65 Percent: Tastes Great, Doesn't Help
May 19, 2006 01:00 PM
NCLBlog welcomes Ed at AFT to the blogosphere! Ed will lend his expertise on school finance, among other issues, to our blog.
In his post on how the debate on the 65 percent mandate resembles the Da Vinci Code, Alexander Russo misses the all important MSG angle. Since the passage of a class size reduction amendment in 2002, Florida's Governor Jeb Bush has tried to limit its scope. This year’s proposal would have asked the voters to amend the Florida constitution to loosen the class size requirements. In an effort to make this taste better, the proposal included the 65 percent mandate. You might think you were voting for more dollars in the classroom, but really you’d be voting for larger classes.
The use of the flavor enhancer didn't stop there. When the Florida courts ruled that one of the state's voucher programs was unconstitutional, proponents began looking for a way to pass new constitutional language to save the program. Once again, a dose of MSG was applied, and the Florida house voted to refer a combined voucher/65 initiative to the voters. The proposals both died when a majority of Florida's senators didn't have the stomach for this cynicism, or maybe they knew that too much MSG gives you a headache.
As for whether the 65 percent proposal makes any educational sense, the answer is no. In part that's because it treats essential elements of high performance, like professional development, school nutrition, student health services and building maintenance as "administration."
Ed at AFT
Comments
As I've written, I don't think the 65-percent solution would have flown with Florida voters, because the polling done thus far hasn't considered what people would think when they realized that imposing such strictures might affect air-conditioning repairs, school nurses, and bus repairs. Parents don't send their kids to school to have heat exhaustion or to be stuck on highways for hours.
Posted by: Sherman Dorn | May 19, 2006 02:29 PM
Thanks for the comment. I think that one of the tasks in this debate is linking the idea of "administrative dollars" to the actual services parents get. I read your post, which mentions charter schools. Interestingly, the charter school community is generally opposed to 65 percent. This helped keep it from going to the ballot in Arizona last year and Jeanne Allen has spoken out against it. That might be because charter schools typically have higher administrative spending than traditional schools - its an issue of scale.
Posted by: Ed | May 19, 2006 04:01 PM
I believe your right. Georgia is looking at the 65% solution as well and at first glance I felt that it might be a good thing as it meant more money for teachers, however, at what cost? I'm tired of supposed solutions being nothing more than slight of hand and total voter deception.
Posted by: elementaryhistoryteacher | May 20, 2006 11:27 PM