FR EXCLUSIVE: Gov. Jeb Bush answers the question -- "Do FL voucher students take state tests?"

Email from Gov Bush to summer | July 8, 2002 | Jeb Bush; summer

[summer]

Thanks, Gov. Bush.

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-----Original Message-----
From: Jeb Bush
To: [summer]
Date: Monday, July 08, 2002 2:45 PM
Subject: RE: quick question

Opportunity scholarship students must take the FCAT grades 3-10. The information on the test goes only to the parent and is not published. Private schools are not graded. The majority of students in private school are using the McKay scholarship. They don't have to take the test. The corporate tax credit students don't have to take the test either.

Jeb Bush

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-----Original Message-----
From: [summer]
Sent: Monday, July 08, 2002 2:18 PM
To: Jeb Bush
Subject: quick question

Vouchers and Government Control

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Gov. Bush,

A certain voucher question comes up repeatedly on FR.

I tried to answer it to the best of my knowledge on my post #40 on the thread above. Was I correct?

Briefly -- FR posters against vouchers keep claiming the FL voucher students are currently "required" to take all state assessments. But, I say, NO.

Who is correct?

Thanks,
[summer]

[summer]

You are sinking to an ad hominem attack against me by characterizing my posts as "screaming" and by asserting that I like to yell. Please try to remain civil.

I am not sinking. I am remaining civil in my responses and always have with you. And, yes, your constant posts do "scream" about the FL situation, without knowing the facts, the laws, nothing. You are not even in FL.

Why are you appointing yourself the FL Voucher Expert when all the facts about FL vouchers are of no interest to you?

Or, is that question not "civil"? Does one not have the right to ask why you repeatedly post misinformation? People read your posts. People get upset.

You must like making people upset, because you sure did fall silent when some FACTS came your way....

[summer]

When you have a chance, please take a look at the Code of Federal Regulations and the mandate for state assessments.

No thanks. You don't have the courtesy to thoughtfully consider my information -- from Gov. Bush -- so I don't think I will waste my time with your posts and agenda anymore.

[summer]

All 50 states take fed ed funds. Therefore, all 50 states have accepted the regulations that accompany those funds.

The facts are there.

Why are you the only one allowed to be in possession of the facts? Why does the governor of the 4th largest state in this country not count in your book as an expert in this matter?

[summer]

Additionally, history teaches us that government expands its bureaucratic power constantly and uses our money, with strings attached, in order to do so.

So, even when Gov. Bush tells you himself that two of the three voucher programs in FL do not require state assessments, that FACT has to be tossed aside, just so you can keep repeating your mantra above?

[summer]

Next time you contact Governor Bush on my behalf, please ask for the statutory material about vouchers in Florida along with the attendant regulations. I'd appreciate the factual information.

capecodder, Don't worry -- I will not contact Gov. Bush on your behalf again. You can keep on posting all your erroneous threads about FL vouchers without any factual information from me appearing on such threads. Frankly, YOU are the one who sounds like "a politician." Are you?

And, BTW, next time you want information, here's a polite suggestion: call up a lawyer in FL, pay him or her $350 per hour, and ask all the questions you want about FL vouchers. Then, when you get the facts -- and after you pay your legal bills --- continue to ignore the facts, as you did here.

[summer]

I will pass this on to my Florida e mail list.

Thanks, Coleus. I appreciate your post here. :)

[summer]

Thank you for asking Governor Bush a question primarily for me.

BTW, You're welcome. Take care.

[capecodder]

Only federal and state education law and the pursuant regulations should be the focus of this and all discussions about vouchers.

Let's look at the federal regulations states accepting fed ed money must follow. Did you read the CFR material I linked? The states taking fed ed funds must design and administer assessments that meet federal standards. Control of the test means control of the curriculum.

The ease with which President Bush has signed on to the fed ed agenda is alarming. And he's quite an advocate of "assessments" and "accountability."

Federal power over education in the United States is expanding in leaps and bounds.

It is a naive leap of faith to think that vouchers (government money) will excape the control that will be rationalized as "accountability."

[summer]

Since I am merely a FL certified teacher -- and obviously no match for you (and your agenda) -- why not make your case to this guy, below, and let us all know what he says to you?

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Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the
Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Thomas Sowell: Vouchers vindicated

Wednesday, July 3, 2002

By THOMAS SOWELL, Creators Syndicate

The court cases that get the most media attention are not necessarily the cases that will have the most impact on the society. Despite all the controversy surrounding the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision outlawing "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance or the Supreme Court's decision outlawing executions of murderers with low test scores, the decision with the greatest potential for benefiting American society is the Supreme Court's decision declaring vouchers constitutional, even if most of these vouchers end up being used at religious schools.

One of the main phony arguments against vouchers is now dead. Vouchers are no more a violation of the Constitution than the G.I. Bill that paid for the education of military veterans at Notre Dame, Holy Cross, and other religious colleges.

