As expected, GOP legislative leaders unveiled a wholly inadequate pre-K plan yesterday. Florida legislators on Wednesday proposed a new statewide learning program for 4-year-olds, but early childhood advocates expressed strong disappointment with its main features. A three-hour school day and a ratio of one teacher for every 18 students will not produce the high-quality program [...]
Archive for December, 2004
Ronda gets one right
December 8, 2004
Ronda Storms is right. Well, she’s still wrong about most things, and she seems to be right about this one for the wrong reasons, and she managed a stupid utterance before the night was over… Anyway, Hillsborough’s Metropolitan Planning Organization met yesterday and axed a plan by Tampa leaders to pursue funding for an expensive [...]
The people have spoken, but Jeb! knows best
December 8, 2004
As schools around the state take funds from extra curricular activities in order to replace their perfectly good but non-conforming American flags, Jeb! is plotting to further erode the quality of a Florida education while issuing sound bite quotes to obscure his disdain for public schools. First, the class size amendment. One of Jeb!’s favorite [...]
Clark blames employees for election errors
December 7, 2004
Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark is under fire, and deservedly so, for tons of mistakes made by her office during recent elections. Since 2000, she has lost ballots on at least two occasions, and given voters the wrong ballots to vote. She has also committed the most basic error that a person entrusted [...]
Jeb! could restore rights to 500,000 – but he wont
December 6, 2004
Herald.com Nine states since 1996 have eased or repealed felon voting bans, leaving Florida the largest among just seven states that continue to strip all felons of their civil rights for life, including the right to vote, hold public office and serve on a jury. The only way to get those rights back is through [...]
LaBrake’s legacy
December 6, 2004
Sp Times Last week a federal jury convicted LaBrake, his wife, Lynne, and Chester Luney, former head of a local charity that built and repaired homes for poor people, of conspiracy, wire fraud and multiple bribery charges. The LaBrakes had been accused of taking bribes and gratuities from Luney and others, while steering federal contracts [...]
Pinellas vote totals change yet again
December 4, 2004
You know, when we first started hearing about mistakes in vote handling in Pinellas, it seemed like nitpicking. Not that it wasn’t a serious issue, because all votes need to be counted, but it just didn’t seem to rise to the level that requires decisive action, including change. I think we’ve reached that tipping point [...]
Pinellas votes mis-tallied
December 3, 2004
Pinellas Elections Supervisor Deborah Clark is not having a very good season. She’s already come under fire for losing and miscounting ballots. Now, it turns out that her office sent even more bad numbers to the state than were previously disclosed. On Election Night last month, the results were clear: Pinellas County voters defeated by [...]
Jeb!’s Parsimonious Pre-K Plan: Paltry Pay, 3 Hour Day
December 3, 2004
More details are starting to emerge about Jeb!’s voter mandated pre-k plan. Bottom line: the plan calls for teachers to be paid $13,000 per year (or less!), and, in order to enlarge the pool of people willing to take this miserly salary, almost no training will be required. When the pre-k amendment was passed by [...]