Dr. Wilcox's successor

Funny how the mind works -- I had just stopped thinking of Clayton Wilcox as "the new guy" in charge of Pinellas County schools, even though he was hired in 2004. Now he's quitting to work for a national textbook publisher.

Wilcox never dominated the school bureaucracy in the style of his longtime predecessor, Howard Hinesley, who basically created it. But he did try to reform it and make it respond better -- I liked the way, early in his tenure, he kicked the bureaucracy in the butt when it failed to deal vigorously with a series of school bus accidents. And of course, his main legacy will be the transformation of the school system from the old days of busing and quotas to the new world of "close-to-home" schools, for better or worse.

Neither did Wilcox enjoy the same dominance that Hinesley had over the School Board -- or more precisely, the co-cabal that Hinesley shared with some previous board members known collectively as "the boys." Instead, a new and fractious board never stopped taking potshots at him. But it wasn't just him; they took plenty of potshots at each other too. No matter what he says graciously, I bet he was plenty sick of it, and now is taking secret delight at the prospect of not having to put up with it.

The question  will be whether the board replaces him with strong leadership, or whether the system will just flop along for a while under the board's inconstant direction.

State senators on the payroll, oh my!

If you haven't seen it yet, check out my colleague Lucy Morgan's story this morning about state Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, being hired for a $120,000 job by Florida State University to oversee a program that, as a legislator, she helped create and fund. This now makes her a "triple dipper," drawing two state salaries and a pension as a retired educator.

To quote Borat: Very nice.

Morgan's article notes: "Lynn also happens to be chairwoman of the Senate's Higher Education Appropriations Committee, with great influence over university budgets." She quotes FSU President T.K. Wetherell: "It's just a coincidence."

Lynn is the second member of the 40-member Senate to make news recently by being hired by the state universities. Sen. Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, recently raised eyebrows by getting hired as a $75,000-a-year lecturer at the University of Florida, although he has only a master's degree. Lynn has a doctorate and educational experience, at least, but it is still a fair question as to whether you should be a state legislator in charge of university budgets, creating programs that then hire you.

(State Sen. Charlie Justice, D-St. Petersburg, works for the University of South Florida, although he already had his job before he ran for office.)

It's pretty ironic that at the same time as all this, the Florida Senate wants to abolish the existing state university system with SJR 2308 and put it back directly under the political thumb of the Legislature. With the worst teacher-student ratio in the nation already, among the lowest tuition and state support, and now even more budget cuts because of the economy, Florida's universities are freezing admissions and slashing their instructional budgets -- but at least, by gum, they can still find jobs for members of the Florida Senate.

Sounds like a Sunday column to me!

The universities and the Florida Senate

Here's the news story about yesterday's committee meeting in the state Senate, where senators got pretty huffy about taking over the state university system. They have worked themselves into the conviction that they are the good guys, and that it entitles them to bully, snipe at and feel superior to the university chancellor. Here's my column in today's newspaper on the same topic.

The most surreal exchange, I thought, was where the committee chairman, Don Gaetz, a Panhandle Republican, criticized the performance of the universities under chancellor Marc Rosenberg's "watch'' -- when the very factors driving that performance, low tuition, worst teacher-student ratio in the nation, etc., are precisely the fault of the Legislature.

I hope that Floridians recognize this for what it is...

A simply horrible idea for Florida's universities

[UPDATE: Naturally, the first Senate committee passed it this afternoon, after belitting the state university chancellor for a while. The yahoos rule.]

It is early in the session of our Legislature to be yelling, "red alert!" But it's necessary. The president of our Senate, Ken Pruitt, is determined to wreck Florida's entire university system -- yet again -- for his personal purposes. Amazingly enough, the full Senate might be willing to go along, starting today. Cue the dueling banjos and the bib overalls! Cue the schools of chiropractic and skull-reading! Hire more state senators for university payrolls! Good grief!

The measure in question is Senate Joint Resolution 2308, which would YET AGAIN abolish our state university system, reversing the decision of the voters in 2002, and creating a system under the control of the Legislature itself. SJR 2308 is a proposed amendment to our state Constitution, which still requires voter approval -- but the idea ought not to get that far.

Instead of the independent Board of Governors created by the voters, our state universities would be under a five-member board, with its members confirmed by the state Senate, which would have to run the universities as the Legislature directed. The 2002 amendment clearly gave the Governors the policy control over higher education -- and this takes it away.

This is just an awful power grab by the Legislature. On top of that, the same constitutional amendment includes an entirely separate question, whether Florida should return to having an elected education commissioner. Again, this is an abuse by the Legislature, cramming two different measures into the same amendment, forcing the voters to take one offensive idea if they want to vote for the other.

