Inasmuch as we link to a "Jeb!" letter below, it is only fitting that we relay a letter from State Rep. Dan Gelber, D- Miami Beach, in the Miami Herald today:
Gov. Jeb Bush will call a special legislative session to spend $500 million to attract the Scripps Research Institute and other businesses to Florida. He said this is a ''seminal moment'' that will ''shape the future of Florida.'' But that is misleading unless we develop the workforce needed to transform Florida's low-wage economy.
I will support this gambit if it will provide concrete benefits to our state. Florida needs to diversify its economy. But doling out money to attract businesses won't overcome our failure to educate and train our workforce. Financial incentives alone won't work long-term if businesses lack faith in Florida's anemic public-education system, which is, by far, the biggest obstacle in attracting and retaining businesses, and creating high-paying jobs. Florida's high-school graduation rate is now last among the 50 states. Only three states have worse SAT scores for high-school seniors.
Gov. Bush boasts that Florida's unemployment rate is better than other states. But he fails to mention that our wages and median-household income are among the lowest in the nation. Our state's workforce is so ill-equipped that 30 percent now qualify as ''working poor.'' Few in Tallahassee grasp the relationship between high-quality education and a high-quality workforce. From 1998-2002, Florida's increase in per-pupil spending was almost last of the 50 states. More astounding, the governor and Republican-controlled Legislature pushed through a law that now allows high-school students to graduate a year earlier, making them even less prepared for work.
It's time to scrap the governor's misguided education plan and chart a different course. We need a school-grading system that gauges strengths and weaknesses to help students and schools improve. The current grading scheme, which revolves around the FCAT, stifles true reform. We also must stop dumbing down our workforce. The Legislature should restore the high-school graduation requirement. We must restore investment in our colleges and universities.
I'm not saying that the Scripps deal doesn't make sense. If it is half as good as the governor claims, then it should be good for Florida. But now isn't the time to uncork the champagne bottles and declare a renaissance in Florida's economy.
HE MADE HIS POLITICAL POINTS AND WALKED AWAY -Mr. Bush told reporters in Tallahassee on Tuesday that while he wanted Mrs. Schiavo to live — he filed a brief on her parents' behalf in a separate, short-lived federal court case last week — there was nothing more he could do. "A Right-to-Die Battle Enters Its Final Days" (NYT (free) registration required).
AT LEAST THEY WON'T HAVE TO PAY AN INTANGIBLES TAX -Under a new state Medicaid policy that goes into effect Dec. 1, kids turning age 5 or becoming seriously ill while enrolled in KidCare will lose coverage and go on the waiting list. They no longer will be automatically transferred from the MediKids program for children ages 1-4 to the Healthy Kids program for ages 5-18 and, if the children became seriously ill, to Children's Medical Services.
Previously, children enrolled in KidCare could remain in the program even as their age or medical condition changed. "Kids may lose insurance at 5".
THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT FLORIDA -Collect more than $200,000 for the president and you're a Ranger. This state has more than any other. "Big money for Bush gallops in from Florida". And these wonderful people include:
people like 28-year-old Husein Cumber of Fort Lauderdale, a former campaign aide to Gov. Jeb Bush who now works for Florida East Coast Industries, a railway and real estate development company.
Cumber said Bush has so many avid supporters in Florida that aspiring Rangers can find dozens of people happy to write $2,000 checks without overlapping with the networks of other top fundraisers. . . . Another newcomer to the major leagues of presidential fundraising is 34-year-old Justin Sayfie of Fort Lauderdale, a former Jeb Bush aide who runs a political Web site, Sayfie Review, and works for a prominent lobbying firm whose clients include Auto-Nation, the Seminole Tribe and Accenture, the consulting firm.
A lobbying partner of Sayfie's, former state GOP chairman Van Poole, also achieved Ranger status this year. . . . Other Florida newcomers to the top echelon of Bush fundraising included Jose "Pepe" Fanjul, whose family runs the Flo-Sun sugar corporation.
Thirteen Floridians became Pioneers by raising at least $100,000, including assorted lobbyists, developers and former U.S. Rep. Tillie Fowler of Jacksonville, now a partner with the Holland & Knight law firm in Washington. Texas produced 26 Pioneers, California and New York produced 18.
CHARTER SCHOOLS - A pair of related companies [that have never opened or run a school before]have applied to run 19 charter schools in Florida. The size of the request has stirred concerns among educators. "School officials wary of charter firms".
WHERE'S JOHNNY?[USF Med school dean] Daugherty has acknowledged that in recent weeks he asked 25 employees for up to $2,000 for state House Speaker Johnnie Byrd's campaign for the seat now held by Democratic Sen. Bob Graham. About a dozen gave Daugherty checks that he kept locked in his secretary's desk.
It is illegal in Florida for public employees to solicit political contributions while working on government time or to solicit or collect contributions in government facilities. Calls to Daugherty's office seeking further comment were not returned Tuesday. "USF dean ousted over fundraising".