Governor Crist just vetoed SB 6!!!!!!!!!

[Dappleganger]

At least someone in this state is FOR public education and the children!


Added a link:

http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2010-04-15/story/crist-vetoes-senates-education-bill

[YDogg]

1. Thank god

[lame54]

67. No, Christ

[UndertheOcean]

2. Crist has a good side to him , he is not totally under the spell of the dark side n/t

[Ken Burch]

44. Which is why he's going to get asswhupped in the Senate primary

They want a candidate who's all about bringin' teh EVIL!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

3. Once again, my Republican governor pleasantly surprises me.

Too bad he's going to probably lose the primary to Rubio, but maybe Kendrick Meek will actually step up and start campaigning for a change.

[Fla_Democrat]

10. Safe bet

eom

[peace frog]

50. Piss off, Jeb Bush

[UncleTomsEvilBrother]

4. I'm so glad.

I think he just also effectively handed his resignation to the republican party as well!

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. GOOD...

[Scurrilous]

6. Great news.

:thumbsup:

[lib2DaBone]

7. OMG.. Thank god...

[Kokonoe]

8. Jeb must not teabag as well like W.

Or its a divisive issue that republicans must utilize in the next election.

[PinkSunset]

9. Excellent!

I am sooo glad. My son is an ESE student and I was so worried about that stupid bill. I will have to write him a thank you letter.

[WI_DEM]

11. I think Crist is preparing for an independent bid for governor in FL

[Jennicut]

16. He should. Better him in the Senate then Rubio.

[csziggy]

12. I hate to say it, but "Way to go, Charlie!"

Wonder if he is planning to switch to Independent tomorrow? A poll just released said as an Independent, he would have a better chance to win the senatorial seat as an independent.

Crist Advisers See Path to Senate Outside GOP
Florida Governor Insists Independent Bid Isn't in the Cards Despite Conservative Primary Opponent's Big Lead in Polls

Hounded by conservative activists as too liberal, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is being advised by some close supporters to abandon his lagging Republican primary bid for a U.S. Senate seat and run instead as an independent. Mr. Crist's campaign issued a statement last week saying the governor would run in the Republican primary and describing the talk of an independent bid as "baseless rumors.''

Still, some advisers see room for him to take another course. Mr. Crist is trailing badly in public-opinion surveys against state House Speaker Marco Rubio, who has become a darling of conservative activists nationally. Florida law doesn't give Mr. Crist the flexibility that enabled Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to win election in 2006 as a third-party candidate after losing the Democratic primary. Mr. Crist must decide by April 30 whether to seek the Republican nomination or to appear instead on the general-election ballot with no party affiliation.

An important sign of Mr. Crist's aims could come this week: He must decide by Friday whether to veto a teacher merit-pay bill supported by prominent conservatives in the party. "If you were to put a gun to my head, I'd say he's running as an independent," said a GOP strategist who serves as an informal adviser to the governor.

More: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304604204575182411691733770.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[csziggy]

13. dupe

[DirkGently]

14. Yeaaaaaaaaah!

I guess he was moved by my (DU-suggested) e-mail. :)

[ellenfl]

15. woo hoo! thanks for the news! eom

[EFerrari]

17. Great news. Maybe those emails helped.

:hi:

[laughingliberal]

18. Great news! Avoided this step in the destruction of public education! nt

[waiting for hope]

34. But the sad thing is, there are many

on the path to destroy it .. :-( I have a feeling Florida will see something similiar to SB6 come up again.

[Jakes Progress]

63. Corporations are patient.

We celebrate and move on with our lives. They wait a year, or three, or six. Then they do it again. They are dogged in their pursuit of profit. They don't care if it comes from widows, children, or from the deaths of soldiers. They will have their profit

[hlthe2b]

19. Teachers and Parents of Florida: CONGRATULATIONS

Now, for the love of God, please knock some sense into your fellow residents and get these RETHUG cretins out of office. And, even if you have to vote for Crist--if he runs as an independent, please don't let his RETHUG opponent get your Senate Seat! PLEASE.

Savor your victory, but not for long. I have to say that Colorado, like Florida has frothing RETHUGs just waiting to turn our government upside down. We have to maintain the efforts.

But, for now, :toast:

[stray cat]

20. Certainly in favor of keeping tenure on the table anyway

[tonysam]

21. That and the elimination of NYC's rubber rooms are welcome news

for teachers around the country.

