T H E C A B I N E T
S T A T E O F F L O R I D A
Representing:
REPORT: TEAM FLORIDA 2000
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION
DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE
DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY AND MOTOR VEHICLES
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS' AFFAIRS
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
VOLUME I
Pages 1 through 157
The above agencies came to be heard before
THE FLORIDA CABINET, Honorable Governor Bush
presiding, in the Cabinet Meeting Room, LL-03,
The Capitol, Tallahassee, Florida, on Tuesday,
December 14, 1999, commencing at approximately
9:17 a.m.
Reported by:
LAURIE L. GILBERT
Registered Professional Reporter
Certified Court Reporter
Certified Realtime Reporter
Registered Merit Reporter
Notary Public in and for
the State of Florida at Large
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
100 SALEM COURT
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA 32301
850/878-2221
APPEARANCES:
Representing the Florida Cabinet:
JEB BUSH
Governor
BOB CRAWFORD
Commissioner of Agriculture
BOB MILLIGAN
Comptroller
BOB BUTTERWORTH
Attorney General
BILL NELSON
Treasurer
TOM GALLAGHER
Commissioner of Education
* * *
3
December 14, 1999
I N D E X
ITEM ACTION PAGE
REPORT: TEAM FLORIDA 2000:
(Presented by Scott McPherson,
Statewide Y2K Coordinator)
1 Report 7
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION:
(Presented by Tom Herndon,
Executive Director)
1 Approved 13
2 Approved 20
3 Approved 20
4 Approved 20
DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE:
(Presented by J. Ben Watkins, III,
Director)
1 Approved 21
2 Approved 21
DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY AND MOTOR VEHICLES:
(Presented by Fred O. Dickinson, III,
Executive Director)
1 Approved 25
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December 14, 1999
I N D E X
(Continued)
ITEM ACTION PAGE
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION:
(Presented by Sandra Sartin,
Policy Coordinator)
1 Approved 29
2 Approved 29
3 Approved 29
4 Approved 39
5 Approved 43
6 Approved 43
7 Approved 44
8 Approved 44
9 Approved 44
10 Approved 45
11 Approved 47
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS' AFFAIRS:
(Presented by Robin Higgins,
Executive Director)
1 Approved 48
2 Approved 48
3 Approved 57
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
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December 14, 1999
I N D E X
(Continued)
ITEM ACTION PAGE
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT
TRUST FUND:
(Presented David B. Struhs,
Secretary)
1 Approved 58
2 Deferred 58
3 Approved 58
4 Approved 76
Substitute 5 Approved 98
6 Approved 99
7 Approved 99
8 Approved 100
9 Approved 100
Substitute 10 Approved 100
11 Approved 100
12 Deferred 101
13 Approved 101
Substitute 14 Approved 102
15 Approved 102
16 Approved 103
Substitute 17 Approved 105
Substitute 18 Denied 130
19 Deferred 137
Recess 138
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December 14, 1999
I N D E X
ITEM ACTION PAGE
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION:
(Presented by Wayne V. Pierson,
Deputy Commissioner)
1 Approved 139
2 Approved 139
3 For Information Only 141
5 Approved 139
6 Approved 140
7 Approved 140
8 Approved 140
9 Approved 141
10 Withdrawn 141
CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER 157
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
REPORT: TEAM FLORIDA 2000 7
December 14, 1999
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 (The agenda items commenced at 9:44 a.m.)
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: We now have an update on
4 Team Florida 2000, a Y2K update.
5 Scott, you here?
6 MR. McPHERSON: Yes.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: There he is.
8 MR. McPHERSON: Thank you very much. And
9 good morning, Governor Bush, and distinguished
10 members of the Cabinet.
11 With 17 days until the year 2000, we wanted
12 to give you our final report on the readiness
13 of the State of Florida.
14 You should have in front of you a
15 spreadsheet which shows the -- the final
16 results of our surveying effort. We've
17 surveyed 3,305 entities. In this particular
18 report, we are reporting the progress of
19 3,273 entities, both public and private, with
20 an aggregate completion percentage of
21 97 percent.
22 And there are literally hundreds of
23 entities that are doing the same thing that the
24 State of Florida is doing, and that is
25 reporting our completion percentage at just
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REPORT: TEAM FLORIDA 2000 8
December 14, 1999
1 under 100 percent. It's an old engineering
2 rule.
3 But the State of Florida, the 32 agencies
4 that comprise State government, are reporting
5 an aggregate 99.998 percent complete, which is
6 extraordinary.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Who's the .002?
8 MR. McPHERSON: It's -- it's just some --
9 just some mop up in a couple of systems.
10 And --
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: I wouldn't want to be
12 that --
13 MR. McPHERSON: And the engineers would
14 tell you that that's just their safety margin.
15 There are 2142 entities across Florida that
16 are reporting 100 percent; and then once again,
17 several hundred which are reporting anywhere
18 from 98 to 100 percent complete.
19 Since the last time I briefed you all, the
20 Department of Environmental Protection issued
21 their final report, indicating that Florida's
22 drinking water, wastewater, chemical companies,
23 and hazardous waste processing companies are
24 all moving forward splendidly for the
25 millennium. And they -- and the Department of
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
REPORT: TEAM FLORIDA 2000 9
December 14, 1999
1 Environmental Protection does not expect there
2 to be any Y2K problems of any consequence in
3 any of those areas.
4 Last week, with the lead of the
5 Attorney General and the participation of the
6 Comptroller, the Deputy Commissioner for
7 Consumer Affairs, and the Commissioner of the
8 Florida Department of Law Enforcement, we held
9 a press conference just reminding Floridians of
10 the possibility of being a victim of a scam
11 regarding the year 2000 problem.
12 And we're very happy to report that
13 those -- those incidents seem to be reporting
14 in single digits right now. We have been very
15 proactive on this front, and we think we've
16 nipped that problem in the bud.
17 We have also produced some new television
18 commercials which are designed to just remind
19 Floridians in a -- in a humorous way that --
20 that if there are any problems regarding Y2K --
21 or any problems at the stroke of midnight, that
22 they may not be Y2K problems, but they may be
23 caused by other things which happen every
24 single day of the year.
25 Very similar to the White House report
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REPORT: TEAM FLORIDA 2000 10
December 14, 1999
1 which was issued yesterday reminding Americans
2 that computers malfunction and ATMs quit
3 365 days a year, and that's not the exc-- the
4 exclusive license of Y2K.
5 One of those commercials also reminds
6 Floridians to keep their money in the bank
7 where it's safe, because you never know what
8 can happen if you pull that money out.
9 And we've also produced with the -- in
10 conjunction with the Florida Association of
11 Broadcasters, a half hour TV special which is
12 going to be distributed to every broadcast
13 station in the state; which is also being sent
14 to every bowl committee for the use of the
15 teams that are going to be participating in the
16 bowl games, letting them know just how well
17 prepared the state of Florida is.
18 The grocers have additional stocks of food
19 to last for weeks. The American petroleum
20 industry has found that 98 percent of its
21 participating members are Y2K compliant. The
22 Florida Department of Law Enforcement continues
23 to work with local law enforcement agencies for
24 monitoring millennium celebrations and other
25 special events such as concerts and parades.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
REPORT: TEAM FLORIDA 2000 11
December 14, 1999
1 We have some concern about the increased
2 geomagnetic and solar activity that's going to
3 be occurring between now and the end of the
4 year 2000. We want Floridians to know that
5 those activities may be misinterpreted as Y2K
6 related events.
7 We're currently at the State Emergency
8 Operations Center in a Level 1 monitoring
9 activation status. That will change at
10 6:00 a.m. on the 31st of December to Level 2.
11 And we're going to be watching what happens
12 around the rest of the world. We're going to
13 be making some decisions and making some
14 judgment calls based on what happens in some
15 other industrialized nations overseas.
16 We'll be handling live media briefings the
17 31st of December at 8:00 a.m., 5:00 p.m., and
18 8:00 p.m.; we'll go live January 1st at
19 1:00 a.m. and then again at 2:00 a.m.,
20 because -- just to remind everybody, Florida
21 enters the year 2000 twice, once in the eastern
22 time zone, and once in the central zone.
23 We plan -- if everything goes according to
24 our plans, and there are no disruptions, we
25 plan to stand back down to Level 1 at 2:00 a.m.
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REPORT: TEAM FLORIDA 2000 12
December 14, 1999
1 on New Year's morning.
2 And then we will come back up to Level 2
3 again at 6:00 a.m. on the 3rd, which will be
4 the first business day of the new millennium.
5 And if there are no related issues at that
6 point, then we'll stand back down to Level 1 at
7 12:00 noon on the 3rd.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any questions?
9 No questions, no comments?
10 Scott, you've done a fantastic job, and I
11 hope I don't get a call at 2:00 a.m. on
12 January 1st because --
13 MR. McPHERSON: I hope not either, sir.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- I need the sleep.
15 MR. McPHERSON: We'll do our best.
16 Thank you very much.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
18 (The Report: Team Florida 2000 Agenda was
19 concluded.)
20 * * *
21
22
23
24
25
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STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 13
December 14, 1999
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: The next Cabinet meeting
2 will be January 25th, the year 2000.
3 State Board of Administration.
4 Good morning, Tom. How are you?
5 MR. HERNDON: Good morning, Governor. How
6 are you?
7 Item Number 1 is approval of the minutes of
8 the meeting held November 9th, 1999.
9 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Move the minutes.
10 TREASURER NELSON: I'll second it.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
12 Without objection, it's approved.
13 MR. HERNDON: Item 2 is a resolution of the
14 State Board approving the fiscal sufficiency of
15 a hundred and thirty million dollar, State of
16 Florida, Department of Transportation Turnpike
17 Revenue Bonds, Series 2000A.
18 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Move it.
19 TREASURER NELSON: Second.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
21 Without objection, it's approved.
22 MR. HERNDON: Item Number 3 is a
23 recommended set of new asset class targets, and
24 allocations and benchmarks for the
25 Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund.
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STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 14
December 14, 1999
1 And, Governor, with your permission, and
2 members of the Board, I'd like to just spend a
3 minute, walk you through our recommendations.
4 As you know, we have had responsibility for
5 investing the Chiles Endowment since July 1st
6 of last year.
7 We are anticipating essentially what is our
8 second installment of Chiles Endowment monies
9 on or about January 1st. Pursuant to your
10 direction, we have completed an asset
11 allocation review --
12 (Commissioner Gallagher exited the room.)
13 MR. HERNDON: -- of the potential use of
14 these funds, and are recommending some
15 additional investment strategies for those
16 purposes.
17 The first additional strategy that we're
18 recommending is that we move into the
19 international equity arena, and fund at a
20 12 percent level an international allocation
21 using our existing benchmark for the Florida
22 Retirement System, which is the Morgan Stanley
23 Capital Index All Country World Free, excluding
24 tobacco, and I want to make that point, because
25 that -- as I think at least two of the members
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STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 15
December 14, 1999
1 know --
2 Governor, I know you're familiar with -- by
3 extension.
4 -- causes us to have a little bit of an
5 increased cost, because we're excluding
6 those -- those tobacco products in our
7 benchmark as we go out and try and buy that
8 index.
9 The second item, which is also in the
10 recommendations as a new investment is that we
11 move in the fixed income arena to an allocation
12 for high yield bonds. Approximately 6 percent
13 of the total fixed income portfolio, or about
14 1.3 percent of the total endowment.
15 Now, that high yield bond recommendation is
16 contingent on the receipt of a favorable
17 opinion from outside counsel, which we have
18 engaged to opine as to whether or not we can
19 commingle Chiles Endowment monies with the
20 Florida Retirement System monies, which would
21 allow us to acquire those high yield bond
22 products at a much lower cost than we could
23 achieve them on the greater market.
24 In addition, we're also recommending also
25 in the fixed income arena that we move to an
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 16
December 14, 1999
1 allocation of 11 percent in the Treasury
2 Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS. These
3 are the inflation index bonds that the U.S.
4 started --
5 (Commissioner Gallagher entered the room.)
6 MR. HERNDON: -- marketing about 18 months
7 ago. We're pretty optimistic about this
8 product. And, in fact, as this market for the
9 TIPS broadens and deepens over the next couple
10 of years, we may come back to you with a
11 recommendation to expand our holdings in this
12 particular asset.
13 Finally, we're recommending a 4 percent
14 allocation to real estate using the
15 Wilshire Real Estate Securities Index as the
16 primary benchmark.
17 And here my note would be that we do not
18 anticipate having any direct owned properties
19 in this portfolio, unlike the Florida
20 Retirement System. In this case, they'll all
21 be equitized products like REITs, and REOCs,
22 and pooled investment fund.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: What was the second thing
24 you just said?
25 MR. HERNDON: REOCs.
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STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 17
December 14, 1999
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: What are REOCs?
2 MR. HERNDON: Real estate operating
3 companies. Essentially a pool of products.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is that your -- as the year
5 ends, I -- I have to admit that while I'm -- I
6 will fight on for the fight against acronyms,
7 I'm losing the battle.
8 I'm not going to surrender though.
9 I've never heard of that one.
10 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Your name
11 though.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah, of course, I am --
13 one more thing, Tom.
14 The Attorney General is polite to point out
15 that I am an acronym myself.
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: This is true.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'm sorry.
18 MR. HERNDON: Well, the net -- the net
19 result of these recommended changes is that we
20 would reduce our current domestic equities,
21 fixed income, and cash allocation by 4 percent,
22 19 percent, and 4 percent respectively.
23 So the fund will be essentially fully
24 diversified and fully invested. We'll hold a
25 1 percent cash level in the fund.
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STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 18
December 14, 1999
1 We anticipate a second, third, and
2 fourth tranche of dollars the following
3 January 1st of each year for the next
4 three years, which would bring the principal of
5 the endowment up to the target of 1.7 billion
6 dollars.
7 Two other comments, if I might. We
8 unfortunately, by virtue of the timing, were
9 not able to take this recommendation to the
10 IAC. Our Advisory Council meets this Friday.
11 We do anticipate going through this with
12 them in some detail. And if there are any
13 substantive concerns that they express, we
14 would bring those back to you, and possibly
15 modify our implementation strategy accordingly.
16 The final comment, and I hate almost to
17 make this following right on the Y2K
18 presentation. But we are anticipating getting
19 these monies on or around the 1st of January.
20 They are targeted for investment immediately
21 thereafter.
22 We have been surveying all of our
23 investment managers and our large
24 relationships. They are telling us that they
25 think it probably is advisable that everybody
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STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 19
December 14, 1999
1 keep a weather eye out on the markets those
2 first few days.
3 We know, for example, that one of our
4 strategies, which was to move some of this
5 money of the international arena following the
6 recommendations, we have been advised by one of
7 our consultants that they would strongly
8 encourage us to stand down for a few days until
9 the international markets, especially the
10 emerging nations, stabilize a little bit.
11 So my point in saying this is, with your
12 permission, give us a little bit of -- of
13 tactical discretion here as the first few days
14 of the new year unfold.
15 We also recognize that that potentially
16 impacts our performance measurement a little
17 bit. And with your leave, give us a little bit
18 of -- of latitude there as we try and make the
19 best decisions for the disposition of these
20 funds.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a motion?
22 TREASURER NELSON: I move it.
23 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I move it, or second
24 it.
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a
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STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION 20
December 14, 1999
1 second.
2 Without objection, it's approved.
3 MR. HERNDON: And Item Number 4 is the
4 annual report on corporate governance for the
5 period July 1st, 1998, to June 30th, 1999, for
6 your information and review.
7 TREASURER NELSON: And I'll move that we
8 accept the annual report.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay. Do we need a motion
10 on that?
11 TREASURER NELSON: I don't know.
12 MR. HERNDON: Just to accept it.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay. That's fine.
14 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
15 MR. HERNDON: Thank you very much.
16 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second the
17 acceptance.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'll vote for it.
19 Thank you, Tom.
20 (The State Board of Administration Agenda
21 was concluded.)
22 * * *
23
24
25
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DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE 21
December 14, 1999
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Division of Bond Finance.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the
3 minutes.
4 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a
6 second.
7 Without objection, it's approved.
8 Item 2.
9 MR. WATKINS: Item Number 2 is a resolution
10 authorizing competitive sale of up to a hundred
11 and thirty million dollars of Turnpike Revenue
12 Bonds.
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
14 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
16 Without objection, it's approved.
17 MR. WATKINS: Thank you.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Happy holidays.
19 (The Division of Bond Finance Agenda was
20 concluded.)
21 * * *
22
23
24
25
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HIGHWAY SAFETY AND MOTOR VEHICLES 22
December 14, 1999
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Department of
2 Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
3 MR. DICKINSON: Governor, I have the last
4 tag of the millennium for you. This will be
5 our 51st. It's the U.S. Marine Corps tag.
6 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Fantastic tag.
7 Fantastic.
8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Semper Fi.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Who designed this tag?
