seafan's Journal - Parent trigger bill sparks fierce debate as vote nears in Florida legislature

"What's the threat here?" said (Jeb) Bush, whose education foundation has been lobbying for the bill.

The systematic destruction of public education in Florida is coming down to the wire.

The "parent trigger" bill, or, as Jeb Bush prefers to call it, the “Parent Empowerment” proposal, is set for a vote tomorrow.

This bill allows parents to decide between four options for failing schools--- allowing districts to come up with an improvement plan; placing the children in other schools; shutting down the school and converting it to a charter school; keeping the school operational, but under new private management.

All of these options are already in state law, with the local school boards deciding on their plan, with the State Board of Education's final approval.

The "trigger" bill orders that if the parents and school board cannot agree on a plan, the matter will be decided by (Rick Scott's) State Board of Education. Imagine how that will turn out.

Hello, shiny new charter schools, with minimal accountability to the people.

According to Senator John Thrasher, "The Senate is about ideas".

Yeah, Jeb Bush's ideas. No one else's.

Some of the parental reactions to the ramrodding of this bill through the Florida Senate by Jeb Bush lieutenants ---Senate President Mike Haridopolos, John Thrasher and JD Alexander:

"Thousands of parents are speaking. They don't want this bill," said Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, one of two Republican senators to announce they would not support it.

"The parents did not ask for this — not the 330,000 in the Florida PTA," said Dawn Steward, vice president of the Florida PTA and an Orange County resident. "We feel very strongly it is a systematic approach to privatize education.

But opponents fear widespread fallout from a "cynical" effort to close public schools and then transfer their students — and the tax dollars they bring — to corporate-managed, for-profit charter schools.

"When we see a group of highly paid lobbyists running all over Tallahassee pushing this bill, we have to ask who is going to profit from this?" said Kathleen Oropeza, of Fund Education Now, an Orlando based parent group.

Jeb says the bill's opponents are trying to mislead people...

.....
"What's the threat here?" said Bush, whose education foundation has been lobbying for the bill.

"This has turned out to be about politics in Tallahassee," not education, Bush said. The bill is about "giving parents the right to be engaged, with some wind at their backs," he added. "It's not going to change the world."
.....

And Michelle Rhee pipes up:

Michelle Rhee, the former Washington, D.C.schools chancellor who has served as Gov. Rick Scott's education advisor, said such criticism is baffling.

"They want more parental involvement in schools, and yet we're going to limit and define what that involvement will look like?" said Rhee, whose StudentsFirst group supports the legislation.

Ah, yes, Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee. The tag team.

Not widely known by the public is that Rupert Murdoch is also in on the game, joining the ranks of Bill Gates, the Walton Family, Eli Broad (Jeb Bush is very active with the Broad Foundation) and others who want to parlay public education into privately held cash cows.

All of this is a systematic effort by a small cadre of vastly wealthy individuals striving to irreversibly change the face of education in this country. This country was built on a strong foundation of public education, and it has withered under long-term starvation of funds by conservatives who wish to steer the dedicated funds for public education into a highly profitable enterprise.

'Who does this enrich', indeed.

Much more information here on the influence of Jeb Bush and his Foundation's executive director Patricia Levesque; Michelle Rhee; Rick Scott's hiring of Rhee on his transition team; Joel Klein; Rupert Murdoch; and how all of these people are pushing stridently for the same goal, and that is to change the face of public education permanently into a privatized, profit-driven machine for the benefit of a well-connected few.

"We hope we can get to a point, Governor Wise and myself, where digital learning becomes . . . as nonpolitical issue. . . becomes kind of the core way that we educate children." ---- Former Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush, December 1, 2010

"In every other part of life, someone who woke up after a 50-year nap would not recognize the world around him," Mr. Murdoch said in a speech at the e-G8 forum in Paris, a two-day digital conference leading up to the G8 Summit. "But not in education. Our schools remain the last holdout from the digital revolution." ----Rupert Murdoch, May 24, 2011

“It reminds me very much of President Eisenhower’s warning to beware of the military-industrial complex,” said Noh, who clashed with K12 Inc. while in the Senate. “It seems to me that what we’re seeing here is the educational-industrial complex that’s operating behind the scenes, with people like Rupert Murdoch. They are interested in the millions of dollars, frequently taxpayer dollars, which they can glean through the political process.”

----Former Sen. Laird Noh, a Kimberly, Idaho Republican who retired in 2004 after 24 years in the Legislature, saying he fears privatization will twist policy to the detriment of students.

Welcome to the Educational Industrial Complex.

So, Florida, what will go down tomorrow with the "Parent Trigger" bill?