[stray cat]

22. Where do the teachers in the rubber rooms go now?

[lpbk2713]

23. Watch for Crist to run as an Independent now.

I'll bet on it.

ETA: Excellent move by Crist BTW.

[bc3000]

42. I'd vote for him

Crist vs. a Teapartier vs. a Conservadem, I'll vote Crist

[tonysam]

24. I have to ask where there is a link. There is NOTHING on Google

about any veto as of yet.

[Brickbat]

27. Here ya go.

http://www.news-press.com/article/20100415/NEWS0104/100415031/1075/Gov.-Crist-vetoes-SB-6

[tonysam]

29. Thanks a bunch. Will post in ed forum. n/t

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Brickbat]

26. HOT FUCKING DAMN.

Solidarity, teachers!

[mcar]

28. Woo Hoo!

[Greyhound]

30. Good news! K&R

[tonysam]

31. Teachers and other concerned citizens will have to be vigilant, for

there will be more and more attempts to destroy public education. It's that serious, people. One state falls to privatizers, and they ALL will.

Remember, the World Bank and others are pushing for privatization of public education in order to create a two-class society where there is NO mobility thanks to restricting higher education for the masses.

[JCMach1]

32. slap in the face of JEBtm who is the Putin

of Florida...

[sonias]

33. Good for Governor Crist and for the teachers in Florida!

:bounce::bounce::bounce:

[TroubleMan]

35. Crist ain't so bad, compared to the monster we just got rid of.

Having Jeb Bush as governor was a nightmare.

[Lorien]

39. Amen to that! nt

[Change Happens]

45. +1

[malaise]

36. Excellent

There's something about Charlie!

[demmiblue]

37. K&R!

:bounce:

[Odin2005]

38. Thank God!

[usregimechange]

40. Can't beat teabagger, switching parties, imo

[sabrina 1]

41. Excellent, he made the right decision.

I wonder how it will affect him in the Repub. polls. Maybe they did some internal polling and found that ordinary people are a bit less off the wall than the leaders of the Repub. Party. My sister is a Republican, and she would not be supportive of such a law. There are lots of Republican teachers also who would have been affected just as much as Democrats.

Good for Crist ~ :applause:

[Enthusiast]

43. Way to go,Governor Crist! nt

[Betty Karlson]

46. I can't believe how much self-restraint Crist still has.

In his position, I would have walked out on the guys six times already. But I suppose he has a long-term plan to hurt the GOP good and long. GOP, meet your Lieberman.

[Dinger]

47. By A republican

I am speechless. K & R

[Dinger]

48. I'm Curious What duncan and Obama have to say about this

Very curious indeed.

[Reader Rabbit]

49. They'll probably say it is partisan politics.

That's the tragedy of Democrats being the ones trying to destroy public education. If a Republican goes against one of their plans, they can claim it wasn't because it was a craptastic idea, but because of partisan sabotage.

[onpatrol98]

51. Race To The Top

Is Merit Based Pay part of the Race To The Top funding mandates?

[Catshrink]

53. Test scores must be part of teacher evaluations.

Think about the inequities here: two excellent teachers, one in a well-funded school with involved parents, the other in a school chronically neglected, absent parents, high percentage of kids on free lunch. Guess who gets the better test scores? Guess who is punished?

Adequate yearly diddily poop, part 4: let's do it right

" In “What makes for failing schools”, published in the Journal of Instructional Psychology, Marlow Ediger writes that so-called failing schools are almost invariably “located in low income areas, where the number of students on free or reduced-price lunches rises upwards of 75%”. Ediger also notes that “chances are the surrounding home areas of these children are unsafe with periodic gun battles and drug dealing, among other hostile factors”.

The premise of NCLB is that if gun battles are distracting to students, the teacher just isn’t trying hard enough.

Every school, regardless of its surrounding neighborhood, is held to the same standards under NCLB. If a school that serves a poverty-stricken, crime-ridden, lead-painted, crumbling neighborhood doesn’t meet the same standards as a school serving an affluent suburban neighborhood; that school is labeled a failure. Some people even assert we should fire the entire staff and start over.

(Of course, it may soon be difficult to re-staff such schools if we follow the path of merit pay and test-score teacher evaluation. How many teachers will choose to teach in that poverty-stricken, crime-ridden, lead-painted, crumbling neighborhood; knowing that they’ll be treated with contempt, labeled a failure, paid less, and eventually fired because of those students’ test scores?)."

http://www.examiner.com/x-29491-Topeka-K12-Examiner~y2010m4d15-Adequate-yearly-diddily-poop-part-4--lets-do-it-right

[onpatrol98]

55. Good Point!!!

Teaching has not been a field that people are running too. It's a professional calling. But, hey, called or not, you have to provide for your family. But, some charter schools have been able to close the learning gap with the same students in poor neighborhoods. But, I'm assuming their using the SAME qualified teachers...Could the difference be in the administration and the policies that charter schools are allowed to follow?