10 MR. DICKINSON: Actually the design was --
11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER:
12 General Milligan --
13 MR. DICKINSON: -- was by the General's --
14 one of his graphic artists, I believe.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: That was just --
16 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Actually, I took the
17 lead from the Attorney General last meeting,
18 and --
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Used that pen?
20 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- used a
21 magic marker and whipped it out.
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Who gets
23 that plate, Fred?
24 MR. DICKINSON: The money?
25 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: No.
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December 14, 1999
1 MR. DICKINSON: This -- this particular
2 one?
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Who gets
4 number 1?
5 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Number 1 -- USMC 1,
6 which is still available, is going to go to
7 General Chapman, who is a former Commandant of
8 the Marine Corps, lives here in Florida.
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: And where
10 does the Lieutenant General -- what number
11 plate does the Lieutenant General get?
12 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: He is not asking for
13 any particular number at this time. He will
14 take whatever might possibly be available.
15 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: And Fred has
16 that discretion to give whatever number he
17 thinks might be --
18 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: No, no. There are a
19 lot of people that have already, you know, kind
20 of got their oar in the water.
21 I'd be happy with one that maybe reflected
22 my infantry background. But we'll see how it
23 works out.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Since you're
25 one of four votes that he needs every
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December 14, 1999
1 week-to-week, I would assume you'll do
2 all right.
3 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Well, you know, one
4 of -- one of the things that ought to be
5 mentioned here is that this money -- and -- and
6 I think we will raise considerable money with
7 this plate -- goes to scholarships for young
8 people here in Florida to support the
9 Junior Marine Corps ROTC program in
10 high schools.
11 And I'm going to go back in to the
12 Legislature and ask that they include the
13 Young Marines Program, which I think you saw a
14 number of people here the past month, which is
15 a very strong mentoring program, to -- to help
16 that program.
17 So it's for a very, very good cause.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Doesn't it also go to the
19 veterans --
20 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Yes. The first
21 50,000 goes to support the veterans nursing's
22 home -- nursing home.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
24 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I'll move it.
25 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
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December 14, 1999
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
2 Any more comments?
3 General Butterworth --
4 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: No.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- you satisfied?
6 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I'm finished
7 for the -- for the day, Governor.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
9 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: For the day?
10 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: No. I'll
11 tune back in again around 3:00 o'clock this
12 afternoon.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: It's been moved and
14 seconded.
15 Without objection, it's approved.
16 MR. DICKINSON: Governor, we did certify
17 yesterday to the Legislature, and to your
18 staff, that there were no qualifiers for any
19 additional tags this year. That deadline came
20 and went last week. So this'll be it for at
21 least a two-year span.
22 We did have a couple --
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: How many years?
24 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: What's our total?
25 MR. DICKINSON: Well, they've -- they've
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December 14, 1999
1 got to qualify again next year. But it'd take
2 us an additional year to get them out. So --
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: So the Legislature --
4 MR. DICKINSON: We're at 5-- 51 right now.
5 We've got two more -- two more that'll be
6 coming to you early next year.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
8 MR. DICKINSON: The wildflower and the
9 Florida Memorial College. So --
10 Also I'd like to report that since Scotty
11 did a good job on the Y2K, we've canceled our
12 leave again for our troopers over the
13 millennium celebration, or whatever's
14 forthcoming.
15 And, of course, we'll be there -- staff at
16 the -- at the EOC also, and look forward to
17 everybody having a safe and -- and happy
18 holiday. And appreciate it, the last Cabinet
19 meeting of the millennium, it's momentous, to
20 say the least.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Fred, I thought it was nice
22 to see the article where Mothers Against Drunk
23 Driving ranked Florida -- gave us an A- on our
24 efforts to deal with young people -- I guess in
25 general -- I guess it was just our laws against
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December 14, 1999
1 alcohol induced accidents, and --
2 MR. DICKINSON: We've had very nice success
3 in alcohol related fatalities over the last
4 decade. And -- and the MADD groups, the
5 support we have, law enforcement, the
6 judiciary, the Legislature, everybody's to be
7 commended.
8 It's certainly no time to let up, but we
9 have reduced alcohol related fatalities I think
10 by 30 percent in ten years. And our
11 statistical gathering has gotten stronger in
12 that ten years, so it really should have gone
13 up a little bit, but it hasn't.
14 And if we can -- if we can get fatalities
15 in general to slip down, we're -- we're a
16 little bit high right now on the national
17 average -- we'll be real pleased.
18 And I know you have a problem sometimes
19 with our primary seat belt enforcement. That
20 is something we'll probably be pushing again
21 this year.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'm for it.
23 MR. DICKINSON: Well, I mean, you -- you
24 supported us last year, and we appreciate it.
25 We all -- I'm sorry. The Legislature --
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December 14, 1999
1 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: That's what you
2 meant to say.
3 MR. DICKINSON: We almost -- we got it
4 through one, we're working on the other right
5 now. But I think it's coming back, Governor.
6 I'm --
7 But anyway, thank you so much.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: You bet.
9 (The Department of Highway Safety and Motor
10 Vehicles Agenda was concluded.)
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ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 29
December 14, 1999
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Administration Commission.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the
3 minutes.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
5 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
7 Without objection, it's approved.
8 Item 2.
9 MS. SARTIN: Item 2 is a request of a
10 transfer of general revenue appropriations for
11 Department of Children and Families.
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
14 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
16 Without objection, it's approved.
17 Item 3.
18 MS. SARTIN: Item 3 is a request of
19 approval of an information technology project
20 for Department of Children and Families.
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
24 Without objection, it's approved.
25 MS. SARTIN: Item 4 is request approval of
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 30
December 14, 1999
1 transfer of general revenue appropriations for
2 the Board of Regents within the Department of
3 Education.
4 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I -- I have a
5 question on that, Governor, or a comment --
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.
7 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- maybe or more
8 important. I had a chance, either last week or
9 the week before --
10 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
11 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- I've forgotten,
12 to meet Mrs. Nina Ovieda, who --
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.
14 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- runs your
15 operation in Washington, D.C.
16 And during her conversation, she made it
17 quite clear that, in line with your One Florida
18 philosophy, that that particular office would
19 be used to be the focal point of dealings in
20 Washington, both with Congress; and for that
21 matter, any other evolution.
22 And I -- I guess I have a little bit of a
23 problem with the idea that -- I agree with it
24 fully, that we ought to do that.
25 And I have a little problem with this,
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 31
December 14, 1999
1 which is saying we're going to hire some
2 contractors to represent Florida, and lobby for
3 Florida another stovepipe operation with no
4 real coordination in the One Florida context.
5 And if we are really serious about trying
6 to have that office be the focal point, we
7 might want to reconsider what we're doing here,
8 and perhaps expand the capabilities of that
9 office using Floridians to support Florida.
10 And so I'm concerned about it.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, this is, I guess --
12 as I understand it, this is the way it has been
13 done, which doesn't mean -- you know me,
14 I mean, it doesn't mean we have to be doing it
15 the way we have been doing it.
16 This is -- I think the university system
17 has hired lobbyists over the years. I'm more
18 than happy to talk to the Chancellor about
19 this. We have -- you're absolutely right, we
20 have moved to try to create more of a team
21 approach to Florida's efforts.
22 We've gotten the Legislature more engaged
23 in helping us and fully -- more fully briefing
24 them, because it's their office as well.
25 We are working with Spaceport Florida to
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 32
December 14, 1999
1 have someone assigned that we will partially
2 pay for out of general revenue dollars, and
3 Spaceport Florida will secure other money
4 I believe for an employee of theirs to work out
5 of our office.
6 So I'm -- in general, I'm supportive of
7 this concept. We've not taken it to the
8 university system. I'm more than happy to do
9 it.
10 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Well, I -- I just
11 think that -- I just hate to see a quarter of a
12 million dollars going to some contractor to
13 lobby for -- for us when we, I think, can find
14 qualified people to work for us, and -- and
15 provide flexibility, even in the things that
16 they are doing, and do it in a coordinated,
17 unified way.
18 And I -- I just have a problem with it.
19 So I hope maybe we can do something with
20 it. And I -- I will probably vote against it.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: All right.
22 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I guess I'll make
23 the motion for it, and I'll do that because I
24 am a member of the Regents, and we have
25 negotiated a contract based obviously on a
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 33
December 14, 1999
1 hopeful approval of the Administration
2 Commission to fund it in regards to university
3 lobbying, which has been a contracted service
4 over many, many years for different people
5 to -- to have carried this out.
6 So in good faith, I'll -- I'll move this --
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Tom, is this part of the
8 settlement that been -- we've been --
9 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: That's --
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- reading about in the
11 paper?
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: That's a little
13 bit of it, too. This is a new contractee, and
14 there's a settlement with the last person that
15 was -- had had that contract.
16 So this funds both the new, and I think
17 whatever the settlement is with the other
18 contractor.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: And there's been --
20 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I guess it's really
21 a question of the way we ought to be doing
22 business.
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, I think that
24 that -- that that issue probably should be
25 discussed. What our wishes are here, I will be
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 34
December 14, 1999
1 most happy to take to the Regents, basically
2 saying that we should use -- that if you all
3 feel that we should look at using our own
4 employees, as opposed to hiring some
5 specialists on it.
6 I will tell you that the job that's done by
7 these -- the lobbyists in Washington and the
8 university system is specific to getting
9 grants, working the legislative process, and
10 getting special dollars for large -- large
11 grants, which you'll notice that Florida's
12 doing very, very well in.
13 I think we saw some articles, and press
14 releases released by Florida State University
15 on how well they've done with their research,
16 and how much money that they've gotten based on
17 some of the outcomes of research.
18 So it all fits in together, and I --
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Has the --
20 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- will be glad to
21 deliver the message.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Has the contract been
23 signed?
24 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I'm sure if it --
25 I don't know -- I can't answer that question.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 35
December 14, 1999
1 But I'm sure that it's signed based on our
2 approval here, because if they can't deliver
3 the money, nobody's going to deliver a
4 contract.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, can we -- can we
6 defer this item to the next Cabinet meeting so
7 that the Chancellor can come speak to
8 General Milligan to either accommodate his
9 concerns, or we'll modify the -- we'll consider
10 going to Plan B?
11 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: It's really not just
12 the Regents. I think it's a philosophy that --
13 the one -- one face of Florida philosophy.
14 That's what -- really what I'm talking
15 about. And this just happens to be an example.
16 But it is -- it goes well beyond the Regents,
17 and -- and having somebody in Washington
18 represent the -- the Regents.
19 Are we going to have one face in Florida,
20 are we going to have some person or group that
21 is really the focal point of -- of actions and
22 activities in Florida, and knowledgeable in
23 what's going on, instead of stovepipe
24 operations?
25 And -- and if I understand what you are
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 36
December 14, 1999
1 trying to achieve in many areas, not just --
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah.
3 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- in this specific
4 area, that we need to put one face on Florida.
5 And this just kind of flies in the face of
6 that.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I -- I would sort
8 of -- I would request that we go ahead and
9 approve this, and I'll tell you why.
10 What General Milligan's saying is true, and
11 if this was the only one, we could fix this
12 here by holding it off and getting it worked
13 out.
14 But, bottom line is that there are many
15 agencies that have contracted people in
16 Washington, D.C., from the state of Florida.
17 And if that is something that we should do, it
18 should be done on an across-the-board basis,
19 not just pick on the university system right
20 now. It should be done across-the-board.
21 And I -- and I think it -- the message
22 should be sent, and probably should be a
23 legislatively sent message, or -- maybe from us
24 sent.
25 But to pick on just this one that has been
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 37
December 14, 1999
1 through administrative procedures, has been
2 through a tremendous amount of publicity, and
3 everything else, to cut it off now, based on
4 a -- a good reason, but at the same time, we're
5 not -- we're not stopping them all, we're just
6 picking on this one, I don't think would be a
7 good thing to do, unless we pretty much did it
8 across-the-board.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah.
10 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Governor, as
11 you know, you have a very fine office in --
12 in -- in Washington, with a number of employees
13 there working on issues.
14 Approximately four years ago, I saw fit to
15 put a full-time attorney in Washington because
16 of the interests of the State, and I think that
17 we should all look at -- at what we are doing,
18 and we may be able to have a much more
19 influential office in Washington by a more --
20 of the -- of people operating out of your
21 office there.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, and that's -- that --
23 that has been our intent.
24 Tom, is the contract that is -- that is
25 signed, waiting -- subject to approval here, is
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 38
December 14, 1999
1 it a one-year contract?
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I -- I believe it
3 is. All -- all contracts basically have to be
4 because they're based on the Legislature
5 approving dollars. So it can't go bey--
6 I mean, if, in fact, the dollars aren't there,
7 it's not paid.
8 I -- I would tell you that you would find
9 it very interesting if you total up the number
10 of dollars spent in Washington, D.C., by
11 agencies getting things done. And it would be,
12 and my guess, in the millions.
13 And if we count this, it would be -- that's
14 without counting this particular one.
15 So I -- I don't think that it's fair to
16 pick on one that has done a good job in the
17 past, will do a good job for this next year,
18 unless we have something else there for them to
19 do.
20 And we don't at this point. And I think it
21 would put our university system at a
22 disadvantage, compared to others in the -- in
23 the country that do have people up there like
24 this doing the job for them.
25 So I would urge you to let this one go
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 39
December 14, 1999
1 through, and --
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: All right.
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- work on the
4 whole thing, as opposed to just --
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a -- there's --
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- this particular
7 one.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- a motion.
9 Is there a second?
10 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: I would second it.
11 I think -- I think the Commissioner is
12 right, that there -- there may be a better
13 system. But until we have that in place, I
14 think, you know, these services are needed.
15 Sometimes they're very specialized, and it's
16 not always as easy to achieve what you like to
17 achieve as you think it is.
18 And -- so I would second the motion, hope
19 we could go ahead and move it today.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: All right. There's a
21 motion and a second.
22 All in favor, say aye.
23 THE CABINET: Aye.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: All opposed?
25 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I am not opposed, I
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 40
December 14, 1999
1 am opposed to the principle. And -- and I will
2 accept this one for the very -- reasons given.
3 But I ask you, Governor, to take a hard
4 look at --
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Absolutely.
6 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- what that office
7 is doing up there.
8 And Tom is right, there are lots of
9 agencies that have lobbyists in Washington that
10 are non-coordinated in terms of overall State
11 policy.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: I -- I appreciate your
13 comments, General, and -- and while I -- I'm --
14 I'm trying to be a little more cautious these
15 days about -- because I'm -- there's a
16 perception that we're trying to do too much at
17 once.
18 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: So?
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, we're plen--
20 I'll just tell you this, Governor, we're plenty
21 loaded over at Department of Education. So
22 don't -- we don't need much more to do over
23 here.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: You're
25 telling a Marine General that -- that you --
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 41
December 14, 1999
1 that you can't do more?
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- on the hill?
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Right.
4 Can we get a report back, Governor, as to
5 how much money actually we are spending in
6 D.C., because --
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Sure.
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Maybe --
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: We may actually have a
10 problem in our own particular office, General,
11 about the office space as well. It's pretty
12 full.
13 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Oh --
14 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: It is full.
15 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- yes, sir. I
16 understand that. And I'm not talking about the
17 facilities. I -- I'm talking about the
18 principle of one face of Florida in
19 Washington, D.C.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: We will get -- how about if
21 we do this: I'll get Nina Ovieda to come to
22 one of the next Cabinet meetings and give a
23 summary of the State's involvement in
24 Washington by different agencies, and give a
25 briefing on what she does as well.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 42
December 14, 1999
1 She's done it personally to you. But it'd
2 be nice to see the composite. And we can move
3 towards that over time in a -- in a -- in a
4 thoughtful way.
5 I appreciate your comments. In fact, this
6 is the most conversation we've had about
7 Administration Commission --
8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: It's a big one.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- item than --
10 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: In over
11 13 years.
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: We -- one of the
13 things we will have to take into consideration
14 when we do this is specialties that are needed
15 for certain things. And there are expertise
16 areas that need to be hired maybe on an interim
17 basis as opposed to a full-time basis when
18 needed, or those kinds of things.
19 So there's lots of things that fit into
20 this --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, contracting out
22 things doesn't necessarily mean that you -- you
23 can't work as a team.
24 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: That's right.
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Exactly.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 43
December 14, 1999
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: And that's the point.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: And one thing's
3 for sure, somebody ought to be coordinating
4 what the State of Florida is saying in all
5 aspects to Congress and to the agencies up
6 there. And that is -- that definitely isn't
7 happening.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Item -- Item 5.
9 MS. SARTIN: Item 5, request approval of a
10 transfer of appropriations to implement a
11 reorganization for the Department of Education.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a motion?
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
14 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Second.
16 Moved and seconded.
17 Without objection, it's approved.
18 MS. SARTIN: Item 6, request appropriation
19 of transfer of general revenue appropriations
20 for the Department of Elder Affairs.
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
22 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
24 Without objection, it's approved.
25 MS. SARTIN: Item 7, request approval of a
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 44
December 14, 1999
1 transfer of general revenue appropriations for
2 the City of Miami Financial Oversight Board.
