March 23, 2004
Jeb! is thinking about November
Is Jeb! trying to engineer an excuse not to do the voter mandated Pre-K thing this year? We know how he just hates voter initiatives that force him to spend money on people’s needs. Of course, he could just be engaging in a little disingenuous election-year grandstanding:
Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday that a House bill's proposed standards for a statewide prekindergarten program fall short of what he would like to see."I'm not going to sign a bill into law that from the very beginning sends the wrong signal about the importance of literacy," Bush said after visiting an elementary school in Orlando.
Asked if he thought the House bill was below the level of standards he wanted, he said, "Yep."
The Senate has yet to unveil its prekindergarten proposal. But the governor said he is confident the Senate's version will resemble the proposal he supports.
"My prediction is that we will have a final law that will be very close to what we proposed," Bush said. "If we don't, if we get below a threshold in terms of quality that is not acceptable, we'll do it next year."
Major differences between a pre-K proposal approved by the state Board of Education last month - which Bush supports - and the amended measure sponsored by Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, include the number of hours 4-year-olds would spend in school, the amount of education and training required for pre-K teachers, the ratio of teachers per pupil and which state agency should oversee the program.
......The House bill would call for as little as 540 hours of pre-K class time over 180 school days, compared with the Board of Education plan calling for 720 hours, and would allow a student-teacher ratio of up to 18 to 1, in contrast to the board's recommendation of 10 to 1.
Don’t get me wrong - the House bill is completely inadequate, as I have pointed out previously. I just don’t trust Jeb!’s motives.
Posted by Norwood at March 23, 2004 06:48 AM