Senate About To Fold On Malpractice Caps? "Gov. Jeb Bush offered an olive branch to a key senator in the medical malpractice debate Tuesday, meeting for two hours in an attempt to mend political fences and reach a consensus on the divisive issue. Bush and Sen. Tom Lee, the Senate's chief negotiator on medical malpractice overhaul, met for two hours at a small Tampa airport behind closed doors. The men emerged, saying they had a greater understanding of each other's position on malpractice overhaul and pledging to be true to their Republican Party. No deal was struck, and Lee said both sides are continuing to draft proposals in hopes of finding a measure on which both can agree. The two said it was also important for them to meet, because with Lee on track to become Senate president in 2004, the two need to learn to work together." See "Governor, key senator confer on malpractice".
Bad Doctors - "Nothing about Florida's stormy special sessions on medical malpractice insurance makes lawmakers resemble brain surgeons. They've been stymied not so much by the diagnosis - that there's a crisis that's driving doctors from the state - as by what might help cure the problem. The second special session expired Monday, giving House and Senate leaders time to continue working on compromises. A salute is in order to the independent thinkers who haven't simply been in lockstep with the governor on this issue. Monolithic party thought is fine at election time, not during the lawmaking process." See "Discipline of bad doctors still needed".
Bush, Struh's And The 'Glades - "Mr. Struhs also touted Everglades restoration, boasting that the new plan will restore both water quality and water quantity. He praised Florida's Environmental Regulation Commission for approving a low 10-parts-per-billion level for polluting phosphorus that will be allowed into the Everglades." See "Struhs swims against the truth".
"Here's the reality: At the direction of Gov. Bush, Mr. Struhs eased the way for changes the sugar industry dictated, which will postpone water cleanup until 2016, a decade later than what the state envisioned when it passed the Everglades Forever Act in 1994. Both went along with ERC rules for measuring pollution that will allow the sugar industry, the water district and others to continue polluting the endangered ecosystem."
FCAT - The New York Times has this critical piece on Florida's FCAT:"Everything in education is now supposed to be 'scientifically based.' The phrase is used dozens of times in the federal No Child Left Behind Act. But it is as true today as it was in Galileo's time, politicians pick the science that suits them. In Florida's push to get every child reading by third grade, politicians have ignored the scientific studies on retention, which overwhelmingly conclude that students held back suffer academically, dropping out at a higher rate."
"In embracing standardized testing as the tool of scientific measurement, they have disregarded the testers' own cautions. Harcourt's Stanford 9 manual warns that a major 'misuse of standardized achievement test scores is making promotion and retention decisions for individual students solely on the basis of these scores.' And while Florida has a handful of retention exemptions — including for foreign language speakers and the disabled — most students must pass the FCAT or Stanford 9, or be retained."
"Even Texas, an aggressive testing state, has left the retention decision to principals, teachers and parents, resulting in a third-grade rate this year that is expected to be similar to Florida's rate in past years, 3 percent to 4 percent held back. While Florida officials say it will be several weeks before statewide data are complete, results in Orlando and St. Petersburg indicate that 15 percent could be held back, perhaps 27,000 third graders statewide." See "Rigidity in Florida and the Results".
In effect, shird grades are being told to "look at the two kids on your left and the two kids on your right . . . One of you will not make it out of third grade.
A Contrary View Based On A Right Wing Think Tank - In "Studies Show Reforms Work", the Sun Sentinel argues that "[c]ritics of Florida's "A-Plus" program and other educational reforms aren't much influenced by facts, but even they will be hard-pressed to ignore the findings of three important studies that show the reforms are working. All three come from the Manhattan Institute, a respected national policy research organization."
The Sun Sentinel really ought to inform its readers that the the Manhattan Institute, far from a neutral observer, is a right wing "think tank" with an overt political agenda. The front page of the group's own website announces that "The Manhattan Institute is a think tank whose mission is to develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility". The Sentinel should know know that "greater economic choice and individual responsibility" are code words for privatization and dismantling the government programs - including the public schools - Grover Norquist style. A little research discloses that the Manhattan Institute is primarily funded by wing nuts like Richard Mellon Scaife and related extremist groups. Indeed, the Institute essentially concedes its bias, noting that it "[i]n keeping with our focus on the voucher issue, in 2000 the Institute heard from many of the nation’s leading proponents of school vouchers."
The Manhattan Institute's reigning education expert is a Jay P. Greene, a former professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Houston, with his office in Davie, Florida. He has a vested interest in propping up education privatization because he "is co-author of the school choice programs in Milwaukee, Arkansas, and Cleveland, Ohio". Green is also the author of nutty articles like this and this. Curiously, the Institute's website says "part of our mission is to study Florida's ongoing experiments with education reform."
It would appear that the Manhattan Institute's education "research" component exists to prop up the right wing policies of the Governor, who of course plans to run for president before the decade is out.