Jeb Bush defends education reforms

from the Orlando Sentinel

by Leslie Postal

All the hot-button education issues — from merit pay to charter schools to virtual education — were on the menu today at a luncheon where former Gov. Jeb Bush and other education leaders debated the future of public schools in Florida.

Bush and four other speakers sometimes disagreed about the education reforms he put in place during his two-terms as governor — including school accountability based on high-stakes testing — and about Florida's latest efforts to overhaul schools.

Bush, who has been touting his reforms nationwide since leaving the governor's office, said Florida has made significant improvements from a decade ago, when it was one of the nation's lowest performing states academically. But it needs to do more, he said, if its students are to leave high school ready to tackle college work and to compete in the global economy.

The "Florida Forward Conversations About the Future" drew hundreds to a downtown Orlando hotel, including teachers, school board members, college officials and politicians. The event was sponsored by the Orlando Sentinel and theUniversity of Central Florida.

Kathleen Oropeza, an Orlando mother who founded an education advocacy group, was the sharpest critic of Bush's policies and of the Republican leadership now inTallahassee.

She earned some of the loudest applause from the audience when she called the focus on high-stakes testing damaging to children, criticized the Florida Legislature because it had "de-funded education" and said it was "time to bring back some common sense."

Her group, Fund Education Now, has sued the state over what it calls inadequate school funding.

Bush deflected her criticism, saying Florida had improved academic achievement, most notably among minority and disadvantaged students. Too often, he said, those students had been ignored in the past or had been assumed unable to compete with "Johnny who lives in an affluent community in Seminole County."

Florida's new merit-pay law was mentioned frequently. The law ends tenure-like job protections for new teachers and creates evaluation systems for all educators based on student growth on tests. Eventually, pay plans based mostly on seniority will be phased out.

Bush, who said he supported it, said at least twice, however, that it would not be successful if the Legislature did not provide money to pay top teachers more.

"You cannot have a merit pay system unless you are funding merit," he said.

Bill Sublette, chairman of the Orange County School Board, said a new way to evaluate, pay and promote teachers was overdue.

"It's an era whose time has come," he said. "We've got to find a way to implement merit pay. The old way simply wasn't working."

But James Gibbs, a Hillsborough County middle school teacher, said he and his colleagues were "scared to death" of the new law, which they fear will not take into account all the problems, and disadvantages, students sometimes bring to their classrooms.

And, he said, much of the new law "appears to be a straight-out attack on the union," which is discouraging to many teachers.

Charter schools also got a lot of attention, as the Legislature passed a law this year allowing them to expand.

Sublette said he was worried because some Orange County charter school applicants with no educational background seemed to want to open these publicly funded schools because "they see a pot of gold out there."

He also said the district has struggled to close poor-performing charters. "We've got to do a better job of monitoring charter schools," he added, to loud applause.

Bush said charter schools, and new virtual school options lawmakers approved, all gave parents more choices and create a more "dynamic" system.

"It allows parents to be much more engaged," he added. "I don't think people should be threatened by choice."

But Oropeza and Gibbs both said they were worried about a push to have more students study online, without a teacher, and through private companies.

"We have to ask ourselves, 'who is profiting from this?' " Oropeza said.

lpostal@tribune.com or 407-420-5273.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/os-jeb-bush-education-forum-orlando-20110920,0,3853950.story