Now, college officials agree with Gov Jeb Bush:
"One Florida is working."
Posted on 03/24/2002 5:48:12 AM PST by summer
Now, college officials agree with Gov Jeb Bush:
"One Florida is working."
Gov. Bush, education leaders tout success of One Florida plan
Sunday, March 24, 2002
By MARCI ELLIOTT, mrelliott@naplesnews.com
It started with a bang, but not the kind of noise Florida's governor wanted to hear.
Now, the Executive Office of the Governor is trying to make a louder sound: one of a horn tooting with a strong message about the One Florida initiative.
The word going out about One Florida, the plan to eliminate race-targeted university admissions, is a simple, two- word message: It's working.
A clamor went up around the state when Gov. Jeb Bush announced One Florida in 1999.
Critics blasted it for eliminating the longtime affirmative action plan that had been in place since the 1960s to ensure minorities had a place in education, the workplace and society in general.
Bush and his top education leaders insisted One Florida would be even better than the old affirmative action, despite ongoing criticism.
The numbers are in, and the governor's office is spreading its I-told-you-so message around the state.
Florida Gulf Coast University, which keeps a very close eye on enrollment figures as the newest of Florida's 11 colleges, has numbers to show One Florida has affected its minority student population.
"I would say yes, it has had a positive impact," said Michele Yovanovich, director of admissions.
"FGCU's numbers are increasing in every area, and that would probably skew our data a little bit," Yovanovich said. "The One Florida plan probably had a positive impact as far as recruitment of students. Students know by now that if they're in the top 20 percent of their class, they can be admitted to a state university — whereas, before One Florida, they couldn't do that. The real impact is opening more possibilities."
Susan Evans, special assistant to FGCU President William Merwin, explained the "Talented 20," a component of One Florida, guarantees state university admission to the top 20 percent of high school graduates regardless of race, color or ethnic background.
"It was designed to broaden the opportunities for deserving high school graduates to attend Florida's universities," Evans said.
Evans pointed out that FGCU's student-population diversity was reflected in consistent increases every year since the university opened its doors in 1997, with the biggest jump in fall 2000, the first year One Florida was in effect.
In fall 1997, when FGCU opened with 2,600 students, the total number of blacks, Hispanics, Asians, American Indians and other minorities was 303, followed by 338 in fall 1998 and 386 in fall 1999.
In fall 2000 the minority total increased by nearly 100 — to 480.
The most recent minority total is 543 out of a total 4,300 students, counted in fall 2001, the current year. The numbers show the ratio of minorities to the overall student population has grown consistently along with the annual increases of all students.
Coinciding with the consistent increases since fall 2000 is the number of students admitted under the "Talented 20" plan, for which minorities accounted about one-quarter.
"This is a very positive sign," Evans said. "It shows the initiative is working."
Isaac Brundage, FGCU's director of housing, said there was not a large percentage of minority students living on campus.
"I would say probably less than 20 percent," Brundage said. "But we have a nice mixture of the minorities. Some are from out of town, but a lot are from the (Southwest Florida) area."
The Executive Office of the Governor said in a report released earlier this month that this year, more than 1,250 more minority students entered the state university system than in 1999, the year before One Florida went into effect.
In the 1999-00 school year, the report said, 10,609 minority students representing the first members of their families to attend college — referred to as FTIC, first time in college — were enrolled in the state's 11 universities.
In the current 2001-02 school year, 11,861 minority FTIC students are enrolled.
"As the entire university system switched from race-conscious to race-neutral admissions, diversity, in percentage terms, held steady," the governor's report said.
"Critics said it couldn't be done," it said. "They said minority enrollment would plummet if the state switched to race- neutral admissions. The critics were wrong."
Traveling around the state defending his One Florida plan, Bush told Floridians it would work much better than affirmative action. But critics decried the plan, saying affirmative action needed to stay.
Then in August 2001, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the University of Georgia's race-based admissions system.
The ruling, which applies to all states, set up a high barrier to the use of racial data in the admissions process.
The system in place before One Florida could not have passed the 11th Circuit's test — and the court endorsed many of the tools used in One Florida, the governor's report said.
Yovanovich said FGCU has used a non-race-based admissions standard from day one.
"We were so small, we made our admission decisions by personal review on every single file and did not use a point system," she said.
"We didn't have to change anything, while some of the other schools had to review and look at how they made decisions."
For more information about One Florida, click here.
A big bump for Governor Jeb Bush and the return to equal rights under the law, but I am confused by this reference to Parkinson's disease and FV, since I do not see a post by him or references to the disease or Reno other than the graphic of her.
Reno, McBride can keep touting the lie about affirmative action to appease the race hutlers. The press needs to hear the truth and then live with their consciences knowing they're pushing a lie for political purposes. Hi, summer!
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