving minorities - without quotas.
As the governor aptly put it, ``One Florida policies have proved that attaining diversity need not rely on questionable constitutional set-aside or preference programs. We should not rest on this success, but continue to strive to open more doors of opportunity for all of Florida's citizens.''
No offense sir, but would you mind pointing out the "good news" here? This is a huge pile of horses**t.
Sorry to burst your bubble but it doesn't reward excellence when you shut out the hard chargers from one school just because another school happens to be chock full of losers.
I don't know where Jeb gets off dictating "directives" to hire contractors based on the color of their skin instead of hiring them based on how low they bid and how well they can get the job done. That's unconstitutional and a waste of my money.
Please don't take my post personally, but I fail to see any good news here whatsoever.
I really appreciate that d00d. Just for that I'm going to root for the Red Sox next chance I get. Although as a native New Yorker, I'll never forget the joy I felt when that pennant winning ball rolled through Buckner's legs!
Jeb's Higher Education Plan Is Clearly Helping Minorities [One Florida works], Tampa Tribune, Mar. '02.NAACP loses college admissions battle [Appeals court decides in favor of Jeb and One Florida], Orlando Sentinel, Mar. '02.Gov. Bush, education leaders tout success of One Florida plan, Naples Daily News, Mar. '02UF Admissions of Minorities Rise [More good news for Jeb's One Florida plan], The Lakeland Ledger, April '02.Jeb's One Florida program is a winner for minorities [The Tampa Tribune's editors praise Jeb], Tampa Tribune, May '02Report: One Florida Plan is not finished. (Jeb's education plan is wokring
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