Guest Author, Author at Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Guest AuthorFebruary 15, 2015

The ironically named Student Success Act of 2011 mandated something called the Valued Added Model, which attempts to quantify each teacher’s influence on each student. The complicated formula purports to predict what a student’s normal gain scores on a standardized test will be from one year to another. If a student gains more or loses […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 12, 2015

It’s not every day that a divorce lawyer reports her own client to the state child abuse hotline. But that’s what John Jonchuck‘s lawyer did. On Jan. 7, Jonchuck showed up at the firm’s office dressed in pajamas, toting his 5-year-old daughter Phoebe, along with a Bible he incorrectly believed to be written in Swedish. Jonchuck’s lawyer told the Hotline that her client was “out-of-his-mind […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 12, 2015

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The fifth resolution before the U.S. House of Representatives in its first meeting in January was overwhelmingly defeated along a pure party-line vote of 238 Republicans saying “no” and 160 Democrats nodding “yes.” The issue affected the five “nonvoting” members of Congress representing four Trust Territories and the District of Columbia. House Resolution 5 would […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 12, 2015

“We were once an aspirational society.” That was said at the table during the directors meeting of an organization’s national board upon which I serve. We were deep in a discussion about the value of education to society and what it means to our country’s future, and the themes of aspiration, ambition, desire and drive […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 11, 2015

A children’s coloring book produced by the sugar industry starred in a two-county controversy last week — one that raises questions about how corporate propaganda gets distributed. The book, “A Journey with Sugar Cane and Sugar Beet,” was given to a Palm City Elementary School kindergarten class by a Stuart dentist. The dentistry firm is […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 11, 2015

“We were once an aspirational society.” These words were spoken at the table during a national board of directors meeting of an organization upon which I serve. We were deep in a discussion about the value of education to society and what it means to our country’s future, and the themes of aspiration, ambition, desire […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 11, 2015

From time to time I am invited to speak at gatherings of various groups and organizations. Corporations are often intrigued by the inner workings of an athletic team that has demonstrated success on the field of play. Teamwork is essential to the productivity and maximization of corporations, businesses, or the workplace. I’m invited into their […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 10, 2015

Florida’s property insurance system has been on a roller-coaster ride over the past 10 years. Since Hurricane Wilma struck Florida’s coast in October 2005, the Sunshine State has lived up to its moniker, having gone more than nine years and four months without a landfall. And that unprecedented streak of luck has allowed the state […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 10, 2015

Matthew Carr’s new book, Sherman’s Ghosts: Soldiers, Civilians, and the American Way of War, is presented as “an antimilitarist military history” – that is, half of it is a history of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s conduct during the U.S. Civil War, and half of it is an attempt to trace echoes of Sherman through major […]

Guest AuthorFebruary 9, 2015

February is national Career and Technical Education month, and across the country educators and counselors are preparing America’s next generation of skilled workers. In just a few months, students will graduate from high school, and many aren’t sure of their next step. Florida’s construction contractors face a related but different problem: a major shortage of skilled […]

Guest Author

Catherine Martinez: 'Value Added Model' of no value to teaching

Florence Snyder: Phoebe Jonchuck tragedy reveals underpaid staff, DCF doublespeak

Joseph Carter: House action ensures 4 million U.S. citizens have no vote

Ed Moore: America still longs for aspirations

Sally Swartz: Coloring book is sugar-coated corporate propaganda

Ed Moore: America still longs for aspirations

Todd Dagenais: Don't be a leader who looks around – and nobody is following

Sal Nuzzo: Florida's Vanilla Ice property insurance system

David Swanson: Exporting Sherman's March

Steve Cona: Construction industry has opportunities to build a career