Opponents of vouchers have other phony arguments to fall back on, however. One is that vouchers will drain money away from the public schools, making it harder for them to provide a good education to the students remaining.

That argument is just bad arithmetic, perhaps brought on by fuzzy math. Vouchers almost invariably pay much less money than the average cost of educating students in the public schools. When students who cost $8,000 a year to educate in the public schools transfer to a private school with a $4,000 voucher, the total cost of educating all these students does not go up. It goes down.

Far from reducing per capita spending in the public schools, the departure of voucher students leaves more money per pupil for those left behind. It is of course true that the total sum of money in the public school may decline, but if half the students depart, should the school continue to get the same money it had when there were twice as many students?

This emphasis on money is a tragic farce, in view of all the research that shows virtually no correlation between spending per pupil and educational outcomes. Districts with some of the highest per pupil expenditures have some of the lowest test results, and vice versa. Countries that spend less than half as much per pupil outperform American students on international tests, year after year.

One of the most hypocritical objections made by opponents of vouchers is that the vouchers pay so little that they can only be used in religious schools. If that is the critics' real concern, why don't they advocate raising the amount of money per voucher?

In reality, those who are up in arms about disparities in per pupil expenditure from one public school district to another almost never advocate equalizing expenditures between voucher recipients and students in the public schools.

The truly ugly aspect of the case against vouchers is the objection that vouchers will allow private schools to "skim off" the best students from the public schools. Students are not inert objects being skimmed off by others. These students and their parents choose what they want to do - for the first time, as a result of vouchers setting them free from the public school monopoly.

When these voucher critics send their own children off to upscale private schools, do they say that Phillips Academy or Sidwell Friends School are "skimming" the best students out of the public schools? Affluent parents are simply doing what any responsible parents would do - choosing the best education they can get for their children.

Only when low-income parents are now able to do the same thing is it suddenly a question of these students being "skimmed" by other institutions. But whenever any group rises from poverty to prosperity, whether by education or otherwise, some do so before others. Why should low-income families be told that either all of them rise at the same time or none of them can rise?

If there has actually been harm done to the public schools by vouchers, there ought to be evidence of it by now. But voucher critics have none, after all these years, and rely on scary but unsubstantiated theories instead.

What we are really talking about are the teachers' unions wanting to keep a captive audience, for the sake of their members' jobs, and social engineers wanting to control low-income children and their parents, as they themselves would never want to be controlled.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

[summer]

My pleasure. Thanks for your post here. :)

[summer]

I saw this earlier, summer, it's good to read what a governor who cares about his state thinks....

I agree, and I always appreciate it when Gov Bush takes the time to write to citizens. In addition, thanks for mentioning that you saw this earlier -- sometimes I forget that far more people see and read a thread than post to it!

PS Also, thanks for your kind words to me, nicmarlo. :)

[summer]

I am uncomfortable with "creative" approaches done on the whim of individual teachers and agenda minded bureucrats.My childs education should not include being a captive experimental subject for a teacher to play with.

sarasmom, I realize the word "creative" is a loaded one for many people. And, I actually agree with you here -- in fact, I once objected to an "experimental" program in a school where I taught.

However, when I say the word "creative" with respect to teaching, I am referring to a teacher who has MANY different teaching strategies to utilize in order to keep a student engaged in work. But I am not talking about doing something off the wall. I am talking about a teacher who is able to engage the student, keep the student's attention, and in doing so, enable the student to learn.

Some teachers are so boring and use only one strategy that they literally put their students to sleep. These are not creative teachers. Thanks for your post. :)

[summer]

mafree, I hope you do get in touch with that person! (Because if you are in touch only with me, I wouldn't even know what to tell you in terms of you campaigning for Gov. Bush) :)

[summer]

Thanks for your post here, iconoclast! :)

[summer]

Thanks, rudypoot! :)

[summer]

Good post summer. Thanks for the ping. Another thread to send to the kids.

My pleasure, and thanks for sending it to them, Brownie74.

[PS Guess what I'm having for dinner tonight? That incredible exotic dish you wrote to me about on freepmail! LOL! :)]

[stainlessbanner]

I just heard about Mollie Ray elementary school last night (Orange County) - it was one of a few county schools to get failing fcat scores. Now the students are allowed to take vouchers and go where they please.

I just don't see how this is going to improve Mollie Ray - over 100 students are leaving (each voucher is $3600), so $360,000 in diverted funds. Now the principle says less students will improve the quality, but I'm not buying it.

[capecodder]

What does this column have to do with government control via government funding?

I've heard Dr. Sowell speak about the fine schools he attended in Harlem as a child.

He has contended that the government-mandated education reforms destroyed those schools.

Government money brings government control, sometimes swiftly, sometimes incrementally.

[summer]

Great. Tell him you admire him, and why he should oppose vouchers. Then, post what he says here. Looking forward to it!

[summer]

Now the principle says less students will improve the quality, but I'm not buying it.

The principal is right, IMO.