SJR 2308 is on the calendar for today's meeting of the Senate's Education K-12 Committee. Here's the link to the committee's web page and its list of members, none of whom is from the Tampa Bay area. In the Senate, the measure has one other committee, and then in theory could be passed out of the Senate in short order!

At the very least, the voters are entitled to consider the question of an elected education commissioner and the State University System as separate matters. But beyond that, putting the universities back under the Legislature's thumb is a huge step backwards for Florida.

This is an ego-driven fight about control of university tuition. The official story is that the Legislature just wants to "clear up" who controls tuition in this state. I think the voters settled that question in 2002 by creating the Board of Governors. But SJR 2308 doesn't just "clear up" that question -- it destroys the Governors' independence altogether.

I cannot imagine any state senator who cares about the future of Florida -- or his or her future political career -- voting to put this on the ballot. What kind of political platform will THAT be? "I killed our state university system, and put it back under a bunch of hack politicians, so vote for me?"

Thursday column: We don't need no stinkin' higher ed

We had a staff meeting today (I played hooky) that emphasized getting stuff on the web as fast as possible. In that spirit, and since we talked about this topic earlier today, I figured I'd post a draft of tomorrow's print column. This is the untouched-by-editors version so you can see whether there are any changes in the final product. The eds usually give me a nip and tuck here and there and save me from embarrassing flubs, so I am workin' without a net here... good thing I am not calling the state Senate president a banjo-pickin' rube or anything. No, wait! I AM....

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If they’re unhappy, maybe they should turn over the reins to someone else.
-- Gov. Charlie Crist, on the state’s university presidents

Here’s my proposal for an amendment to the Florida Constitution:

Let’s tie the budget for college sports in Florida to the state’s rank in money spent on, you know, actual college education.

“We’re Dead Last, And We’re Proud!” the Gator cheerleaders could chant then.

“We’re happy with our 1-10 record,” Coach Bowden at FSU could say, “because at least, dadgummit, we cost less than Mississippi.’’

Well? That’s exactly what we’re saying about academics.

Florida’s state universities are in trouble, folks...

(1) Higher ed (2) Homeless (3) Dogs (4) Ron Paul

(1) See this story in the paper this morning about the Board of Governors increasing tuition. I know that it's a hardship for those paying -- but you get what you pay for, and we are paying cheapskate rates. Florida ranks low in both tax support of its universities and its tuition levels. Florida has the worst student-instructor ratio in the nation.

The Board of Governors is right to try to do something, and the Legislature ought to be butt-kicked for not doing enough. The Senate president, Ken Pruitt, accused the Governors of trying to "destroy the prepaid college tuition program in Florida." In other words, we have to keep the universities cheap and crummy so we don't have to pay any more. Pfffffffffffttt.

(2) Look, I am a bleedin'-heart guy, but does that mean I have support piles of unsightly crap in front of St. Petersburg City Hall? Folks were yelling "fascist" and "cowards" at the City Council for passing an ordinance saying there's no sleeping or stashing stuff on public property downtown. Since at the same time the city is going to provide safe and free storage at St. Vincent de Paul, we're not exactly talking 1930s Germany here...

(3) Bleedin'-heart or no, I might support doing to this guy what he did to those dogs. Okay, so I couldn't actually go through with it. But I'd make him believe I was going to.

(4) So, I was impressed with Ron Paul's no-nonsense answer last night when asked about this "stimulus" package during the Republican debate. We're racking up debt one way or the other. More than once I've found myself nodding along with the guy, especially on questions of debt and fiscal discipline. [AP photo]

Wednesday: Museum bailout, Tierra Verde annexation, FSU cheating

Goood morning and happy Wednesday. Hope you survived the brutal "cold" snap. It is now less than a week until Christmas, which means less than two weeks left in 2007...

Notice the news in this morning's paper of yet another proposed bailout for the Florida International Museum in downtown St. Petersburg. The city is being asked to forgive $260,346, as part of a deal in which the museum's private benefactors forgive the rest of its debt as well.

The museum has never been a "museum" as much an an exhibition hall for tourist and gimmicky attractions. Admittedly, the early blockbusters (Treasures of the Czars) helped bring people downtown and played a role in the downtown's renaissance. As to whether this justified all the subsequent propping-up... nah. I really do not want to hear any more irksome "You owe us" kind of stuff. Who's in charge over there, Vince Naimoli?