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
5 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
7 Without objection, it's approved.
8 MS. SARTIN: Item 8, request approval of a
9 transfer of appropriations to implement a
10 reorganization for the Departments of Health
11 and Labor and Employment Security.
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
13 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
15 Without objection, it's approved.
16 MS. SARTIN: Item 9, request approval to
17 establish five new positions for the Department
18 of Legal Affairs.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
20 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
22 Without objection, it's approved.
23 MS. SARTIN: Item 10, request approval to
24 transfer general revenue appropriations to the
25 Department of Elder Affairs.
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 45
December 14, 1999
1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
2 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
4 Without objection, it's approved.
5 MS. SARTIN: Item 11 is request approval to
6 revise a rule pertaining to the Senior
7 Management Services for the Department of
8 Management Services.
9 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Motion.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
12 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I've got to make a
13 comment on this, too, Governor.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yep.
15 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: The -- I guess I
16 always have a problem with actions that favor
17 one group of people against another group of
18 people.
19 And particularly in this case, the highest
20 paid group of people are receiving this -- this
21 particular benefit. And -- and I guess really
22 my -- my hope is that we will try to recognize
23 the career service people and their salaries
24 and -- and with opportunities with
25 discretionary pay and recognize some of their
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 46
December 14, 1999
1 needs in terms of services such as dental care
2 and -- and medical care.
3 And so I -- I just -- I have a problem with
4 the -- with the principle here. And it bothers
5 me, and I just have to say it.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any other comments?
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, I understand
8 where General Milligan is coming from. I
9 happen to agree with him.
10 I asked for what the costs would be for us
11 to do this for all of our employees, and it's
12 about 51 million dollars annually. So it's a
13 number that the Legislature obviously would
14 have to -- to appropriate.
15 And I think that that's something that we
16 should find out if our career service employees
17 would be interested in it, and it should maybe
18 be something we look at.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a motion?
20 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: There has been
21 one --
22 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Made a motion --
23 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- and seconded.
24 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Yeah.
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: And there's a second,
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION 47
December 14, 1999
1 I'm sorry?
2 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: All in favor, say aye.
4 THE CABINET: Aye.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: All opposed?
6 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: No.
7 MS. SARTIN: Thank you.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
9 (The Administration Commission Agenda was
10 concluded.)
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ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS' AFFAIRS 48
December 14, 1999
1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Veterans' Affairs.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion --
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a motion?
4 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Motion.
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- on the minutes.
6 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
8 Without objection, it's approved.
9 Item 2.
10 MS. HIGGINS: Item 2 is the -- I request
11 acceptance of our quarterly report for the
12 first quarter of 1999-2000 fiscal year.
13 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Move it.
14 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
16 Without objection, it's approved.
17 MS. HIGGINS: And before I go on to Item 3,
18 I would like to thank you, Governor, and
19 General Milligan, and Commissioner Gallagher,
20 for all being there on Saturday for the
21 dedication of the Korean War Memorial.
22 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
23 MS. HIGGINS: We don't always all get a
24 chance to get together and thank so many
25 really -- really important people for what they
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS' AFFAIRS 49
December 14, 1999
1 have done.
2 And I've got to tell you that every veteran
3 I talked to since that time has been very, very
4 proud, and very pleased with the gift that we
5 were able to give them. So I thank you very
6 much.
7 As I go on to just tell you a little bit
8 about our budget, I'm going to try to be very
9 brief.
10 And I want to tell you, Governor, that I
11 will not be quoting Winston Churchill or
12 George Washington.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: It'll be a first then.
14 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Still leaves a lot
15 of people.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah.
17 MS. HIGGINS: Yes, sir, that's true.
18 As -- as you know, the -- this state has
19 1.7 million veterans. And, in fact, our
20 veterans population, unlike many of the other
21 states, is actually growing. And I think
22 during the -- during the census, we would be
23 able to point that out.
24 We have 600,000 World War II veterans
25 alone, and 300-- over 300,000 Korean war
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS' AFFAIRS 50
December 14, 1999
1 veterans. So we have about 1 million veterans
2 in the state of Florida. More than -- more
3 than half of our veterans population are over
4 the age of sixty-five.
5 So it becomes very clear that what we need
6 to do with our limited assets, and certainly
7 all the attention we can give them, is to look
8 to what are the needs of that aging veterans
9 population.
10 We currently have 407 people in
11 22 different locations around the state. Our
12 strategic issue is just one: Florida's
13 veterans, a major and growing sector of whom
14 are elderly, expect, deserve, and require
15 advocacy, healthcare, information, education,
16 and services to mitigate significant health and
17 economic threats.
18 We are a good deal for -- for the State.
19 Our budget comprises about one-half, or
20 somewhere less than 1 percent of Florida's
21 State budget. Much of that, this year
22 17.7 million dollars of that is self-generated,
23 and that is our trust funds, our Federal trust
24 funds.
25 We leverage in excess of 56 million dollars
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS' AFFAIRS 51
December 14, 1999
1 in direct Federal U.S. Department of
2 Veterans' Affairs benefit dollars.
3 Overall, our Benefits and Assistance
4 Division brings in 46 million dollars --
5 Federal dollars each year.
6 Each of our veterans claims examiners --
7 and we normally pay them about $36,000 a year
8 in salary -- each one of those brings in about
9 $734,000 annually for the veterans that we can
10 help.
11 We are in the process, as you know, of
12 building out to six veterans homes. When we do
13 that, we will have garnered more than 600 --
14 60 million dollars in Federal construction
15 funds alone. Each home brings in about
16 10 million dollars per home.
17 The homes themselves, of course, are a good
18 deal, as you know. The per diem rate for each
19 veteran in the -- in each home has been raised.
20 This last -- and -- I guess in October to
21 $51 per diem.
22 And, of course, because of that, and other
23 Federal benefits that we can accrue in the
24 homes significantly reduces the State's
25 healthcare costs while being a good deal for
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS' AFFAIRS 52
December 14, 1999
1 the veterans of Florida.
2 And except for the home -- except for the
3 homes, and our small Tallahassee office, the
4 rest of our employees are in Federal facilities
5 rent free and utilities paid. That equates to
6 about 11-- 11,500 square feet at a cost of
7 about 2-- a cost savings of about $231,000 a
8 year.
9 (Commissioner Crawford exited the room.)
10 MS. HIGGINS: Our Department has grown.
11 In -- ten years ago when the Department was
12 formed, we had about 50 people.
13 In 1991, because of the start of --
14 start-up of the homes pro-- building homes
15 program, we grew to about 149 employees.
16 We now have 407. And as we build three
17 more homes, we will grow again by half.
18 My budget basically consists of three -- of
19 some -- three cogent and overarching issues.
20 First of all, in 1991, 62 percent of the budget
21 was comprised of GR. Today, only 26 percent is
22 GR.
23 We're taking money out of our trust funds,
24 and we're becoming way too lean, and we can't
25 continue doing that.
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DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS' AFFAIRS 53
December 14, 1999
1 Secondly, we can't increase the size and
2 the scope of our Department four-fold without
3 some increase in administrative -- in
4 administrative and support capabilities in
5 order to support that growth, and make sure it
6 happens correctly.
7 And -- and the third issue is that we have
8 not received any general revenue funding for
9 any of our information resource management
10 improvements and upgrades in over --
11 (Commissioner Crawford entered the room.)
12 MS. HIGGINS: -- four years.
13 My goal when it comes to IRM, and I've said
14 this before, is to try to bring our Department
15 into the 20th century sometime before the
16 21st century.
17 Specifically, we are asking for 131 people
18 for the start-up of our third veterans nursing
19 home, which is now being built in
20 Broward County.
21 We're not asking for any -- any building
22 funds, construction funds, because that's all
23 happening right now. We expect to open this
24 home and be ready to accept residents in
25 Pembroke Pines in Broward County sometime
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1 during the winter of 2000.
2 We're asking for a small organizational
3 increase in -- in our administrative and
4 support staff of nine people. We're asking for
5 a few for benefits and assistance staff
6 increase.
7 We've got a huge backlog, as you know, in
8 Florida, and we're actually making some
9 inroads. And the Department of Veterans
10 Affairs, the U.S. Department of
11 Veterans' Affairs is working very closely in a
12 partnership. They're opening up more
13 outpatient clinics, community-based outpatient
14 clinics, and I'd like to be able to support
15 those outpatient clinics with some outreach of
16 our people.
17 We've got a request for -- for information
18 resources, management upgrades of about a half
19 a million dollars.
20 And two significant items relating to
21 World War II memorials that -- that people seem
22 to get confused about. One is I've asked for
23 $248,000, which is Florida's contribution to
24 the national World War II memorial being built
25 in Washington. $248,000 equates to $1 for
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1 every veteran who served in World War II,
2 during World War II.
3 We've -- we've kind of gotten a little
4 lucky on this one, because, as you know, we
5 have more than twice that many World War II
6 veterans living in the state now, which is a
7 testament to how wonderful our state is, and
8 how accommodating we are to our veterans.
9 We have the -- the National Memorial
10 Foundation is trying to get at such -- a like
11 kind of donation for each dollar for each
12 veteran from every state. I think more than
13 twice the states now have either done that, or
14 are submitting legislation to do that.
15 So that's one request.
16 The other is that we're moving forward on
17 planning and coming up with a time line for our
18 state World War II memorial. And although I
19 haven't asked for money to build that memorial
20 in this year's budget, I still think that's
21 probably premature.
22 I'm hoping that, when we come up with the
23 plan, that we can raise a lot of it, if not all
24 of it, through private corporate donations and
25 such.
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1 But we do need a little bit of money for
2 fund raising. And I think that was part of the
3 problem with the Korean War Memorial, is that
4 we were not able to use any money for fund
5 raising, and we just didn't raise the money
6 that I think that we can raise. So I've asked
7 for $12,000 to -- to raise that money.
8 As far as the capital improvement plan,
9 we're not asking for any money this year, or
10 authority to spend any money for the Broward
11 home. That's being built.
12 We are, in fact, asking for the -- the
13 one half of the 35 percent, that's the State's
14 share, for the next two veterans nursing homes.
15 We discussed that at a previous Cabinet
16 meeting. We're going to build one in north
17 Florida and one in southwest Florida.
18 That equates to about -- a little over
19 6 million dollars. We're requesting a little
20 bit -- bit of money for maintenance and repair
21 for -- as part of our master plan, and for
22 emergency repairs in the already existing
23 homes.
24 And that's about it. If you have -- if you
25 have any questions, I'll be glad --
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any questions?
2 MS. HIGGINS: -- to answer them.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a motion?
4 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I move it.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Second.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: All in favor, say aye.
8 THE CABINET: Aye.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: I withhold my vote as
10 Governor in order to make my own budget
11 recommendation.
12 Thank you, Robin.
13 MS. HIGGINS: Thank you, gentlemen.
14 (The Department of Veterans' Affairs Agenda
15 was concluded.)
16 * * *
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Secretary Struhs.
2 MR. STRUHS: Good morning, gentlemen.
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on the
4 minutes.
5 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
7 Without objection, it's approved.
8 Item 2.
9 MR. STRUHS: Recommending a deferral on
10 Item 2.
11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to defer.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
13 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded to
15 defer.
16 Without objection, it's approved.
17 MR. STRUHS: Recommending approval of
18 Item 3 subject to special lease conditions and
19 a lease payment of $7,784.
20 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Move Item 3.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
22 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
23 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
25 Without objection, it's approved.
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1 MR. STRUHS: Item Number 4, gentlemen, is
2 an interesting situation. I have studied it
3 personally and have concluded that it is in
4 many respects a -- a dispute among neighbors.
5 What makes this one interesting though is
6 that one of the neighbors happens to be the
7 United States Government. And I'd like to just
8 give you a little background on it.
9 Florida citizen, Mr. Gerry Beaumont, lives
10 on the St. Johns tidal creek, and he has been
11 working to get the Jacksonville Port Authority
12 to dredge that creek. That is something that
13 the Port Authority is happy and willing to do.
14 However, the other abutter is the National
15 Park Service, who owns and operates the
16 Fort Caroline National Monument. The National
17 Park Service opposes the dredging of this tidal
18 creek.
19 We have determined that, from an
20 environmental perspective, strictly speaking,
21 that dredging the creek as planned would cause
22 no important environmental damage.
23 However, our rules, the DEP rules that we
24 have adopted, require us to recommend a denial
25 whenever one of the riparian property owners,
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1 in this case, the National Park Service,
2 opposes the dredging.
3 So our -- our proposal -- or recommendation
4 is to deny, but, in fact, that's just something
5 that's required by our own rules, and the
6 decision is really in your hands.
7 With that as background, we have a number
8 of speakers. Barbara Goodman is here from the
9 National Park Service who manages that
10 property. And then we also have
11 Mr. Anthony Orsini, and -- from -- from the
12 Jacksonville Port Authority; and then
13 Mr. Beaumont, in that order.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good morning.
15 MS. GOODMAN: Good morning, and thank you
16 for giving me the opportunity to speak here.
17 My name is Barbara Goodman. I am the
18 Superintendent of the Timucuan Ecological and
19 Historic Preserve. The Fort Caroline National
20 Memorial is a -- one small part of the broader
21 46,000 acre preserve, of which this creek is
22 inside.
23 It's located next to National Park Service
24 lands, but it's also within the -- the broader
25 context of this larger preserve, and is
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1 designated as outstanding waters.
2 I am charged with protecting these
3 resources in such a manner, and by such means
4 as leaves them unimpaired for future
5 generations.
6 That's important to say because that is our
7 whole purpose for being there. And we have a
8 wonderful interface between natural resources
9 and the urban existence in the Timucuan
10 preserve.
11 Governor, you were there when you signed
12 the Florida Forever legislation. You saw what
13 a wonderful integration we have going.
14 But it's also a very delicate balance. And
15 in order to protect that balance, it's critical
16 that we are very careful to not manipulate the
17 environment, unless there is strong scientific
18 reason to manipulate.
19 The previous speaker commented that they
20 could find that there would not be damage if
21 they did. But the other side of that is there
22 needs to be reason to do it.
23 The National Park Service does not believe
24 that there is sufficient scientific data to
25 support the dredging of this creek.
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1 We base this on the fact that at this time,
2 the creek is healthy and functioning; there
3 exists several species of birds, fish,
4 invertebrates; there is positive flushing
5 action; and the surrounding marshlands are
6 healthy.
7 There is some contention that the creek has
8 gotten worse over time, and we do not agree
9 with that statement. This is a small, shallow
10 creek, and has had very low water at low tide
11 for many, many years.
12 And please understand that just by --
13 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
14 MS. GOODMAN: -- being shallow, that is not
15 a reason to dredge.
16 In 1977, during a study from the original
17 permit request, it was found, and I'll quote
18 from that: That at near low tide in the creek
19 in the area of the bridge revealed the creek to
20 be virtually teeming with aquatic life. This
21 reflects the healthy, stable condition of the
22 marsh at that time, and demonstrates that it
23 constitutes a valuable biological resource.
24 The current DEP officials state that there
25 is little change in the creek from that time.
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1 The shoaling and the creek sedimentation is
2 a natural process. Hydrographic studies
3 indicate that dredging would not increase water
4 velocity. Therefore, the shoaling at the mouth
5 of the creek would continue, as would the
6 natural process of sedimentation, meaning that
7 once dredged, the natural siltation process
8 would just begin again.
9 The National Park Service has, over the
10 course of this dialogue, identified many
11 questions and concerns regarding this dredge.
12 But most importantly, we find no reason and no
13 benefit to the dredge.
14 It is not biologically necessary to do it.
15 And it is NPS policy to not try and fix
16 something that doesn't need fixing.
17 Others have claimed that damage has been
18 done to the creek as a result of spoil being
19 deposited nearby.
20 The fact that the creek is healthy and
21 functioning now indicates that, if damage was
22 done in the past, that time has healed those
23 wounds.
24 Every scientist who has visited and looked
25 at the creek in its current state has agreed
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1 that the creek is currently healthy and
2 functioning.
3 Therefore, the National Park Service
4 requests that, based on our riparian rights,
5 and as professionals in the business of
6 managing and protecting public lands, that it
7 is in the interest of the broadest public to
8 deny this request to dredge.
9 Thank you.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
11 MR. ORSINI: Governor Bush, members of the
12 Cabinet, thank you very much for allowing me
13 the opportunity to speak this morning.
14 I represent the Jacksonville
15 Port Authority. I am their Director of Marine
16 Engineering and Construction.
17 And to start off with, I want to restate
18 the position of this small tributary. It -- it
19 runs north and south from the St. Johns River
20 to the -- to the tidal marshes of Chicopit Bay.
21 It is bordered on the east by Buck Island,
22 which is a spoil deposit island; and bordered
23 on the west by a residential community of
24 St. Johns Bluff and the National Park Service.
25 I would presume that the first question in
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1 your mind is why is the Jacksonville
2 Port Authority interested in this, because it
3 is -- it is not a navigable waterway, it won't
4 be a navigable waterway after the dredge, it
5 has no commercial impact on the City of
6 Jacksonville or northeast Florida.
7 And the number one answer of that question
8 is, in our view, it is the right thing to do.
