In recent weeks, Tony Bennett, Florida’s new education commissioner, and Michelle Rhee, the CEO of StudentsFirst, offered conflicting rationales for supporting school choice. Bennett told participants at a National School Choice Week event in Tampa, Fla., that school choice is a necessary condition for equal opportunity and social justice. Low-income children should have access to the same options as the affluent, Bennett said, and this is why he supports providing low-income families with publicly-funded vouchers and scholarships to attend private schools.

StudentsFirst, on the other hand, released a state policy report card that docked Florida a few points for extending school choice to all low-income children. The group favors policies that restrict vouchers and tax credit scholarships to low-income students in state-designated “failing” schools. Within the choice movement, Rhee’s position is called the failing schools model.

Ten years ago, the failing schools model was the most favored, and it’s still popular with state legislators who see it as a politically safe compromise that allows parents to use vouchers only when their assigned district school is “failing.” But school choice, at its core, is about empowering parents to match their children to the schools that best meet their needs. Those judgments don't necessarily align with school-wide standardized test scores.

Rhee’s failing schools model misinterprets the relationship between students and schools. With rare exceptions, schools are not good or bad independent of the students they serve. Some schools are good for some students and bad for others. A state-designated “A” school can be a terrible match for a particular student, which means for that student the school is a failure. Bennett’s approach assumes the relationship between a student and a school is what succeeds or fails, which is why he thinks all parents should be empowered to access the schools that work best for their children.

The failing schools model also tends to inappropriately pit public versus private schools by implying private schools are better, which is not true. (more…)

In this lengthy exit interview with the Indianapolis Star, new Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett adds to a simmering debate, sparked last month by Gov. Rick Scott, about whether students using vouchers and tax credit scholarships to attend private schools in Florida should be required to take the same standardized tests as their public school counterparts.

By law, tax credit scholarship students in Florida are required to take a nationally norm-referenced test approved by the state Department of Education. But Bennett suggests that's not enough:

"I do believe we should assess all students who get state money. I believe that in my heart. I keep having people asking me why I believe that in Florida. For voucher schools, I’ve been asked why can’t we accept just a nationally-normed test? But if IPS said let me choose a test and let me choose a performance level to determine if its schools were any good or not, would I accept that? No. So why should I buy that from them? What makes them more creditable than IPS?"

Bennett was also asked if there's anything about expanding school choice that he fears could "in any way threaten what's good about the traditional public school system." His response:

"No. I think it will enhance it. It never worries me because I believe good schools will flourish regardless, whether they are public, private or charter. I believe it will force schools to get better. I just believe that. It’s never kept me up at night. I just believe in the force that the market creates. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen (Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent) Dr. (Eugene) White make some pretty innovative changes. I maintain he wouldn’t have done those things."

Tony Bennett. On his first day on the job, he meets with superintendents and the Florida Association of District Administrators and says he is an “unapologetic advocate for school choice,” reports the Tallahassee Democrat. More from The Buzz. His first comments on the “Commissioner’s Blog” here. Interview with StateImpact Florida.

Charter school funding. More than 1,000 people turn out for a meeting called by Pembroke Pines charter parents to demand equal funding for charter schools, reports the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

School spending. If the Broward school district wants to get the money to repair old schools, it will have to restore trust with voters and overcome a “long and lousy history of stunningly bad behavior,” editorializes the Miami Herald: “The district has been plagued by cronyism, mismanagement and a culture of dishonesty. In a scathing grand jury report released almost two years ago, jurors said they found the district so thoroughly corrupt, so reckless in its spending of taxpayers’ money, they would have recommended abolishing the school board completely if the state Constitution didn’t require its existence.” In Manatee, a forensic audit finds “incompetency -- not criminal or illegal activity -- caused a $3.4 million budget deficit that rocked the public trust,” reports the Bradenton Herald. More from the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

School prayer law. “For the Satanists, it was a godsend,” writes Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino.

Cold water on the party. Former state Sen. Dan Gelber says there isn’t much for Florida to celebrate in the latest Education Week rankings. Florida Voices.

Murmurs. School administrators wanted to hear more from Gov. Rick Scott, writes Tampa Bay Times columnist Steve Bousquet.

Merit pay challenge. A hearing on the FEA’s challenge of SB 736 is set for Wednesday in Leon County Court. SchoolZone. (more…)

Florida: Incoming Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett talks about the idea of voucher students being required to take the same standardized tests as their public school peers (Tampa Bay Times' Gradebook blog).

Texas: Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst sees expanded school choice as part of a legislative agenda that aims to make Texas the most conservative state in the country (Associated Press). The pending fight over vouchers highlights a difference over the best way to fund schools (Dallas Morning News).

Tennessee: A possible school voucher program will be a top issue for Gov. Bill  Haslam and state lawmakers next year (The Tennessean).

