Julie DelegalDid the Team Bush response to Gov. Rick Scott’s order on education seem a little too restrained last week?
Former Gov. Jeb Bush and his Foundation for Florida’s Future, after all, have been at this education-reform biz for years. Until recently, the foundation’s work appeared destined to culminate in the implementation of the national Common Core State Standards and its companion exams next school year.
Florida journalists Marc Caputo and Ron Matus agree that in the face of Tea Party whining, the governor split the baby. In the press packet he released Sept. 23, Scott said that he wanted “higher standards” for Florida, which indicates that he supports the Common Core standards.
However, Scott made clear that Florida must withdraw from an 18-state consortium that is developing tests to measure whether students are mastering the material necessary to comply with the Common Core standards. He also directed that Florida no longer act as fiscal agent for the group.
To develop the exams, PARCC, or the states’ Partnership for the Assessment of College and Career Readiness, has received $186 million in federal Race to the Top grants, a program endorsed by President Obama.
Why would Scott pull the plug on the assessment part of the Common Core plan when it was so close to implementation? And why would Jeb Bush’s camp be so nonchalant about it?
One answer is Tea Party objections, discussed in my previous Context Florida columns. Tea Party members have balked at the notion of a national test, worried that it represents an intrusion of the federal government into public education.
Protestations by Bush’s foundation that the test was state-driven and state-created did little to assuage Scott’s constituency.
Hearings will be held and public feedback sought. A campaign to separate “standards” (what is taught) from curriculum (how it’s taught) will ensue and conservatives will stress the importance of parents have strong control over curriculum.
Soon a bidding process will begin. Testing vendors and technology peddlers will submit packages for consideration. There may already be a vendor who has a bundle ready to go.
Will it be a “Florida” test? A “multi-state” test? Will there be enough fungible state-to-state test items to make the comparisons that Common Core proponents believe are essential to our nation’s progress?
If so, will Bush’s national campaign infrastructure — um, I mean, national education reform network — push other states to adopt the same test we adopt?
Most important, will Scott’s move to withdraw from PARCC sour relations between the Scott and Bush camps or will Scott’s half-step become a nexus for cooperation — a mutual back-scratching session with the two Florida governors thumbing their noses at Obama’s Race to the Top initiative? Stay tuned.