9 The Jacksonville Port Authority has
10 conceded that over the years, beginning back as
11 far as 1940, the Corps of Engineers has been
12 using Buck Island as a depository for -- for
13 dredge spoil.
14 Over the years, the -- the pumping of
15 dredge spoil onto this island was done without
16 benefit of any retainage dikes. And up until
17 the year 1987 when the state of Florida bought
18 the island, and then the Jacksonville
19 Port Authority became managers of that island,
20 still material was being put on this island
21 without benefit of substantial dikes.
22 And the residents there can -- can point to
23 events where the dikes were breached, they were
24 overflowed, and material flowed into this
25 little tidal creek.
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1 The -- one of the biggest culprits in what
2 we view as the -- as the siltation of this
3 creek is a bridge. There was a bridge
4 installed by the original developers of the
5 island. The bridge was made of some old --
6 well, what appears to be railroad timbers.
7 It -- the timbers were separated, it had
8 no -- no side boards on it, and if you had made
9 that bridge out of speed bumps, you couldn't
10 have made it anything more rough to travel
11 over.
12 Well, since the sand in Buck Island is a
13 natural resource and is -- can be used for
14 public projects, the extension of State Road
15 9-A around the east of Jacksonville used
16 about -- about 2 million yards of sand out of
17 Buck Island, and truckers were taking this sand
18 out.
19 Since the truckers were paying only a small
20 access fee to the island to the Port Authority,
21 and they were paying per truck, it was to their
22 advantage to put as much sand into these trucks
23 as they possibly could.
24 They put additional side boards up on the
25 side of the trucks, the backhoes loaded the
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1 truck up with as much sand as it could hold,
2 and then it would bounce across this washboard
3 bridge.
4 And as it did, it would drop sand off these
5 trucks, onto the bridge, off of the bridge, and
6 into the creek. I've seen that myself.
7 The Port Authority recognizing this, we
8 budgeted for a new bridge, and did install a
9 new concrete modern bridge with nice
10 side boards on it to keep anything from falling
11 into the creek, but the damage had already been
12 done.
13 We had documented since 1991, there had
14 been over 30,000 truck trips one way carrying
15 sand off that island and depositing sand into
16 this creek.
17 The results of all this activity,
18 of course, were brought to us by -- by the
19 residents of -- of the Bluff. And our Board of
20 Directors of the Jacksonville Port Authority,
21 after listening to the evidence presented to
22 them, agreed that this was a responsibility
23 that we owed to the residents and to the
24 environment, and budgeted precious capital
25 funds to dredge this creek and restore it back
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1 to its original condition.
2 So here we are. We have accomplished all
3 that the State law has required of us. The
4 initial objections of the Park Service was that
5 they were concerned that this dredge would
6 possibly hurt the monument, the
7 Ribault Monument, which sits on a high bluff
8 above this creek.
9 And hearing that, I sent engineers and
10 geologists out there to take a look at it. The
11 Port Authority was willing to add reinforcement
12 to this Ribault Monument bluff, if necessary.
13 My engineers came back and said, nope,
14 there was -- was no possibility that this
15 dredge would affect the bluff. It couldn't
16 happen. Physical impossibility. So that was
17 reported and went away.
18 The next objection that I heard was that we
19 were going to damage the shoreline vegetation.
20 Well, we revised the dredging plan to eliminate
21 any dredging anywhere near the shoreline
22 vegetation. And, of course, the last objection
23 is that there's no scientific data that the
24 sand in the creek was put there by man.
25 Well, again, we sent the engineers and
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1 geologists out, and I gave them instructions to
2 find out where the sand came from. And their
3 response to us was that, well, Port Authority
4 would love to take your money, but the plain
5 fact is that the sand that's in the creek is
6 the same sand that's in the river, is -- it's
7 the same sand that's in the Buck Island, and
8 the same sand that's on the bluff, and there's
9 just no scientific way of proving where that
10 sand came from. It's here.
11 But where it came from is -- it's not
12 feasible to -- to prove that.
13 So I -- I submit to -- to you, Governor,
14 and to your Commissioners, that the proof is in
15 the eye of the public and the -- and the
16 residents who live along that bluff.
17 We have 15 residents along the bluff -- or
18 15 property owners that -- 14 of which are in
19 support of this project, and have given their
20 consent of riparian rights. The Park Service
21 has withheld theirs for the reasons they have
22 stated.
23 So we feel that we've done all that -- that
24 the law has required of us, there are no
25 environmental impacts to this project. It is
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1 judged clearly in the public interest by the
2 Department of Environmental Protection. And we
3 look forward to restoring this creek back to
4 its original condition.
5 And I ask that this -- this body approve
6 the permit and allow us to perform the project.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
8 MR. ORSINI: Thank you.
9 MR. STRUHS: Mr. Beaumont.
10 MR. BEAUMONT: Good morning. I'm
11 Gerald Beaumont, and I -- I've been -- to
12 represent the people on St. Johns Creek. They
13 appointed me because I'm the oldest and been
14 out there the longest, and have had witness to
15 this thing.
16 St. Johns Creek is not healthy. How can it
17 be healthy when at low tide, you look down
18 there, and there -- you see sand and no water
19 in the creek?
20 Now, the -- we live on the creek. There's
21 no Park Ranger that lives on the creek.
22 In fact, if you go up the Ribault Monument, you
23 only see the river, you don't even see the
24 creek. So we have witnessed this over the
25 years.
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1 Before the Barbara Goodman administration
2 came here, they were dredging without dikes,
3 and we could visibly see the -- the filtration
4 of the sand into the creek. You know it comes
5 out in liquid sand when they dredge, tons and
6 tons of it, and it spreads everywhere. And we
7 have witnessed that.
8 We -- we live down the creek all the time,
9 the Park Service doesn't. We saw the trucks go
10 over the bridge and bounce the sand into the
11 creek.
12 The reason we wanted water in the creek,
13 because we bought property out there. It
14 wasn't our fault. We look down there, and
15 we're disgusted to see sand there.
16 Now, when there was water in the creek
17 at -- at low tide, there were thousands of
18 mullet swimming down the creek. And because
19 there were a lot of fish there, there were a
20 lot of birds, and the ospreys would be flying
21 up and down. It was just beautiful.
22 But -- but now there's only a few fish, a
23 few birds. We want it restored. All the
24 people out there, they have written letters,
25 they -- they've requested restoration of the
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1 creek.
2 Now, I'm an environmentalist. I was
3 Chairman of the Nature Conservancy in
4 Jacksonville for many, many years. And I was
5 Chairman when we gave the Roosevelt Preserve to
6 the National Park Service with the provision
7 that they keep it in its natural state, no
8 buildings, no roads, or anything else.
9 And I'm amazed that they don't want to
10 restore that beautiful creek the way it was --
11 the way God created it.
12 So we are pleading with you to restore that
13 creek the way God created it.
14 Are there any questions?
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
16 Any other speakers, Secretary Struhs?
17 MR. STRUHS: That concludes the speakers,
18 sir.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Explain to me the rule, if
20 you could, that requires you to deny but --
21 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- allows you the qualifier
23 for us to overrule it. I'm -- I'm a little --
24 MR. STRUHS: Well --
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- confused by that.
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1 MR. STRUHS: Well --
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Governor, what --
3 what I would like to put on the table for
4 discussion would be a motion that would approve
5 this as soon as the National Park Service signs
6 off on it.
7 And he can address that also, if he would.
8 MR. STRUHS: The -- the DEP rules which
9 govern our --
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: We'll come back to you,
11 Commissioner.
12 MR. STRUHS: -- the DEP rules that govern
13 our responsibilities to the Cabinet require us
14 to recommend a denial in the event that there
15 is a riparian owner who objects to a proposal.
16 And in this case, that owner is the
17 National Park Service. So our -- our rules are
18 that we have to recommend the denial.
19 In fact, the decision is yours. And you do
20 not --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
22 MR. STRUHS: -- as you know, have to accept
23 any --
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: I misunderstood.
25 MR. STRUHS: -- of our recommendations.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: I thought you said that
2 we -- the rules required you -- for us --
3 required us to deny --
4 MR. STRUHS: No, sir. No. You --
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: It's for your
6 recommendation.
7 MR. STRUHS: The Trustees have complete
8 latitude in making any decision they want. I
9 just wanted to point out that --
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
11 MR. STRUHS: -- our recommendation of
12 denial is -- is based on rule.
13 In fact, it's a close call. It could go
14 either way. We don't think there's any
15 significant environmental damage from going
16 forward with the project.
17 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Oh, then I might
18 change my motion to approve it.
19 In fact, I will change it to -- I move to
20 approve it.
21 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion to
23 approve, and a second.
24 Any other comments?
25 Generals?
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1 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: No.
2 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: (Shaking head.)
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: All in favor, say aye.
4 THE CABINET: Aye.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: All opposed.
6 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: No.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: No.
8 So --
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: It fails.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- it fails.
11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: How about if I try
12 my other motion that it -- we approve it based
13 on the National Park Service changing their
14 objection?
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: I would second that.
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay. But
17 you can't. You're Governor.
18 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: I'll second it for
19 you.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Hint, hint.
21 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion to I guess
23 give a contingent approval subject to signing
24 off by the --
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- National Park
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1 Service.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- National Park Service.
3 And there's a second.
4 All in favor, say aye.
5 THE CABINET: Aye.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: All opposed?
7 Thank you.
8 MR. STRUHS: Thank you.
9 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I knew my first
10 idea was the best one.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: It was a good idea.
12 MR. STRUHS: Substitute Item Number 5 deals
13 with the issues of deadhead logging in the
14 state of Florida.
15 One year ago the Department promised the
16 Trustees a report. You should have a copy of
17 that report, which is a two-page summary of all
18 the individuals in Florida currently permitted
19 to engage in deadhead logging. So we have met
20 that initial obligation.
21 During the course of the last year, the
22 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service --
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Could I have everybody's --
24 can we all be a little more quiet?
25 The Governor's a little hard of hearing.
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1 MR. STRUHS: We've met that obligation in
2 providing you the report, which you have all
3 seen.
4 During the course of the year, we've
5 received complaints or concerns by the
6 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, by a number of
7 environmental organizations, and by some
8 fishermen suggesting that the deadhead logging
9 that's going on is currently causing some
10 damage, specifically to recreational fishing,
11 and to protected muscle species that --
12 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
13 MR. STRUHS: -- live on the banks of some
14 Florida rivers.
15 Based on that, this item recommends, in
16 addition to your acceptance of our report, the
17 imposition of a four-month moratorium which
18 would extend until April 25th of the year 2000
19 on the issuance of any new permits for deadhead
20 logging.
21 And, thirdly, to limit existing permits to
22 already authorized logging areas.
23 I might point out for
24 Commissioner Crawford's benefit, that while not
25 a specific part of this agenda item, we have
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1 moved to designate the Blackwater River State
2 Forest, and add that to the prohibited areas
3 list.
4 So with that, we do have a -- quite a few
5 number of speakers who want to address this. I
6 would suggest that, given the number, and given
7 the fact that some of them are from the same
8 organizations, we limit the comments to no more
9 than -- than 2 minutes a piece.
10 And if I could just introduce them one by
11 one.
12 Mr. Larry Welch.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: And as we move forward,
14 if -- if people have already said it, and
15 you -- you don't think you can say it better
16 than the way it was said before, consider it
17 said.
18 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: And if you'll give
19 the list -- sort of go down four or five
20 names --
21 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Well said,
22 Governor.
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- so they can
24 wait in line to speak, it would make -- save
25 some time.
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1 MR. STRUHS: I'm sorry.
2 Thank you, Commissioner.
3 The order will be Mr. Welch, Mr. Fuller,
4 Ms. Gengenbach, Mr. Draper, Mr. Reid, Mr. Ard,
5 Mr. Townsend.
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: If you all will
7 sort of move on up here slowly, that'll save
8 quite a bit of time.
9 Thank you.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good morning.
11 MR. WELCH: Good morning.
12 I'm Larry Welch from Crestview, Florida,
13 located in Okaloosa County. And I'm here to
14 express concern regarding activities of
15 deadheaders in the Florida rivers, and seek
16 reversal of the permit --
17 (Governor Bush exited the room.)
18 MR. WELCH: -- which allows removal of
19 precut timber from these rivers; or at a
20 minimum, enforce the conditions of said permit.
21 The following pages -- which you have a
22 packet -- the following pages present
23 photographic evidence that deadheaders are
24 illegally taking logs from Yellow, Blackwater,
25 and Choctawhatchee Rivers in northwest Florida.
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1 Preceding each group of the pictures is a
2 map of the section of each river from -- the
3 logs were taken. Evidence suggests that all
4 permitted rivers are receiving the same
5 treatment.
6 Item Number 5 of specific conditions of the
7 permit in question states recovery of
8 dead fall, storm falls, or any naturally
9 occurring timber on submerged lands is
10 prohibited.
11 Item Number 9, recovery of deadheads is
12 restricted to 10 to 15 feet waterward of steep
13 banks along the outside bends of the river.
14 Item Number 10, recovery of deadheads
15 imbedded within the banks of the river is
16 prohibited.
17 All the following pictures represent
18 blatant violations of the above-stated
19 conditions, and should be enforced.
20 It should also be noted that they represent
21 only a very small percentage of the many miles
22 of affected rivers.
23 It appears that the Department of
24 Environmental Protection has neither the
25 manpower nor proper equipment to enforce the
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1 very permit for which they lobbied.
2 The main concern of the fishing public is
3 this provision --
4 (Governor Bush entered the room.)
5 MR. WELCH: -- destroys fish habitat. When
6 each piece of wood debris is removed, it is
7 replaced by sand, therefore, no fish can
8 survive.
9 A prime example of this is the log jam on
10 Yellow River which was producing fish for over
11 50 years as verified by Harold King, a lifelong
12 resident. This log jam no longer exists. It
13 was pulled from the steep river bank bend, and
14 what is left of it now lies across the river on
15 the sandbar.
16 The revised proposed reports wants
17 additional scientific investigations on the
18 environmental impact of recovery, and
19 importance of deadheads to the ecosystem.
20 I've included one such report prepared by
21 the Florida DEP. It references many other
22 already completed studies on the removal of
23 deadheads. All state the importance of leaving
24 them alone, not only for the fish, endangered
25 species, but the very life of the rivers.
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1 Are we going to let private enterprise
2 remove the woody debris from the already
3 starved rivers, and let taxpayers replace them
4 as DEP recommends?
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, sir.
6 MR. WELCH: Thank you.
7 MR. FULLER: Governor and Cabinet, I'm
8 Manley Fuller representing the Florida Wildlife
9 Federation.
10 We have concerns about removal of the
11 deadhead logs from the -- from the rivers in
12 the state. We've expressed -- expressed these
13 previously to the Secretary.
14 We share the concerns of the gentleman who
15 just preceded -- preceded me. We would --
16 regarding your recommended agenda item, we
17 would suggest consideration of -- of a -- some
18 additional conditions.
19 While the -- we'd like to participate in
20 the working group that the -- that is
21 envisioned by the proposed agenda item, so that
22 the issues of fisheries habitat can be fully
23 addressed and enforcement, et cetera, which
24 are -- we think are valid questions.
25 But -- but from a practical standpoint on
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1 the ongoing permitted operations, we would
2 suggest, and have -- and I've spoken with
3 Mr. Ard, who's counsel for some of the deadhead
4 loggers, that a practice be added or a
5 condition be added to the activity that -- such
6 as is practiced with dredge and fill permits,
7 or construction permits where the permit is
8 actually posted above -- upstream and
9 downstream of the activity so that the public
10 going up and down the stream can tell whether
11 or not this has been a permitted activity; the
12 number -- the phone number, et cetera, of the
13 Department if there's a question; and the
14 actual -- the actual permit is shown so, if
15 anyone wants to get out and look at the permit
16 and see whether the activity is allowed or not,
17 this would -- would suggest within 100 yards of
18 the activity.
19 We think that that would allow for a -- the
20 concerned member of the public to -- to check
21 it out.
22 And then also with that -- with -- absent
23 those posted permits, then one could eas-- one
24 could assume that the activity was in
25 violation. We think that this might facilitate
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1 enforcement while the -- while the review of
2 the activity and the working group goes
3 forward.
4 Also Mr. Ard indicated last week that, for
5 his clients, he informs the Department weekly
6 of where they'll be conducting the activities
7 so that -- that this would allow -- this might
8 make enforcement or review of whether permit
9 conditions are being met easier. We think that
10 that should be applied statewide to other
11 extractors.
12 So we're -- we think that there is -- we
13 think that there is legal and habitat issues
14 that should be addressed. We'd like to see an
15 increased involvement of the Fish and Wildlife
16 Conservation Commission with the Department in
17 addressing this issue, and we look forward to
18 be -- participating in that working group.