In other words, are the kids the same, teachers - still the same that would be teaching in public schools, BUT, their is more freedom in terms of selecting administration and policies. I realize many charter schools suck. But, for any school SUCCESSFULLY teaching kids from troubled areas, have we ever looked beyond teachers to policies?

[AnneD]

61. Charter school .....

can cherry pick students.
circumvent the 'rules' (many fed and state laws).
can permanently expel disruptive.

I am in public school and do not fear fair competition from charters but the playing field is not level. States and government have not been adequately funding for education for years and problems are now coming to a head. They are letting business in to strip even more funds from public schools-essentially resegregating them on the public dime. Parents have always had a choice-it was called private school. Charter schools are de facto private schools that are publically funded.

[onpatrol98]

72. Private School Not Much Of A Choice

At the high school level in Mississippi, private schools are not always a viable choice. Some of the private schools are really for Whites ONLY. Or, isn't offering a better opportunity academically. So, your choice is only a failing public school. And, its not always subtle.

And, in a failing school, let's say your parents did care...you do your work, AND bring home good grades. Once you leave and go on to the next level, you discover that other kids are still more advanced. Because your A really didn't mean the same as an A from another school. It helped you get into college, but then you're struggling, because your high school didn't offer the advanced courses you needed, OR found it necessary to dumb down the material, or spent a large amount of time troubleshooting poor classroom behavior instead of reaching more advanced topics. This is a huge problem.

In a model where schools receive monies based on "butts" in seats, kids who are behavior problems HAVE to remain in the classroom or at least in the school. So, they don't go home, they stay and disrupt. And, kids who are behind grade level in a class are sometimes acting up, because they don't feel they can catch up. So, they basically spend their classroom time doing other things...primarily being disruptive until eventually they drop out.

[Jakes Progress]

64. The issue isn't how they use the test scores to evaluate teachers.

The issue is that they use the test scores. They will do their best to side track this issue. They will try to get us arguing about to "equitably" count the test scores, how to accommodate different populations, how to use the test scores to measure gain. The problem is that the tests are shit.

[Catshrink]

74. +1

Not only are the tests shit, they're disruptive to the educational process. I want to teach content, not Bubbling 101.

[Hippo_Tron]

75. I realize that there's way too much emphasis on testing in public schools

And that these tests are made by ETS, the same people who make the SAT which is complete bullshit. But at the same time, shouldn't there be some kind of quantitative assessment to make sure that kids have basic reading comprehension skills and can do long division before they graduate from elementary school?

If kids can't pass a basic test on those things, then something is wrong.

[Jakes Progress]

78. That's how a lot of research started.

Lots of money. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. We found tests that can measure actual student growth. They are expensive and time consuming. The powers that are using testing to "prove" schools don't work are not interested in useful assessments. That would lead to meaningful instruction and begin to drive curriculum that would actually help. They don't want schools helped. They want the guaranteed profit of tax subsidies for private corporations.

And even with the best of assessment programs Einstein was right: "Not everything that counts can be measured. Not everything that can be measured counts." With any high stakes testing program, the only thing that comes to matter is what can be measured easily. It may sound silly, but I have seen it happen over and over. The reason that kids can't pass a basic test is because the curriculum has concentrated on passing a basic test. Learning is more complicated than that.

[Hippo_Tron]

79. Einstein was certainly right

But it just boggles my mind that they can't simply assess if kids have basic reading and math skills by giving them a test on reading and math skills. Teachers shouldn't have to teach to the test to make sure kids pass it, if the test is simple and designed to assess what they've already learned.

[Jakes Progress]

80. Again. It's complicated.

I used to think that you could just write a simple test that would measure that. Then I spent 10 years studying and working with the problems of assessment. First, writing a test that measures reading and math is not as easy as it seems. There are a dozen variables beginning with the very concept of what do you mean by reading and math. Seemed simple to me, but in reviewing the tests and guidelines from a hundred districts and about twenty states, few agree on what you measure to see if kids can read and do math. Then there are the standards. Do you allow for delivery standards and content standards. If it is to be a high stakes, high accountability test, can you hold kids who go to a shack in Mississippi or Louisiana accountable in the same way that you do for children who attend a millionaire's school in a Connecticut suburb? It depends on the intent of the assessment. Is it to be used to determine what the child needs to learn, as in prep for the next week's lessons? Or is it to measure the system's level of effective instruction, as in validating or condemning a school system's programs and personnel? Or is it a gatekeeper, a test used to determine the level of education in specific fields by a single student in the way that college entrance exams are used?