Meanwhile, our neighbors in Tierra Verde, down at the southern tip of Pinellas County, are nervous now that the city of St. Petersburg is eyeing annexation. And they should be. They are between a rock and a hard place -- trampled by the county government up in Clearwater, and in danger of being gobbled up by St. Pete. Plus, some residents are rightly suspicious of the motives behind all this. Meanwhile, as the story points out, some in Tierra Verde are advocating incorporation into their own city out of self-defense.

Now, about this FSU football scandal: Hey, I don't want to take any cheap shots at Free Shoes University (whoops, sorry, that was a previous scandal). But if I were king of Florida, I would say that NO Florida university could take part in ANY bowl game until the state's universities were on a better academic footing overall. Imagine the gnashing and wailing of teeth then! Obviously, my priorities are misplaced.

What Does That "F" In FCAT Stand For, Again?

Here's the extra-amazing thing about this morning's news that the state bungled last year's standardized test scores for third graders.

It's that the news just... kinda... slipped out, in response to a question at a "routine" news conference in Tallahassee announcing the latest FCAT scores. 

"Oh, and by the way,'' the state said, more or less, you know those all-important test scores that determine the fate of every school in Florida, the self-esteem and and of kids, all that stuff? Uh, never mind.''

Now, it just so happens that the error was made in the direction of making the test easier, so that last year's scores spiked and the state could take credit. Now the state will re-score more than 200,000 tests taken by third-graders.

Kind of makes you wonder whether the state Department of Education should be in charge of, you know, education. This is the same outfit that kept saying, about the $10-an-hour temps that it hires to grade the test:

They're all qualified, but you can't see their qualifications.

They're all qualified, but you can't see their qualifications.

They all qualified, but...

Until, of course, somebody filed a lawsuit, which then-Gov. Jeb Bush described as "shameful," and the truth finally came out. To quote the news story:

TALLAHASSEE - Some temporary workers hired to grade essay questions on the state's standardized tests apparently lacked degrees or college course work related to the subjects they were scoring, Florida Education Commissioner John Winn confirmed Monday. ...

Look, everybody makes mistakes. But if we all all supposed to bow down to the High And Mighty FCAT That Means All, Tells All, if our lives and schools and dollars and everything else has to obey it, and if we are supposed to de-emphasize phys ed, social studies, music, the humanities and everything else just so we can make higher math and reading scores... then if they don't get it right, they should get an "F," just like the ones they hand out to schools, and we should give their budget -- and their jobs -- to somebody else.

Three Things

(1) This story shows exactly why Florida needs higher-education reform -- and why the existing higher-education system is not capable of carrying it out. Nobody wants to give up turf or be told what to do. Florida needs a top tier of research universities, a middle tier of four-year degree-granting colleges and a strong tier of community colleges. None of the universities wants to be considered middle-tier, and none wants to give up any branch campuses either. What are we going to do, just wait until every state university has 100,000-student campuses and is too busy remediating the K-12 system to do anything else?

(2) Watching the Devil Rays game last night from Orlando felt uncomfortable -- like watching your spouse with an arm around somebody else at a party. Even when it wasn't immediately visible from the camera angle you could tell it was a small ball park. So it felt a little bit like a minor league or college game on TV. And they couldn't even fill up the stadium with all the advance notice... I hope Stuart Sternberg is right, and it's part of building a regional audience. But as my colleague John Romano points out this morning, building a winning team will build a regional audience as well.

(3) The next Gulfport or St. Petersburg city official who talks about this mess at Clam Bayou being the other city's fault should have to go clean it up personally. [Times photo: Scott Keeler.]

Summa Cum Petty

Here's the opening of my column for tomorrow's newspaper:

This smarty-pants little slap at former Gov. Jeb Bush by the faculty of the University of Florida is irksome.

Last week, UF’s faculty Senate voted 38-28 to block an honorary degree for Bush, an rejection that appears to be unprecedented.

I don’t care if the professors disapprove of Bush’s policies. I didn’t like a bunch of his policies either.

But I didn’t realize that getting an honorary degree from Gainesville involved faculty screening of one’s politics.

Bush was governor of Florida for eight years. He served honorably. He led our state, and led it especially well in crisis. A strong majority of Floridians looked up to him and they still do.

Former governor of Florida? That pretty much qualifies you to get an honorary degree from the university that bear’s the state’s name...

Don't Show Me The Money

On another topic, Pasco County has joined Pinellas and at least seven other Florida counties in deciding that Florida's "merit pay" program for teachers -- tied to the all-powerful FCAT scores -- stinks so bad that it would rather not have the extra money at all.

Now, THAT must be a stinky plan. It is a holdover of the Jeb Bush era and his folks on the state Board of Education. Look for the Legislature to take a big whack at the plan this spring. In the meantime, will the state really go through with punishing the rebellious counties? Gotta write a column about this in the next few days...