19 Thank you.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Manley.
21 MS. GENGENBACH: Good morning. I'm
22 Marianne Gengenbach with the
23 Nature Conservancy.
24 I'd like to say that we're pleased to see
25 this modified proposal out here calling for the
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1 moratorium, while new recommendations are
2 created. We do think there are conditions
3 under which this practice can be permitted
4 and -- without causing damage, and that we can
5 come to some kind of solution. We look forward
6 to being part of that process.
7 We're also heartened to see that the
8 proposal seems to call for some increased
9 monitoring during that time, because it was --
10 some of our scientific folks that work with the
11 gulf coastal ecosystem partnership that have
12 noted what appears to be either continued
13 illegal activity, or violations of existing
14 permits.
15 We do want to reiterate that we have six
16 basic concerns that we hope are addressed
17 during the process of developing the new
18 recommendations.
19 First of all, we think it's very important
20 to have careful and adequate monitoring before
21 and after the practices of deadhead logging to
22 assure that habitat for endangered species is
23 not harmed.
24 We also think it's important to take into
25 account that the percentage of woody debris in
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1 these rivers not only affects the biology, but
2 also the physical characteristics of these
3 streams, and that's important to the ecosystem.
4 Third, there are different types of rivers,
5 and some rivers are not suited, I think we'll
6 find, for the practice of deadhead logging.
7 The different types of rivers are subject to
8 sedimentation problems where deadhead logging
9 could cause serious further damage.
10 Fourth, we think it's important to
11 recognize differences in system health within
12 sections of rivers themselves, and tighten up
13 those areas where there should be no deadhead
14 logging.
15 Fifth, we think that it's important to
16 recognize the impact that other types of
17 problems on these rivers can have on the
18 deadhead logging impact. For example, if
19 there's already a lot of soil erosion going on,
20 then deadhead logging can have a further
21 detrimental effect.
22 And finally, we think that it's very
23 important to look very closely at the proposed
24 mitigation recommendations because of the fact
25 that we're not exactly sure that replacing
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1 something that's not very old and deteriorates
2 a lot faster is going to provide the same
3 biological function as the current deadheads do
4 for the ecosystem.
5 Now, inherent in these concerns is the fact
6 that we think that this study conducted over
7 the next few months is likely to yield
8 information that renders certain rivers or
9 certain sections of rivers as being unsuitable
10 for this practice.
11 And since current permits are being allowed
12 to continue during this moratorium, we would
13 very much urge that this process be expedited
14 so the recommendations can be put in place
15 quickly, because we really don't want
16 irreversible damage to occur on those rivers
17 where there's practices unsuitable.
18 Thank you.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
20 MR. DRAPER: Good morning. My name is
21 Eric Draper. I'm representing the combined
22 Audubon societies.
23 I'm here to --
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: What's your new name going
25 to be?
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1 What's the new name going to be?
2 MR. DRAPER: Now, that's putting me on the
3 spot.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, never mind then.
5 We'll -- we'll catch you next --
6 MR. DRAPER: How about Combined Audubon
7 Societies? I'm going to let Stuart Charles
8 continue to arm wrestle over that one.
9 Whoever we are, we would prefer that the
10 practice of recovering deadhead timbers be
11 ended on the basis of the DEP report, which
12 finds that the practice has a negative effect
13 on fish and wildlife.
14 Nevertheless, we support the amended item
15 of accepting the report and placing a
16 moratorium on new permits, and those permits
17 without regulatory approval for a four-month
18 period.
19 We'll work with the Department to -- to
20 come up with some additional restrictions on
21 how this practice could be used in a way that
22 is completely protective of the environment
23 during that interim period.
24 Thank you.
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
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1 Good morning.
2 MR. REID: Good morning, sir.
3 Thank you for inviting us.
4 I'm Bob Reid. I'm a conservation officer
5 of the Choctawhatchee Audubon Society. I do
6 know our name.
7 I -- our Board met two days ago, and have
8 asked me to come over and express the position
9 of Choctawhatchee Audubon.
10 Choctawhatchee Audubon is a -- comprised of
11 more than 600 families and individuals in
12 Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, and Walton Counties.
13 Every indication suggests that extracting
14 these deadhead logs is doing serious damage to
15 our streams. This would be true, even if the
16 permit conditions were being stringently met.
17 But they're not.
18 In absence of on-site monitoring, permit
19 violations have become commonplace. I've
20 personally seen where logs were extracted from
21 stream banks and river bends, and within 10 to
22 15 feet of the shoreline, sites specifically
23 prohibited are made off limits by terms of the
24 permit. I believe you've seen the photos that
25 support this.
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1 But even if the violations were halted --
2 if all violations were halted, damage is still
3 being done to the ecosystem. How much, nobody
4 knows.
5 To my knowledge, no survey has determined
6 how many logs exist in which streams. We
7 really have no idea of the magnitude of the
8 issue because it's only after the fact that
9 loggers report to you how many logs they've
10 recovered.
11 Studies like that done by DEP aquatic
12 biologist Donald Ray show very high value in
13 leaving deadhead logs as they are. To mitigate
14 the loss of what have become permanent fixtures
15 in our streams, DEP now proposes to replace
16 extracted deadheads with woody debris.
17 As a practicing forester with 50 years
18 experience in the wood, I have experience with
19 disposing of tree tops and limbs.
20 Such debris is remarkably short-lived.
21 While a solid chunk of heart pine embedded in a
22 stream bed can remain intact for hundreds of
23 years, the pithy tops and limbs proposed for
24 mitigation will rot away in less than a decade.
25 Since science shows our streams are already
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1 deficient in woody matter -- I'm talking about
2 the streams of northwest Florida -- what do we
3 propose to do ten years from now when the
4 debris we toss in today has rotted away? Does
5 it become the taxpayers' perpetual
6 responsibility?
7 Some argue that despite there having
8 been -- their having been there many human
9 generations, the presence of these logs
10 constitutes an unnatural condition in our
11 streams. I agree.
12 But merely pulling them out can in no way
13 restore a preEuropean condition. There's a lot
14 more sediment today, especially in non-alluvial
15 streams, like our Blackwater streams.
16 Deadheads help form eddy pools in what are
17 otherwise mostly sterile, sandy bottoms. It's
18 in these eddy pools and around these logs that
19 the critters congregate. Just ask any
20 fisherman.
21 These original growth deadhead logs date
22 from another era. No one in this room put them
23 there. They were abandoned as lost property
24 100 years ago, and most I've seen do not have
25 obvious identifiable brands or marks.
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1 I've read the Attorney General's 1996 legal
2 opinion as to their ownership, and it certainly
3 appears such logs should belong to the State.
4 No question they do have a high market
5 value. But I believe they have an even higher
6 market val-- a higher value to the State left
7 where they are.
8 Why don't we leave these irreplaceable logs
9 in situ for now and clarify their ownership in
10 the courts. If the judge says these loggers
11 have a propriety interest, the State should
12 consider buying that interest from them, which
13 brings us back to the issue of illegal deadhead
14 logging.
15 It was an acknowledged inability on the
16 part of the State to control such illegal
17 activity that led to the permit system in the
18 first place. We believe admitting defeat is
19 not a proper response.
20 In the best interest of healthy Florida
21 streams, we urge you to direct an immediate
22 halt to all deadhead logging, clarify or obtain
23 legal State ownership of all such logs, provide
24 enforcement to curtail illegal log harvest, and
25 publicize the policy so private citizens will
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1 again become watchful monitors for illegal
2 activity.
3 Thank you.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
5 MR. ARD: Good morning, Governor, members
6 of the Cabinet. My name is Sam Ard. I'm
7 representing River Bend Lumber Company.
8 River Bend Lumber Company is -- is -- has a
9 permit to operate on the Yellow River.
10 We did not get our permit until September.
11 Since September in complying with the permit,
12 when -- when you float a log at the -- they
13 will not allow it to bump on the bottom. So we
14 do not have enough water to really float the
15 log yet. There's only been two days where we
16 were able to actually remove logs from the
17 river.
18 There is -- there is quite a few logs out
19 there. And what -- the point that I would like
20 to -- for you to consider is this:
21 It is not a natural condition, anymore than
22 mining limestone up the hill and taking it and
23 dropping it into the river, too.
24 What has happened was when -- when the
25 state -- when the state was clear cut between
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1 1880 and 1920, longleaf pine were taken from
2 the hills, they were -- you tried to float them
3 down the river to get to the mill, they were
4 very dense, very heavy, and they sank.
5 And the longleaf pine is not -- does not
6 grow on a riverbank. I can't imagine the storm
7 it would take to take these pines off the hill,
8 remove the limbs, basic-- and roots, basically
9 make them look like a utility pole, and then
10 lay them in the river.
11 And typically how they sank is one end
12 would get heavy, hang on the bottom, it would
13 swing with the current, and sink longitudinally
14 in the river. They're not hollow, most of them
15 do not have bark. But the -- the wood does
16 have a very high value.
17 And we support the agreement that you have
18 before you, the -- the item, and I'll be glad
19 to answer any questions.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Sam.
21 MR. ARD: Thank you.
22 MR. TOWNSEND: Good morning, Governor and
23 Cabinet. My name is John Townsend. I'm an
24 attorney in Fort Walton Beach. I'm here on
25 behalf of River Bend Trading Company, Inc., who
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1 holds permits in the Blackwater and
2 Yellow Rivers in the panhandle.
3 While we do not necessarily agree with all
4 the information that's been presented to
5 your -- your Aides from various speakers, or
6 here this morning, I'm not going to go into
7 refuting those for you today. Suffice it to
8 say that we rise in support of the
9 recommendation before you.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
11 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Governor --
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.
13 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- a quick question.
14 Is --
15 For the attorney that just spoke.
16 Either one of you actually.
17 The suggestion by Fuller that you put some
18 visible posting of the permit upstream and
19 downstream, is that a -- a feasible thing?
20 MR. TOWNSEND: Yes. We've spoken about
21 that, and we have no problem. In fact, my
22 clients wholeheartedly endorse that.
23 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Okay.
24 MR. ARD: Same here, General.
25 And also we understand that Commissioner
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1 Crawford would like to see some type best
2 management practices for this, and we'll be
3 glad to make that a part of it. We think it's
4 a good idea.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any other comments?
6 Commissioner.
7 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Well, I guess --
8 Governor -- I -- I'd like to move the staff
9 recommendation, and just add a -- some
10 additional language that kind of incorporates
11 the spirit of what I think David is moving
12 anyway, we've done in forestry, put together
13 the best management practices kind of in a
14 formal basis.
15 And I'd like to move that -- move the item
16 with the additional caveat that DEP establish a
17 working group that includes -- but not limited
18 to -- the Division of Forestry and the Florida
19 Fish and Wildlife Commission.
20 This working group will be responsible for
21 identifying best management practices for
22 removal of precut timber and mitigation.
23 This working group should also design and
24 recommend a procedure for educational programs
25 that loggers would need to complete as a
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1 condition of -- of the user permit.
2 So with that, which I think -- I think the
3 Department's okay with that, and it kind of
4 says a lot about what you're doing anyway.
5 And -- but I think it kind of clarifies it
6 some.
7 I'd move that.
8 MR. STRUHS: Thank you.
9 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Second.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a motion -- a
11 second?
12 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Could I, Governor,
13 add an --
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Please.
15 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- amendment to
16 that?
17 I think the idea suggested by Fuller, and
18 agreed to by at least the representatives of
19 the industry here, to put the posted -- post
20 the permits --
21 MR. STRUHS: Uh-hum.
22 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- on either side of
23 the operating -- you know, permitted area would
24 serve, I think, to allow citizens to have a
25 better opportunity to monitor.
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1 So with that addition, I --
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I'll second that.
3 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- I'd like to amend
4 it.
5 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: I'd accept that to
6 the -- as an amendment to the --
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: There is a motion with two
8 amendments.
9 There's a second.
10 All in favor, say aye.
11 THE CABINET: Aye.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: All opposed?
13 Thank you.
14 MR. STRUHS: Thank you.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Item 6.
16 MR. STRUHS: We recommend approval of Item
17 Number 6, which is the acquisition of a --
18 assignment of an option agreement to acquire
19 363 acres in the Perdido Pitcher Plant Prairie.
20 It's a part of the CARL project, in cooperation
21 with the Nature Conservancy.
22 And I would point out that this acquisition
23 is for 70 percent of the appraised value.
24 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion --
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: You should point that out.
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 6.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
3 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
5 Without objection, it's approved.
6 MR. STRUHS: Item Number --
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Congratulations on the
8 70 percent thing.
9 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Maybe we can start
10 averaging these things, you know, 70 below,
11 10 above.
12 MR. STRUHS: No, sir.
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: That's sort of how
14 we do it. We buy high, and sell low.
15 MR. STRUHS: As a -- Item Number 7, we
16 recommend approval.
17 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 7.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
19 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
21 Without objection, it's approved.
22 MR. STRUHS: Item Number 8, recommend
23 approval.
24 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 8.
25 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
2 Moved and seconded.
3 Without objection, it's approved.
4 MR. STRUHS: Item Number 9, recommend
5 approval.
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 9.
7 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
8 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
10 Without objection, it's approved.
11 MR. STRUHS: Item Number 10, we recommend
12 approval.
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to approve.
14 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
16 Without objection, it's approved.
17 MR. STRUHS: Item Number 11, we recommend
18 approval.
19 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Motion on --
20 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion on 11.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Second?
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
23 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
25 Without objection, it's approved.
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to defer
2 12.
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
4 MR. STRUHS: Motion to --
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: To defer --
6 MR. STRUHS: -- defer.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- 12.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
9 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: On Number 11?
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: On 12.
11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Twelve.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: To defer.
13 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Yes.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: I think we did 11 already.
15 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Yes.
16 Second.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a second.
18 There's a motion and a second to defer.
19 Without objection, it's approved.
20 MR. STRUHS: Thank you.
21 Item Number 13, we recommend approval.
22 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to approve.
23 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
25 Without objection, it's approved.
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1 MR. STRUHS: Item Number 14, recommend
2 approval.
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to approve.
4 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Second.
5 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
7 Without objection, it's approved.
8 MR. STRUHS: Item Number 15, recommend
9 approval.
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to approve.
11 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
13 Without objection, it's approved.
14 MR. STRUHS: Item Number 16, we recommend
15 approval.
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to approve.
17 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I second it.
18 It is contingent on the appraisal update, I
19 presume; is that correct?
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Secretary?
21 MR. STRUHS: I'm sorry, General? It's
22 contingent upon the --
23 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: On the -- the
24 update -- outcome of the appraisal update?
25 MR. STRUHS: I believe that's correct.
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1 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Okay.
2 MR. STRUHS: We actually have folks here
3 from the -- I believe Board of Regents who
4 could answer that, if you -- if you --
5 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: No. I -- I don't
6 have -- as long as we --
7 MR. STRUHS: Okay.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion.
9 Is there a second?
10 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
12 Without objection, it's approved.
13 MR. STRUHS: Item Number 17, I'd like to
14 add just a bit of color commentary there to
15 give it some context.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: More commentary?
17 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir.
18 At this point in Florida 2-- at this point
19 in Florida, 22 different counties have passed
20 some kind of bond initiative for locally
21 important conservation land acquisition
22 programs. These are typically what we call the
23 bargain shared acquisitions.
24 With 22 counties now engaged in their own
25 land acquisition programs, there's a growing
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1 interest in how title might be shared between
2 the State and -- and counties.
3 In order to address this in a comprehensive
4 way, we have prepared a report, which we are
5 hoping you will accept. You would then, if you
6 approve the recommendation, would be to direct
7 the staff to develop procedures based on that
8 report.
9 And -- and, third, and perhaps most
10 important, direct the staff to develop for your
11 approval, procedures for resolving any future
12 ownership or management conflicts in the event
13 that the title is shared between the County and
14 the State.
15 I would add that these should be the
16 exceptions rather than the rule. But it's
17 important to plan ahead.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Have -- do we have shared
19 property?
20 MR. STRUHS: Yes, sir. Most commonly, it's
21 done with Water Management Districts where
22 title is shared. But we're seeing more and
23 more where the County -- because the County
24 citizens are taxing themselves to --
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: I see.
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1 MR. STRUHS: -- have an interest, they
2 would like some ownership of the title as well.
3 And we just want to make sure that there are
4 clear rules of the road so that that
5 relationship and partnership is a good one.
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to approve.
7 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a
9 second -- a second.
10 Without objection, it's approved.
11 MR. STRUHS: Item Number 18, I'm going to
12 invite Eva Armstrong, Director of the Division
13 of State Lands, to handle this agenda item.
14 I have a previous engagement I need to head
15 off to. And also would suggest that the
16 history on this is -- is -- is one that is long
17 and complex. And Eva is far better equipped
18 than I to present that to you.
19 MS. ARMSTRONG: Good morning, Governor,
20 members of the Cabinet.
21 I won't stretch out the whole history, but
22 I thought there were a couple of items that
23 were important on -- out of that history.
24 Mr. Hilliard is the applicant here. He
25 came to the State most recently in '96 to
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1 acquire a 40-acre parcel that's -- 6.78 acres
2 is in front of you today.
3 His family had leased this site some years
4 ago, and in 1971, came back to re-lease it.