New Hampshire: The state's new tax credit scholarship program will again be the subject of debate - and potential legislative action - next year (New Hampshire Public Radio.)

Indiana: The state's school districts turned to marketing efforts in 2012 to compete with private school vouchers (Evansville Courier & Press). Charter school administrators say they have the flexibility to quickly respond to make improvements (Evansville Courier & Press).

Massachusetts: A new Pioneer Institute report opens a debate over the value of school choice options, specifically tax credit scholarships and education savings accounts, for Jewish day schools (Masslive.com)

Louisiana: Education reform,including creation of a statewide voucher program, ranks as one of the year's biggest stories (Houma Comet). Gov. Bobby Jindal's education reforms have reliable backing from the state education board, including its elected members (Baton Rouge Advocate).

Ohio: A long-troubled charter school moves again (Cincinnati Inquirer).

Washington D.C.: Fewer than half of the city's charter schools employ nurses (Associated Press).

Pennsylvania: Charter schools aren't just small, independent operations any more (Pittsburg Post Gazette). The western part of the state is seeing a rapid increase in charter school enrollment (Trib Live).

Delaware: Three charter schools delay opening next year, citing start-up costs and problems securing locations (Delaware Online).

 

Florida: Tony Bennett is selected the state's new education commissioner (redefinED). He tells reporters afterwards that he champions school choice first and foremost because of the social justice component (redefinED). A new group headed by T. Willard Fair,  co-founder of the state's first charter school, aims to create a pipeline of black executives and entrepreneurs to help lead private and charter schools (redefinED). The Miami-Dade school district ranks No. 10 in the country for school choice, according to a new report from Brookings (redefinED). A Catholic school in Tampa is at the heart of a University of Notre Dame project to revitalize Catholic schools, particularly for Hispanic students. (redefinED).

Louisiana: Voucher parents are worried in the wake of the legal ruling that puts the program in limbo (advertiser.com). Gov. Bobby Jindal makes a pitch for vouchers at a Brookings Institution event in Washington D.C. (Huffington Post).

Washington: More than 150 teachers, parents and administrators attend a charter school conference in the wake of the successful passage of a charter school ballot initiative (Tacoma News Tribune). (Full disclosure: The conference was sponsored by the Washington Charter School Research Center, which was founded by Jim and Fawn Spady. Fawn Spady chairs the board of directors at the American Center for School Choice, which co-hosts this blog.)

Michigan: The education adviser to Gov. Rick Snyder presents the governor's sweeping public school choice proposal to business and education leaders (Grand Rapids Business Journal). (more…)

The Florida Department of Education just released the last batch of applications for state education commissioner, including Tony Bennett's.

In his cover letter to Board of Education Chairman Gary Chartrand, dated Nov. 29, Bennett notes his work in Indiana and says he would welcome the opportunity to continue in Florida. "Your state was the leader in starting this movement of making decisions based solely on kids," he writes, "and I would like to take Florida to the next level."

Bennett's resume highlights a long list of initiatives in the Hoosier State, including a number related to parental school choice. The statewide voucher program has garnered the most attention, but Bennett notes progress in other sectors, too: "Successfully defended against caps on the number of charter schools, implemented a virtual voucher pilot program and ushered the program from pilot to full implementation, and proposed and developed the Indiana Charter Board - all while bringing accountability to charter schools in the form of A through F grades."

Shock and buzz. Tony Bennett’s loss was last night’s big jawdropper in the ed realm. But shock is already giving way to welling speculation that Indiana’s loss will be Florida’s gain.

Education Week wrote that Bennett, the Hoosier State’s superintendent of public instruction, “could be a natural fit” for the opening in Florida. Education researcher Rick Hess said Bennett will land on his feet “given that folks are likely to be clamoring for his services (including the state of Florida, which is desperately seeking a new chief).” The Gradebook, the ed blog for the Tampa Bay Times, put this headline on its first post of the day, “Might Indiana superintendent stunner yield Florida commissioner candidate?”

Speculation that Bennett may be headed to the Sunshine State began well before last night’s loss. And it’s easy to see why. Bennett championed Florida-style reforms in Indiana, including implementation of a statewide voucher program. He’s part of the Chiefs for Change group formed by Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. And he makes a lot of sense when he talks persuasively about new definitions of public education that aren’t either/or. “We have allowed our opponents to draw a caricature of us that says we’re against public schools,” Bennett said last spring at the American Federation for Children conference. “I’m not an adversary of public schools. I’m an advocate for public school children.”

Applications for the Florida commissioner post are due by Nov. 30. We called and emailed the Indiana Department of Education to see if we could find out about Bennett’s plans. If we hear back, we’ll let you know.

In the meantime, there’s also plenty of commentary today about why Bennett lost to Glenda Ritz, an elementary school media specialist. (more…)