These are just the first level of complexity. The people who are using tests to bludgeon the system now are not addressing any of these issues. They just want numbers to justify their moves.

In the end you also have the human and economic problems inherent in any high stakes testing system. This is true not just for education but for any organization. If the district is told they will be measured by the results on the test, the school board tells the supt. the same thing. He or she passes that down to the principals. The principals wrack the teachers with threats and insist that they concentrate on the tests. In the panic and the fear of lost livelihood, most succumb to the obvious. The teach the test. There is not a way to avoid this. Any noble or stubborn teachers or principals who know the damage this does to kids and refuse to do so are soon replaced. All other things accounted for, this is what always happens. It happens with any high stakes evaluation in any field.

There are solutions, but he systems being put in place in our schools and the philosophy driving them do nothing to solve problems and will only exacerbate them.

[harun]

52. Nice!!

[W T F]

54. First, Tom Coburn and now Crist,... Dissension in the ranks?

[rpannier]

58. This era of Republicans would have kicked out Ronald Reagan

He signed the biggest tax increase in U.S. History
That's enough to get him purged -- even though he did it because he recognized the tax cut was driving the economy toward a cliff at 100 mph
To them it's irrelevant

[rpannier]

56. Standing O for Gov Crist

He'll be joining the likes of Lowell Weicker and Lincoln Chafee

Long time Republicans who got booted from the Party

[DefenseLawyer]

57. Connie Mack resigned as his campaign chair

He's gearing up to run as an independent.

[defendandprotect]

59. k-

[redqueen]

60. Good news.

I hope he does run as an Independent.

[DrZeeLit]

62. Does this signal a move to "independent" for the election, should he not receive the GOP nom?

Speculation has been ripe about this very topic.
He just dissed a lot of the GOP with this veto.
Look for the new crown prince to start hammering it like a bad nail.
Ha.

This FL election is so interesting.

But not funny.

[AllyCat]

65. His corporate masters are NOT going to be happy.

Good for him!

[ShortnFiery]

66. Crist needs to at least go Independent, if not, convert to the democratic side. eom

[Tommy_Carcetti]

68. I think it will honestly depend on the polls if Crist goes Independent if I vote for him.

Ideally, I'd like to see Kendrick Meek take the seat. But Meek has to wake up and realize he is actually running for statewide office and get off his duff, otherwise he's got no chance at winning.

Basically, the way I see it is this:

I can easily vote for Meek if:

a) Crist doesn't run as an Indy and it's only Meek v. Rubio (duh), or
b) Rubio somehow loses the GOP primary (we can only hope) and its only a matter of Crist v. Meek, or
c) Meek has a reasonable 10 point poll lead over his opponents (Crist and/or Rubio) come November, or
d) Rubio has an overwhelming lead over both Meek and Crist, if Crist runs as an Indy.

But, I might very well vote for Crist as an independent over Meek as a Democrat if:

a) Meek is lagging far behind both Crist and Rubio, and Crist and Rubio are locked in a very close race. No way in hell do I want to do anything that would get Jeb Bush II (i.e. Rubio) into office, so I'd be glad to vote for Crist in that circumstance.

[abelenkpe]

69. good news! nt

[Taverner]

70. Crist will have a D next to his name in no time!

Shit, he's more of a Democrat than some Florida Democrats!

He was for HCR, the stimulus and is for another one...

[Dinger]

71. He's More Of A Democrat Than A LOT Of Democrats

I'm not naming names or anything.

[Divine Discontent]

73. is it too late for him to run as a Democrat for the Senate? I think he'd beat Rubio that way

as most dems would definitely vote for him, and some GOPers would. Rubio is far right, but cloaks it well, at the orders of the RSCC.

[LWolf]

76. It's a start.

The proponents are already arguing over whether they should submit an alternate bill that might get his signature this session, or wait until he's gone next year and reintroduce it again.

I applaud my colleagues who helped put the pressure on Crist. I hope they can continue to do so when the next attempts come forward.

[Liberal_in_LA]

77. kick!