5 And at that time, the Trustees said, no way, it
6 is reclaimed lake bottom next to
7 Lake Okeechobee, and we want to make an overall
8 policy about how we handle those lands around
9 Lake Okeechobee.
10 He continued over time to pursue to
11 purchase it, and the Trustees didn't take any
12 action.
13 In '96, Glades County School Board wrote to
14 the Trustees and said, we'd like to acquire the
15 property for school -- actually it was for the
16 Future Farmers of America.
17 The staff at that time advertised it as
18 though to surplus the property. Mr. Hilliard,
19 being the adjacent property owner, contacted
20 the School Board and said, no, wait a minute,
21 my family's been interested in a long time --
22 in this a long time, convinced them to back out
23 of wanting the property, and then pursued again
24 with the State.
25 We do have documentation to this in the
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1 backup.
2 So then he pursued acquiring the land from
3 the Trustees. Now, between that time period,
4 even though he had no -- had no lease, and his
5 family had leased it in the past, he decided
6 he'd go ahead and plant orange trees on those
7 6.78 acres.
8 And -- which were -- I mean, it's -- he was
9 trespassing on public property.
10 This summer enter --
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: How long was he
12 trespassing?
13 MS. ARMSTRONG: Nine years, roughly.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: We're right on top of
15 things, aren't we, of --
16 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- landlords. I'll tell
18 you what.
19 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah.
20 When I -- when you appointed me to take
21 over this job, one of the first issues I heard
22 about was the Hilliard property.
23 And I truly believe we ought to do
24 everything we can to get citizens in and get
25 their issues resolved, and they're yes or no.
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1 So staff jumped on it.
2 Reclaimed lake bottom had not been sold in
3 ten years, so we stumbled on this one a little
4 bit, I'll tell you up-front.
5 He agreed up-front also -- because the
6 Division of State Lands has no budget, no
7 spending authority for those expenses on
8 surveys or appraisals when we -- when we sell
9 land.
10 We do to buy it, but not to sell it. We
11 don't have the ability to pay that.
12 So he agreed up-front, again in writing,
13 that he would pay the appraisal costs for the
14 full 40 acres. At that point, we were talking
15 about the whole piece.
16 It goes through the LAMAC process where --
17 which is required by law. They looked at it
18 and said, well, of the 40, 33 acres, which are
19 immediately adjacent to the lake, you ought to
20 lease, because the State may need it sometime.
21 But you could certainly sell the 6.78, because
22 it's across the road, it's not right next to
23 another parcel.
24 So at that point, we decided we would go
25 forward with that recommendation. We then
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1 surveyed Water Management District twice to
2 make sure they didn't want either one of these
3 parcels, and they said, no, they didn't --
4 didn't see a future need for this site.
5 And Office of Greenways and Trails, they
6 said, wait a minute, we really want the
7 33 acres because we're planning a trail around
8 Lake Okeechobee, and it could be one of our
9 potential trail heads.
10 So we said, okay. You know, Mr. Hilliard,
11 we're going to -- we can't do the 33, but we --
12 let's move forward on the 6.78.
13 We came to the Cabinet Aides several weeks
14 ago. Mr. Craft, who is his representative,
15 appeared on his behalf, was very concerned --
16 Oh, in the meantime. I'm sorry.
17 In the meantime, we negotiated with
18 Mr. Hilliard -- sorry -- for a purchase price
19 of this 6.7 acres based on the appraised value,
20 which was $19,700.
21 We come to the Cabinet Aides because
22 Mr. Hilliard's representative was concerned
23 about some item -- some -- some discussion in
24 the item. We deferred it to this meeting.
25 In the interim time as we're putting
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1 together the final documents -- and keep in
2 mind, we hadn't sold one of these in
3 ten years -- staff discovers there's a 1919 law
4 that requires a deed restriction on all
5 reclaimed lake bottom that the Trustees sell.
6 And that says that, in the event the Trustees
7 need to go in and put in a canal or a water
8 structure, the Trustees can come back and use
9 the property.
10 So at that point in time, Mr. Hilliard, and
11 some other people got real excited about the
12 fact that he was being assessed full appraised
13 value for the 6.78, including -- even though
14 the deed restriction would be put on there.
15 Trying to think what else is pertinent to
16 this decision today.
17 I will tell -- oh, a couple -- one or two
18 other minor points.
19 One, when you sell reclaimed lake bottom by
20 statute, it goes into the Education Trust Fund.
21 Two, we -- I understand there's some
22 considerations for either reducing the lease
23 fees in arrears, which was what we had added to
24 the item based on Cabinet Aides' recommendation
25 the first time around.
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1 They were concerned that the man had been
2 using our property illegally for nine years,
3 and there ought to be some compensation to the
4 State; or, two, reducing the amount he would
5 pay for the appraisal; or, three, reducing the
6 price he pays.
7 And I would just -- whatever you decide
8 is -- is fine. I feel that it's our
9 responsibility to give you the best financial
10 deal in terms of the State of Florida.
11 And I would just urge you to consider the
12 overall impact to the purchase -- bottom line
13 purchase price, by whatever adjustment you
14 make.
15 So if I can answer any questions.
16 And I think Mr. Hilliard's representative
17 is here if you have questions of him, too.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: How much did --
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Tom.
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- the State lose
22 in lease fees for those nine years?
23 MS. ARMSTRONG: It was estimated at
24 seven hundred and two dollars based on --
25 right. $78 a year per acre.
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: $78 a year --
2 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right. For the 6 --
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- per acre?
4 MR. ARMSTRONG: -- 6 acres, right.
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: That's the
6 6 acres. Wasn't -- that -- he was only using
7 6, not 40?
8 MS. ARMSTRONG: Well, he only planted 6.
9 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Okay.
10 MS. ARMSTRONG: The 33 across the road, we
11 understood that he had run cattle on. But
12 we -- we didn't address that in this. I didn't
13 have proof of that. What we were dealing with
14 is what we knew, which was, he had planted
15 oranges on the 6.78 --
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Okay. My --
17 MS. ARMSTRONG: -- acres.
18 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- my other
19 question is: We have -- a Glades County
20 property appraiser has appraised this, and
21 I guess has been -- would be collecting taxes
22 on a value of $3250 per acre.
23 Yet we are at -- at the starting point, at
24 2900 an acre. And I know that there's some
25 people that want to lower that.
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1 Why such a -- I mean, usually the
2 appraised -- the County -- property appraisers
3 are less than the market value.
4 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes, sir. But you'll --
5 you'll find around the state, when -- when they
6 go in to assess property for taxes, it's a
7 different measurement -- a different reason for
8 determining value, and -- and a different
9 method for doing it than appraising for a fair
10 market value.
11 And in Glades County, which is a
12 financially economically depressed area,
13 there -- you will find with other counties that
14 many times their apprais-- their tax assessment
15 values are higher than you would find in
16 similar counties.
17 Now, the exact situation here, I can't
18 address.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well --
20 MS. ARMSTRONG: But --
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- there's
22 supposed to be --
23 MS. ARMSTRONG: -- sometimes it's not a
24 great --
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- the Department
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1 of Revenue's supposed to make sure they're all
2 equalized.
3 MS. ARMSTRONG: Understand.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Another Board rule,
5 Commissioner Gallagher coming up --
6 MS. ARMSTRONG: That's not my area.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- next month.
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Eva --
9 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes, sir.
10 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- you say
11 it's been over ten years since we -- we've sold
12 lake bottom?
13 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes, sir.
14 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: How many
15 times has the State sold lake bottom?
16 MS. ARMSTRONG: I don't know that.
17 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Would you
18 believe that it's -- that we sold in the last
19 31 years, 14 acres?
20 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah, I would believe that.
21 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: And so,
22 therefore, maybe -- maybe it's not a good idea
23 to sell lake bottom. And maybe other Boards
24 that sat up here have decided that -- used to
25 be, lake bottom, we might need it again. And
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1 if we sell it, we're probably going to buy it
2 back for a whole lot more money.
3 Was leasing this thing a --
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: That's what
5 usually happens.
6 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- a factor?
7 Just -- I mean, just keep the -- why don't we
8 just lease it to him? $78 a year doesn't sound
9 like --
10 MS. ARMSTRONG: Well, we -- we -- we did
11 discuss both of those issues. So let me
12 respond to both of them.
13 Let me do the $78 a year first. If you do
14 that, it's going to cost us far more in terms
15 of administering the lease than you'll ever
16 collect. I mean, from a financial basis, it
17 doesn't make a lot of sense.
18 Number two, this is an isolated parcel.
19 It's very rare. I mean, the -- the idea that
20 we would need this seems rather extreme. The
21 33 acres, absolutely, it's right on the lake.
22 This is separated from the lake by a road,
23 and it's just kind of doubt-- in our view, it
24 was doubtful that it would be needed in the
25 future.
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1 Checking with the Water Management District
2 twice, they had no future plans for this area.
3 So we felt it was easier just to go ahead and
4 sell the 6.38.
5 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay. I --
6 MS. ARMSTRONG: On the other --
7 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- okay.
8 MS. ARMSTRONG: -- on the reclaimed lake
9 bottom, I -- I totally agree with you. And it
10 was based on -- on those decisions, the fact it
11 was separated from the lake by a road; it was a
12 very small parcel; it's not one we would go in
13 and actively manage, you know.
14 That's why we thought in this case, it
15 probably makes more sense, the man wants to buy
16 it, sell it to him.
17 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Right now
18 there's orange trees on it.
19 Is there a restriction -- do you have a
20 restriction in this to where this person cannot
21 use it for any other reason other than
22 agriculture?
23 Might be a location for a gas station? We
24 may not want a gas station there.
25 I mean, do you have any restrictions to
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1 where it can only be used for agriculture, and
2 if it -- and if it doesn't, it gets reverted
3 back to the State?
4 MS. ARMSTRONG: No, sir, it's not written
5 that way now.
6 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: All right.
7 MS. ARMSTRONG: It just has the deed
8 restriction for water control structures.
9 That's my words, not --
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can we hear from the --
11 MS. ARMSTRONG: Certainly.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- the owner, or his
13 representative?
14 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes. Mr. Craft.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Unless you don't -- guys
16 don't want to speak.
17 MR. HILLIARD: Good morning, gentlemen.
18 Governor --
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Are you Mr. Hilliard?
20 MR. HILLIARD: I'm Ernest Hilliard.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Welcome.
22 MR. HILLIARD: Thank you.
23 I appreciate you fellows hearing this thing
24 this morning.
25 It's been a long road.
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1 I don't intend to burden you with the
2 32 years of track that I've put on this place.
3 The biggest reason that I would like to buy
4 this property is to square up my property,
5 which this meander line, which was the original
6 edge of the lake, came around and it makes a
7 very long taper up in front of my property.
8 It's also on the watershed side of my property.
9 I'm in a -- an irrigation and drainage
10 district, and that water flows to the north.
11 Perhaps you're not familiar with it, and
12 DEP is not familiar with it probably. But this
13 is not a Lake Okeechobee watershed. This is a
14 watershed that goes to the Caloosahatchee River
15 to Fort Myers.
16 And so whatever happens on that property, a
17 gas station, as you spoke, naturally that
18 there's not much need for a gas station there.
19 But whatever you used it for would not
20 necessarily affect anything from
21 Lake Okeechobee. I seriously don't believe
22 that you believe in your life, or anybody
23 else's, that the Hoover Dike will be destroyed,
24 and decide to do something different with the
25 dike that goes around Lake Okeechobee. Many
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1 millions of dollars were spent to produce that,
2 and it is complete.
3 As I said, my intention is to square my
4 property. I originally bought this property in
5 1967, and was issued a -- an assignment of
6 lease from the State.
7 I renewed it, and then in 1971 or '2, they
8 decided that they would not lease it again.
9 They told --
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Why did you buy the
11 property and then lease it? Was --
12 MR. HILLIARD: I tried to buy the -- well,
13 Governor, I had the money to make the payment
14 on the -- on the property of which I bought,
15 and I -- I didn't try to buy it until 1969, at
16 which I figured that I could afford it at that
17 time.
18 The property --
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Did you buy the --
20 MR. HILLIARD: -- at that time was being
21 sold around me for $300 an acre. And I decided
22 that I could have afforded that.
23 As we went forward, they said, no, they
24 wasn't going to lease it. So I pulled my
25 cattle and -- and equipment and whatever else I
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1 had on that piece of property that was usable
2 across this dirt road in front of my property.
3 I pulled my stuff off.
4 The 6 acres of which we're discussing is in
5 my field, so to speak. And so it's a -- it's
6 not separated from my property in any way, and
7 was not separated ever from my property, only
8 by a survey of the meander line of
9 Lake Okeechobee.
10 When I bought it, the word riparian owner
11 was used many times, of which I qualified at
12 the time.
13 Apparently that word is not dead yet,
14 because I've heard it here several times this
15 morning.
16 But anyway, the -- the idea that I thought
17 this land sooner or later will come to me.
18 To make this story real long, I applied
19 four times. In 1979, I tried again. I wanted
20 to plant some orange trees on my property. Not
21 yours, but mine.
22 But in order to do that, I had to arrange
23 the irrigation on my property to go to the
24 north, which is across your little piece --
25 6 acres. And so when I brought the grader
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1 ditches that the trees are planted on across, I
2 didn't dig a canal, or anything like that.
3 I put the water in the road ditch, of which
4 the County had recently in the last five or
5 six years, had paved that road. So now it was
6 a paved thoroughfare through that property.
7 So I -- I brought that irrigation water on
8 through, and I planted trees on approximately
9 5 acres of your land. I left an
10 acre-and-a-half of -- of land out of which I
11 left some of my land out, because of the way
12 the taper is in this particular piece of
13 property.
14 And the fact that I didn't remove the trees
15 that were there on your property -- State's
16 property, my property, your property -- I
17 didn't remove those trees. I -- I didn't dig
18 these ditches to disturb anything.
19 But -- for I -- I felt that at one time,
20 you would deal with me, and allow me to
21 continue --
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Mr. Hilliard --
23 MR. HILLIARD: -- to work my property.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- for a second.
25 I'm -- the one part that -- we're getting
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1 in a lot more detail than we probably need to.
2 Maybe -- maybe not.
3 But the one question that I -- that I
4 missed. I -- I asked Eva Armstrong how the
5 State didn't know that our property had
6 orange groves on it.
7 Perhaps I should ask you the question: How
8 did you plant orange trees on our property?
9 MR. HILLIARD: Certainly not in the dark,
10 Governor.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: I didn't think so.
12 Well, that's enlightening.
13 But it wasn't your property, was it?
14 MR. HILLIARD: Sir?
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: It wasn't your property.
16 MR. HILLIARD: It wasn't. It wasn't --
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Did you think --
18 MR. HILLIARD: -- my property.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- it was?
20 MR. HILLIARD: But there's no separation
21 between mine and yours in that particular area.
22 So it -- it was there.
23 I didn't -- but what's across the road, I
24 didn't. The only thing I've done across the
25 road is for the last 30 years, I've -- up until
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1 two years ago, I've mowed and maintained that
2 property to keep the underbrush from literally
3 taking that property.
4 It's backed up by 13 or 14 acres of
5 melaleuca swamp, of which you're spending
6 millions of dollars every day to eradicate in
7 Florida.
8 So, in -- in effect, I've probably saved
9 you a lot of money by wearing out my equipment,
10 maintaining this piece of property only for the
11 purpose of -- to keep it in reasonable shape.
12 I quit two years ago. And if -- I'm sorry
13 I didn't bring you some pictures. But now
14 the -- the Brazilian holly, Brazilian pepper,
15 Napier grass, horse nettles, all kinds of --
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
17 MR. HILLIARD: -- invasive type shrubbery
18 has taken it.
19 If there's any questions or any more
20 questions you'd like to ask me in particular,
21 I'll be glad to answer them to the best of my
22 ability and truth.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Commissioner?
24 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Governor,
25 I think -- I -- I'd just like to make a motion.
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1 I think both sides have been trying to --
2 to work this out. And -- and I think what I
3 have here might be fairly reasonable.
4 And I -- and the Attorney General's
5 concerned, we're not doing the 40 acres, we're
6 just doing a very small part.
7 But -- so I'd like to -- to move the -- the
8 approval of the acquisition by Mr. Hilliard
9 with the following: That we decrease the
10 original agreed selling price from 19,700, down
11 to fourteen thousand seven seventy-five, which
12 is the amended appraised value based on the
13 added deed restriction on the property, which
14 I think that deed restriction, General, would
15 probably keep any structure off -- off of it,
16 because we have the right to actually go back
17 on it if we need to.
18 So that would be the first point.
19 The second one, since we're not going to
20 lease the remaining 33.22 acres, which is part
21 of the first appraisal costs agreed to by the
22 buyer, the appraisal costs should be reduced by
23 one-third. This one third would be subtracted
24 from the selling price of the 14,775 due -- due
25 DEP.
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1 Additionally, I move that we charge the
2 buyer lease fees in arrears in the amount of
3 $702, which is the amount that Eva mentioned,
4 which reflects the usage of the 6.78 acres for
5 approximately ten years.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion.
7 Is there a second?
8 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I have a -- a
9 question of Eva, please.
10 Other than the squaring up of
11 Mr. Hilliard's property, what is the urgency --
12 real urgency in selling this land at a price
13 that, according to Commissioner Gallagher, is
14 substantially below the tax appraisal price?
15 MS. ARMSTRONG: Fairness to Mr. Hilliard.
16 There is --
17 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Say it --
18 MS. ARMSTRONG: Fairness.
19 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- say that --
20 MS. ARMSTRONG: Fairness --
21 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Fairness?
22 MS. ARMSTRONG: -- to Mr. Hilliard.
23 Yes, sir.
24 Because, you know, for all our fumblings
25 around, he's been trying for -- and -- and his
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1 illegally using the land, he has for some time
2 tried to pursue this property. And I think in
3 fairness to him, a yes or no.
4 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Well, there -- there
5 are a lot of people that would like to buy
6 State property.
7 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes, sir.
8 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: And was -- now we're
9 going to apply the fairness rule to the sale of
10 the property; is that it? State property?
11 MS. ARMSTRONG: Well --
12 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Pretty good rule.
13 MS. ARMSTRONG: -- fairness to a taxpayer
14 who's been trying to buy the land.
15 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Fairness to
16 taxpayer.
17 MS. ARMSTRONG: There is no other --
18 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Yes. That's a good
19 point.
20 MS. ARMSTRONG: -- there is no other urgent
21 reason to -- to sell this property.
22 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Other than fairness
23 to Mr. Hilliard --
24 MS. ARMSTRONG: (Nodding head.)
25 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- who wants to
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1 square up his property.
2 MS. ARMSTRONG: Uh-hum.
3 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Okay. Thank you.
4 MS. ARMSTRONG: Uh-hum.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: I would -- I would venture
6 to say -- I'm not -- I'm not a gambling man.
7 But I would -- if I was, I'd bet you a
8 dollar that the appraiser at Glades County
9 Courthouse has not factored in the restrictive
10 convenant that the State has on all these
11 properties that they -- that they own.
12 Being one of your soul mates on appraised
13 values and making sure we sell it at below
14 appraised value, I want to make sure that --
15 that -- that I stated that, just so that there
16 is some consistency and people don't think that
17 I'm veering off based on what I'm going to do
18 on my vote.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well -- so where
20 are we now? We look -- we -- is the discussion
21 on whether we're going to --
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: We have a -- a motion --
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- approve 14,000
24 or --
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: We have --
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- 19,000 first?
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- we have a motion to sell
3 the property at $14,775; lower the appraisal
4 costs, which is significant -- it's a
5 significant percentage of the entire purchase
6 price, I might add. This appraiser made a
7 pretty -- pretty good deal -- by a third; and
8 ask the buyer of the property to pay back rent
9 for the property he used over the last
10 ten years equal to the market rent.
11 That is what's on the table. There's been
12 a motion.
13 Is there a second?
14 And we need five votes.
15 I can't second it, General Butterworth?
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: You can give
17 the Chair to -- to the Secretary of State,
18 who's not here -- to me, and then you can --
19 then you can -- you can second it.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can I give the Chair to
21 you?
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I may not
23 recognize you.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: We're dying here, pal.
25 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I think --
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1 and, Governor, I might not give it back.
2 Yes, Governor, you're -- you're recognized.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: I second the motion.
4 We're -- we're going down in flames I'm
5 afraid here. But --
6 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: If I refuse
7 to give the gavel back, what happens?
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a
9 second.
10 Can I have the -- the floor back to finish
11 the vote, or would you like to do it?
12 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I'll give it
13 back to you, Governor.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
15 There's a motion and a second --
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Were you
17 nervous for a while there?
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah, I'm glad I got it.
19 It's a good civics class for all the
20 educators out in the room about the dealings of
21 the Cabinet.
22 All in favor, say aye.
23 THE CABINET: Aye.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: All opposed.
25 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: No.
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1 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: No.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Unfortunately, because
3 Secretary of State Harris is not here, we
4 needed five votes --
5 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes, sir.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- and the motion is
7 denied.
8 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Governor, could I
9 make one point? Just -- if the concern is the
10 appraised value, the -- as I understand it, we
11 are paying -- we are charging the appraised
12 value.
13 The -- the appraisal was 19,700, and the --
14 and the appraiser, upon factoring in the
15 restrictive convenant, then reduced it down to
16 fourteen thousand seven seventy-five. So
17 actually that is the appraised value.
18 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: If -- if that
19 question is directed to me, that's only part of
20 my concern.
21 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Okay. I just -- I
22 just thought it would just --
23 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: The other element of
24 my concern is selling State lands without good
25 reason. And to square up Mr. Hilliard's land
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1 is not sufficient -- sufficiently good reason
2 for me.
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: There is a
4 way out, Governor, if you wanted -- what if we
5 agreed to lease him this land for X number of
6 years, and that will keep alive -- that will
7 keep his thing going, and it keeps the issue
8 alive for -- for another day, and we can argue
9 out why -- what we may or may not want to sell
10 it for among -- I see no reason to sell this
11 land.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, he can come back to
13 us -- the -- can't the Department -- can't
14 we --
15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I'd like to move
16 to defer this issue until the first --
17 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: We've -- we've had a
18 motion, we've had a second, we've had a vote.
19 I would certainly support the good
20 stewardship that Mr. Hilliard has shown in
21 taking care of that land, and -- and give him
22 a -- a long-term lease, and certainly always
23 leave the option open then for him to -- to
24 come back.
25 But certainly give him satisfaction that he
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1 can handle that land in a -- in a manner that
2 meets his requirements as far as his business
3 concerns are.
4 So I -- I --
5 MS. ARMSTRONG: We'll work that out.
6 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- if that's
7 appropriate, I'd make a motion that we bring
8 back -- or recommend that you bring back a
9 long-term lease to meet Mr. Hilliard's needs.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Second.
12 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I have one
13 question, Governor. As opposed to bringing it
14 back, why don't we just resolve it today, make
15 it into a long-term lease today.
16 And I don't even care about the rent. That
17 doesn't bother me.
18 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Nor do I.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: You don't care about the
20 covenants that would allow for the State to
21 maintain control --
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: No, I --
23 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: We still own it.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- about the
25 covenants, because we own it.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Long-term lease means the
2 guy that -- the lessee owns it if there's no
3 covenants, other than -- other than the one --
4 you're satisfied with what we have here by law?
5 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Well, the --
6 well, the ones we have there by law --
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- and also
9 from the fact that -- I'm not -- what I mean --
10 what I don't care about as much is the money,
11 because -- but the money issue's not what --
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Mr. Hilliard, what do you
13 think about that?
14 MR. HILLIARD: What do you call a long-term
15 lease, General?
16 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Well, I -- I
17 listened to the Attorney General, and he gets
18 very upset if we go 25 years as being a
19 long-term lease. I'd certainly put it at
20 25 years.
21 MR. HILLIARD: Is that what you -- you
22 consider --
23 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Governor,
24 I think we --
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: We can negotiate --
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1 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- I think
2 some of us --
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- this to --
4 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- I think
5 some of us took the gavel.
6 MR. HILLIARD: You know, this -- this --
7 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Well, what -- what
8 would you be willing to apply for a lease -- or
9 take a lease, for what length of time,
10 Mr. Hilliard?
11 MR. HILLIARD: Well, this is such a trivial
12 problem when you are faced with a lot of very
13 important things to do out here, and I'm sorry
14 I'm taking up your time.
15 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: No. It is --
16 MR. HILLIARD: I feel that --
17 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: -- it is not a
18 trivial problem, because it reflects the way we
19 handle State lands.
20 And -- and you have to have been here a
21 number of times to see how we do some of these
22 things. And -- and it's a principle. It is
23 not trivial.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: In fact, I'm
25 beginning to think that maybe a trespasser
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1 should not be able to get any real benefit from
2 the State, sir, if you're -- if you're that put
3 out by it.
4 MR. HILLIARD: Well, of course, that's your
5 prerogative to do whatever it -- you feel that
6 you must, or your conscience allows you to do.
7 I don't want to fuss with anybody as far as
8 the lease is concerned --
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Why don't we -- can we,
10 Mr. Hilliard, for your own sake here, you may
11 want to stand back and --
12 What I suggest we do is we accept
13 General Milligan's motion to allow the
14 Department to negotiate a long-term --
15 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- lease, and if it's not
17 acceptable --
18 MS. ARMSTRONG: If we can't work it out, we
19 won't be back.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- we don't lease it. And
21 you -- you leave the property. And if it is
22 acceptable to both parties, we'll see it at one
23 of the next Cabinet meetings. How about that?
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: That sounds
25 good, Governor.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: I don't know if we need a
2 motion for that. Can we --
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Move to negotiate
4 a lease.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: All right. I guess we do.
6 Is there a second?
7 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a
9 second.
10 Without objection, it's approved.
11 MS. ARMSTRONG: Thank you.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Mr. Hilliard, I hope you
13 have a wonderful Christmas.
14 And thank you for coming up.
15 MR. HILLIARD: You, too, Governor.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: It was not a trivial
17 matter, and it -- it is important.
18 General Milligan's absolutely right. This
19 is -- this is the most important thing we do.
20 And --
21 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- whether it's a little
23 piece of parcel, or a big huge one like
24 Fisheating Creek, it's important to have some
25 principles that guide us. So --
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: Secretary --
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Move to defer
3 Number 19.
4 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
5 MS. ARMSTRONG: Thank you.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a
7 second to defer.
8 Without objection, it's approved.
9 (The Board of Trustees of the Internal
10 Improvement Fund Agenda was concluded.)
11 * * *
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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1 (Attorney General Butterworth and
2 Treasurer Nelson were not present.)
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: You want to take a
4 2-minute break before we hit education?
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah. You want to do that?
6 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: I think that's a
7 great --
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: How about a -- we're going
9 to take a 2-minute break.
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Let me -- those of
11 you that want to speak, I advise you to get on
12 the list, because when we start, the list
13 closes down.
14 (Recess.)
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Why don't we begin.
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I think that's a
17 great idea.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: State Board of Education,
19 Item 1.
20 MR. PIERSON: Item 1 is the minutes of the
21 October 26, 1999, meeting.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a motion --
23 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Motion.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- on minutes?
25 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
2 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Without objection, it's
4 approved.
5 MR. PIERSON: Item 2 is the 2000-2001
6 Adult Fee Schedule.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
8 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a mot-- it's been
10 moved and seconded.
11 Without objection, it's approved.
12 MR. PIERSON: We would re-- we would
13 request holding Item 3 and 4 to the end.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Sure.
15 MR. PIERSON: Item 5 is an amendment to
16 Rule 6A-6.0571, Vocational and Workforce
17 Development Education Standards and
18 Industry-Driven Benchmarks.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
20 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Second.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Is there a second?
22 It's been moved and seconded.
23 Without objection, it's approved.
24 MR. PIERSON: Item 6, is an amendment to
25 Rule 6A-14.030, Withdrawal and Forgiveness.
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
2 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
4 Without objection, it's approved.
5 MR. PIERSON: Item 7 is an Amendment to
6 Rule 6H-1.030, Delegation of Powers and Duties.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
8 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
10 Without objection, it's approved.
11 MR. PIERSON: Item 8 is an appointment to
12 the Education Practices Commission,
13 Jerry E. Kelley.
14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
15 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
17 Without objection, it's approved.
18 MR. PIERSON: Item 9 is a reappointment and
19 appointment to the Board of Regents,
20 Adolfo Henriques, Reappointed; and,
21 James D. Corbin, Appointed, both terms
22 expiring -- oh, I'm sorry -- yes, both terms
23 expiring January 1st, 2006.
24 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion.
25 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Moved and seconded.
2 Without objection, it's approved.
3 MR. PIERSON: Item 10 is withdrawn.
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Motion to
5 withdraw.
6 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion to
8 withdraw and a second.
9 Without objection, it's approved.
10 MR. PIERSON: Return to Item 3. It's a
11 report on the status of failing schools for
12 information presented by Andrea Willett,
13 Division of Public Schools.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good afternoon.
15 MS. WILLETT: Good afternoon.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Or good morning still.
17 MS. WILLETT: Thank you very much.
18 Sir?
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good morning.
20 MS. WILLETT: Good morning.
21 I'll -- whatever -- I'll take direction
22 from you, sir, whichever one.
23 You have in front of you --
24 (Attorney General Butterworth entered the
25 room.)
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1 MS. WILLETT: -- a packet that talks about
2 an interim update. We would like to share with
3 you some pieces of information about the very
4 positive things that are occurring in schools
5 as a result of this year's accountability
6 system.
7 On the right-hand side of your packet, you
8 have copies of the slides that you'll be
9 seeing, as well as an eight-and-a-half by
10 eleven map indicating both the F and D school
11 locations.
12 And from the map, you can see that we're
13 talking about statewide, not just concentrated
14 areas.
15 On the left-hand side, you have a map
16 that's broken out by regions, because I will be
17 discussing the activities in a regional basis.
18 And you also have some funding information.
19 That is a work in progress, not nearly complete
20 just yet.
21 We're talking about 78 schools statewide:
22 76 of them are first year schools, two of them
23 are second-year schools; 15 school districts;
24 elementary, middle, and high schools; we're
25 talking about approximately 50,000 children out
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1 of the 2.5 million students in public schools
2 in the state of Florida.
3 There again, on the screen you'll see the
4 map showing the D and F schools. They are
5 concentrated in urban and rural; they are
6 north, they're south, they're east, they're
7 west, they're in the middle. They are all
8 over.
9 But statewide, we've seen a great deal of
10 movement in these schools, positive activities
11 for student learning. Schools have received
12 reading grants, and they are implementing them;
13 they've purchased more library books; they've
14 purchased other materials for the media center;
15 they've purchased supplies for after-school
16 programs; additional reading -- supplemental
17 reading materials; and additional teaching
18 support.
19 We've seen across the state an alignment to
20 Sunshine State Standards, and to a focus on the
21 kinds of activities -- performance activities
22 required by the Florida Comprehensive
23 Assessment Test, also called FCAT.
24 Districts have been very supportive,
25 particularly in the form of human resources
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1 attending these schools.
2 Regional breakdowns. Talking about
3 Region I. This would be the panhandle area
4 from approximately Madison County to the west,
5 all the way to Pensacola.
6 Here there are 11 schools in this area of
7 the state. Regionally in this area, there have
8 been an outpouring of help and rallying of
9 community support for the schools, particularly
10 in the forms of mentors and tutors, and in
11 funding.
12 The in-kind contributions particularly in
13 the two second year schools -- and I think you
14 are familiar with both Spencer Bibbs and
15 AA Dixon Elementary from Escambia County. You
16 have talked with their district staff before.
17 The University of West Florida has adopted
18 these two schools, and they've really worked
19 hard to work with the schools to move the
20 children forward.
21 Schools in this region are particularly
22 conducting parent involvement activities. As a
23 result, there is steady improvement on writing
24 pretests in these schools.
25 The pretest data that they're using based
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1 upon their own testing that is similar to FCAT
2 is being utilized to target benchmarks in
3 student work. And they have gains evident in
4 both reading and writing programs.
5 On this screen, you'll see Spencer Bibbs
6 and both AA Dixon, just some samples of the
7 kinds of things they are continuing to do, and
8 have begun. And some of the results that they
9 are getting. They're looking at their children
10 individually, and they're seeing definite
11 student progress.
12 Again, the University of West Florida has
13 been helping them a great deal with mentoring.
14 And Washington Mutual, which is a -- a local
15 financial institution, has been pouring
16 resources, particularly into Bibbs, giving the
17 media center a facelift, and various other
18 activities.
19 Additionally in Region I, Chattahoochee
20 High School, which is in Gadsden County, has
21 been using a training and assistance model --
22 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
23 MS. WILLETT: -- with Florida League of
24 Teachers. These are all members who have been
25 Florida Teachers of the Year, mentoring and
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1 training the teachers to work with the
2 students. And you'll see other activities
3 there.
4 Thought it was particularly interesting
5 that a local military base has adopted
6 Oakcrest Elementary in Escambia County. So I
7 have -- I have visions of very tall, very
8 uniform, very heavily medaled officers talking
9 with kindergartners. It's got to be a
10 wonderful thing.
11 Region II is the other side of the
12 panhandle, moving to the east coast. Here
13 there are ten schools: Duval, which has mostly
14 an urban flavor to the schools; Marion; and
15 Taylor Counties.
16 Formative assessments are those kinds of
17 assessments that occur on a regular basis
18 throughout the year, seeing where a student is
19 in particular relation to particular standards.
20 The District has supported these schools
21 with both fiscal and human resources, and there
22 is constant and ongoing staff development.
23 The school improvement plans in this area
24 are becoming very much like a small business --
25 business development plan, and they're very
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1 much actively using the -- the plans as a way
2 to improve.
3 Also they are using funds very creatively,
4 putting small pots of money together to get
5 large pots of money to make major impact and
6 difference.
7 Americorps has been particularly helpful in
8 Duval County working with the mentoring and
9 tutoring programs. They're finding a great
10 deal of success in that regard.
11 And the focus that they have put on the
12 Sunshine State Standards is laudable and
13 commendable.
14 In particular, North Shore Elementary in
15 Duval County is an example given to you on the
16 slide. And one of the -- of all the pieces
17 that are there, you may not understand the word
18 looping.
19 Looping is a technique whereby a student is
20 assigned to a class, and stays with that
21 teacher through one grade level, and
22 potentially the next; and then the teacher
23 recycles. But the children are with the same
24 teacher for multiple years.
25 And they're -- they're getting some fairly
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1 comfortable reactions and responses and
2 results, saying that this is a good thing for
3 the students that they have working with them.
4 Region III would be the east central
5 Florida area, Lake, Orange, and
6 Volusia Counties. Again, you can see the --
7 the number of schools that are there.
8 In this region, again, staff development is
9 particularly important, and you're seeing a lot
10 of it in the area of writing, looking at
11 raising student scores above 3.
12 There's a great deal of model teaching and
13 talking about classroom routines. And in one
14 particular district, the staff meets with the
15 principals in these schools on a monthly basis,
16 and looks at -- very carefully at what they are
17 doing.
18 So the District is mentoring the principals
19 who can then mentor the teachers.
20 You'll see on the next slide some examples
21 of the kinds of things that are occurring in
22 these schools, and these are schools in
23 Orange County.
24 Region IV is the other side of the middle
25 of the state, moving to the west coast of
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1 Florida: Collier, Hendry, Lee, and Polk. This
2 extends all the way down.
3 Lee County in particular has put resource
4 teachers, particularly in specialized
5 discipline areas for students working with both
6 students and the teachers.
7 Blake Elementary School in Polk County is
8 in-servicing parents to help them understand
9 the kinds of requirements that are needed for
10 students to master Sunshine State Standards;
11 and, therefore, be successful on the Florida
12 Comprehensive Assessment Test.
13 And they're getting a great deal of parent
14 involvement as a result of that.
15 Also in Region IV I think is where we've
16 seen the most staffing changes. Four out of
17 the six F schools have new principals this
18 year, or have new principals within the last
19 two years.
20 And, again, District staff meeting very
21 intensely with the teachers, and with the
22 principals. And they have in Lee County what
23 they call an Achievement Coaching Team that
24 works with the -- with the schools.
25 This slide will again show you some of the
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1 school level examples of the kinds of
2 activities that are occurring.
3 Auburndale Central Elementary has student
4 teachers at the neighborhood Episcopal Church,
5 and they're working on targeting 45 children to
6 help them write a 3.5 Florida Writes paragraph.
7 They -- they're not satisfied with 3.0, they
8 want to be above the average.
9 Those kinds of activities are occurring
10 across the state in these schools.
11 Region V is by far the most population
12 dense, and, therefore, has the most number of
13 schools. Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach are the
14 three districts in Region V which is, again,
15 the south part of the state.
16 Here there are additional monetary
17 resources available to them sometimes, and
18 Annenberg Foundation is one of those.
19 Annenberg and Title VI monies, which is a
20 Federal fund-- a federally funded staff
21 development program, has been put together with
22 some local match to assist the schools in the
23 Palm Beach areas particularly.
24 Miami-Dade has redirected a great deal of
25 its own Federal funding available to it, to
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1 work on lowering class size even further than
2 we've asked them to do in grades 1, 2, and 3.
3 Miami-Dade has also focused on the
4 principals as leaders, and worked a great deal
5 on redirecting District staff has -- as had
6 Broward and Palm Beach. Both of them have very
7 active District assistance teams for the
8 schools.
9 And on the next slide, you'll see some of
10 the school specific kinds of things that are
11 working for the schools in Region V.
12 And finally, on the last slide, three
13 particular schools. All of these are in -- all
14 these are in Dade.
15 Charles Drew Middle in particular has an
16 integrated curriculum. Middle schools, we
17 oftentimes think of them teaching the subjects
18 in isolation or separate from one another.
19 They're trying a different approach, putting
20 several subjects together, give students a very
21 wholistic view of -- of what education is all
22 about.
23 Miami Edison Senior has writing coaches,
24 which is something they've never had before;
25 broken up a very large school, into a school
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1 within a school and academies, to more
2 personally address the needs of the students
3 there.
4 Overall, on a statewide level, you're
5 seeing a great deal of change, a great deal of
6 resources aligned and focused on 78 schools, as
7 well as the 613 schools that are also on your
8 map.
9 If you have any questions, I'd be glad to
10 answer them for you.
11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Nope?
12 We thank you very much.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any questions?
14 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Just one
15 question, Governor.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: General Butterworth?
17 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Yes.
18 This is -- I was impressed with the number
19 of -- I was impressed with a number of the --
20 the charts here.
21 You weren't dealing with Escambia, AA Dixon
22 where it says your writing pretests have
23 improved from 20 percent to 60 percent. That's
24 pretty good.
25 MS. WILLETT: Yes, sir, it is.
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1 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Have we gone
2 to the outside and test the 50 students who
3 have -- who have gone into the -- into publ--
4 into private schools to see how they would
5 compare to where -- it may very well be that
6 the students that stayed at AA Dixon, with all
7 the assistance that the Escambia District
8 provided for it, that the students -- and a
9 longer school year, and having the principal
10 run the school, that the students may be better
11 off, those who stayed, than the students who
12 left.
13 Is there -- is there a way of determining
14 that for our next presentation possibly?
15 MS. WILLETT: I don't have that information
16 for you available at this time. But we can
17 certainly work with the school -- the private
18 schools and see if we can get that for you.
19 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Even
20 students who went to other public schools,
21 I think there were a few that also did that, to
22 see what the effect would be. Maybe some just
23 regular migration what -- with students.
24 I know it'd be difficult to do. But it --
25 I think that right there would be very
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1 impressive if -- and shows that it can be done.
2 MS. WILLETT: Sure.
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: General, I
4 personally believe that -- and I've said this
5 as I speak across the state -- that if I had a
6 child that needed remediation, Bibbs or Dixon
7 would be where I'd want them to be because they
8 truly have geared in on remediation for
9 students and to get them up to grade level.
10 If I had a child that was probably at grade
11 level, I would be extremely tempted to move
12 them to a C school or better, or to a private
13 school.
14 So I would probably agree with your
15 guesstimate that students in those two schools,
16 with all the additional assets that have been
17 put down, are -- are making a lot of
18 differences.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Also I think that there
20 is -- although you -- I don't think we'll be
21 able to get the data in the immediate future.
22 But over this first year, there will be
23 research done that will answer your question
24 since, as you recall, the 56 children that go
25 to the private schools, and the -- whatever it
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1 is, 75 or 80 children that go to the public
2 schools, will also be taking -- at least the
3 fourth graders, will be taking the FCAT test.
4 And as we move to the full implementation
5 of the plan, grades 3 through 10 will be taking
6 the tests that we will be able to measure that
7 and -- and measure student achievement over a
8 period of time.
9 And I know that Superintendent May is here.
10 And in the past, he has -- and -- and the
11 principals have been here, and they have spoken
12 with a lot of passion about how those schools
13 have shown improvement.
14 And we've encouraged them and -- and -- and
15 believe that they're right.
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: But also the
17 school teacher --
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: And the --
19 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- also the
20 teachers also, Governor, I think have --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Absolutely.
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- gone way
23 out over and above at those two schools.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Absolutely. And they've
25 been getting a lot more money, which
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1 Commissioner Nelson and Superintendent May in a
2 conversation about a month ago that the Cabinet
3 pointed out for us, which we were happy to get
4 the specifics on.
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Thank you very
6 much.
7
8
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10
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1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
2
3
4
5 STATE OF FLORIDA:
6 COUNTY OF LEON:
7 I, LAURIE L. GILBERT, do hereby certify that
8 the foregoing proceedings were taken before me at the
9 time and place therein designated; that my shorthand
10 notes were thereafter translated; and the foregoing
11 pages numbered 1 through 156 are a true and correct
12 record of the aforesaid proceedings.
13 I FURTHER CERTIFY that I am not a relative,
14 employee, attorney or counsel of any of the parties,
15 nor relative or employee of such attorney or counsel,
16 or financially interested in the foregoing action.
17 DATED THIS 27TH day of DECEMBER, 1999.
18
19
20 LAURIE L. GILBERT, RPR, CCR, CRR, RMR
100 Salem Court
21 Tallahassee, Florida 32301
850/878-2221
22
23
24
25
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
T H E C A B I N E T
S T A T E O F F L O R I D A
Representing:
REPORT: TEAM FLORIDA 2000
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION
DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE
DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY AND MOTOR VEHICLES
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS' AFFAIRS
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
VOLUME II
Pages 158 through 341
The above agencies came to be heard before
THE FLORIDA CABINET, Honorable Governor Bush
presiding, in the Cabinet Meeting Room, LL-03,
The Capitol, Tallahassee, Florida, on Tuesday,
December 14, 1999, commencing at approximately
9:17 a.m.
Reported by:
LAURIE L. GILBERT
Registered Professional Reporter
Certified Court Reporter
Certified Realtime Reporter
Registered Merit Reporter
Notary Public in and for
the State of Florida at Large
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
100 SALEM COURT
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA 32301
850/878-2221
159
APPEARANCES:
Representing the Florida Cabinet:
JEB BUSH
Governor
BOB CRAWFORD
Commissioner of Agriculture
BOB MILLIGAN
Comptroller
BOB BUTTERWORTH
Attorney General
BILL NELSON
Treasurer
TOM GALLAGHER
Commissioner of Education
* * *
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December 14, 1999
I N D E X
ITEM ACTION PAGE
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION:
(Presented by Wayne V. Pierson,
Deputy Commissioner)
4 Continued 161
CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER 341
* * *
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 MR. PIERSON: Item 4 is an amendment to
3 Rule 6A-1.09981, implementation of Florida's
4 System of School Improvement and
5 Accountability.
6 Prior to starting the presentation, we'd
7 like to advise you that the information was
8 provided to Cabinet Aides at the last
9 Cabinet Aides meetings, which was Workshop
10 Planning and Notification Information; the
11 press packet that was available at each
12 workshop; sign-in sheets, speaker cards and
13 materials from each of the regional -- the five
14 regional workshops; the public input that was
15 sent to DOE; and the tapes of the workshops.
16 Prior to the Department's presentation, we
17 have -- like to have some comments from
18 Senator Phil Lewis.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Senator Lewis has
20 asked to speak. He has an airplane to catch.
21 And so prior to our presenting the
22 amendments to the rule, if we could, I'd like
23 Senator Lewis, who is a member of PEPC, was a
24 member of the Accountability Commission, and is
25 a member of the State Board of Regents, among
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1 other --
2 SENATOR LEWIS: What he's telling you is
3 I'm a big has-been.
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Very involved in
5 education, even as a Senator and a President of
6 the --
7 SENATOR LEWIS: Thank you --
8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- Senate.
9 SENATOR LEWIS: -- Commissioner, Governor,
10 and members of the Board of Education and the
11 Cabinet.
12 It's a pleasure to be here, and I wish you
13 all a very happy holiday season on this very
14 important subject.
15 You are in your -- last of your millennium,
16 and I urge you to pass this rule.
17 I think it is very important -- I've been
18 around now 30 years, and probably -- maybe
19 longer. And every time we go to increase rules
20 on education in -- increase the standards, here
21 come the complainers. And some of them are
22 very well meaning, well intentioned.
23 But there's no rule ever been passed that
24 doesn't -- can't be amended, can't be changed.
25 So I urge you to pass this -- I don't urge
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1 you -- I beg you to pass this rule in this
2 millennium, not next.
3 When the Jack Critchfield Governor's
4 Commission, the first day we were -- met, they
5 adopted a sort of a mantra. It said don't
6 flinch. And I urge you not to flinch.
7 This is a tough subject, and one that I
8 can't believe we even have any complaints, even
9 though we always can have them. I don't
10 question anybody's sincerity, but I can tell
11 you going back to the functional literacy test
12 when we had the Debra P., or whatever it was in
13 Turlington, the CLAST test, I was on that
14 commission, and we made six months of work, and
15 then somebody came up and stopped that; the
16 Accountability Commission, we had complaints
17 stem from day 1, and we went ahead and passed a
18 lot of the stuff that you're talking about in
19 his rule.
20 I can't tell you how -- and there's just
21 not going to be any perfect rule. I urge you
22 to pass this thing. And we'll have some
23 complaints about it. And you'll not -- by the
24 way, you ain't going to stop meeting in 198--
25 or 2000, are you? You can come back. But pass
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1 this this time for the kids.
2 And I want to tell you a little story. We
3 went -- the Account-- the last -- one of the
4 last meetings we had with the
5 Accountability Commission, we went up to
6 Havana High School I guess it is -- it's called
7 up in -- it's a predominantly black school.
8 We get in there, and the teacher said, what
9 are you all doing here?
10 And this is imprinted on me.
11 Commissioner Gallagher knows what I'm about
12 to say.
13 And she -- we told her why we were there.
14 And she said, well, you're wasting your time
15 here.
16 She said, by the time the kids get here,
17 they're in deep trouble, because they haven't
18 learned even the basics.
19 You need to go down into the K-- way down
20 in the lower grades, because they're just not
21 learning.
22 And she said, the first thing you ought to
23 do is stop social promotion. That was from
24 that teacher. And that just sort of imprinted
25 here.
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1 And then Commissioner Gallagher invited me
2 to go up in a carload of people he had to
3 Gadsden County. I think I was the outlaw in
4 the whole crowd. There were about 30 of us.
5 And I saw those beautiful children, and I
6 thought of what that woman said. We're passing
7 them.
8 They're heading for two places: Welfare
9 role or the prison system. And I urge you --
10 this may not be the last thing, but pass it.
11 Thank you.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Phil.
13 Happy holidays to you.
14 MR. PIERSON: For the Department,
15 presenting the rule will be Betty Coxe, the
16 Director of Public Schools.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good afternoon, Betty.
18 MS. COXE: Good afternoon, Governor,
19 members of the Cabinet.
20 I wasn't nervous enough, Commissioner? I
21 got to follow Senator Lewis.
22 Appreciate that.
23 It's a pleasure to be with you today and to
24 have the opportunity on behalf of the
25 Commissioner to present to you the Department's
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1 amendment to the rule.
2 And I must say up front, this is a
3 complicated matter. The rule was 26 pages long
4 when we advertised it, and yesterday it was
5 necessary to put forward several amendments in
6 compliance with a ruling by the
7 Joint Administrative Procedures Committee.
8 So I'm going to do the best I can this
9 afternoon to explain the language that you have
10 before you without getting all wrapped up into
11 rules and regs, but rather from a perspective
12 of here's what we are presenting, and here is
13 the rationale that got us to this point.
14 First of all, as has been stated repeatedly
15 today, Florida can be very proud of the fact
16 that it has a standards based accountability
17 system. But what does that mean?
18 That means that a team of professionals has
19 come together and decided exactly what it is
20 that children should know and be able to do in
21 various grades in Florida, and that we hold all
22 children to that same standard.
23 That is really an important concept. As
24 you look at accountability, we have to
25 constantly say to ourselves, do we know what
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1 the expectation is? And now that we have
2 clearly done that, through the work, of course,
3 of this prestigious body in adopting the
4 Sunshine State Standards in 1997, we can be
5 clear to people.
6 Now, my husband and I have four kids, and
7 we wish we had had the standards when our kids
8 were going through school. Maybe you do, too.
9 Because it clarifies for us what it is children
10 should know in various grade levels.
11 But it isn't enough to say simply, this is
12 what the expectation is. The State has a
13 compelling interest in finding out who meets
14 those standards. And the way that we do that
15 is through assessment.
16 Florida has a Florida Comprehensive
17 Assessment Test. We've had it for a very short
18 amount of time. But as we go further into this
19 presentation, we will develop for you the link
20 of that test to the standards. And that's the
21 crucial piece.
22 We've said what it is we need kids to
23 learn; we have a system by which we measure
24 whether they've learned it or not; and,
25 finally, we have an obligation to report
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1 those -- the success.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: When was the -- excuse me,
3 Betty.
4 When was the test tied to the standards,
5 when was that approved by the Board of
6 Education?
7 MS. COXE: I believe in 1998. Yes, sir.
8 So it's a relatively new policy.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: But it -- I just want to
10 put it in the historical perspective. There
11 was a different Governor --
12 MS. COXE: Yes, sir.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- different Cabinet --
14 MS. COXE: Yes, sir.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- and a commitment across
16 the board with lots of input by teachers,
17 principals, committed people to education to
18 create the standards and to create the
19 assessment that we would measure how children
20 are doing to those standards.
21 MS. COXE: Yes, sir.
22 It's my understanding that the Department's
23 original recommendation to the -- to the
24 Cabinet, which came about through, as you know,
25 Governor, meetings with literally hundreds of
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1 interested people, teachers, administrators.
2 The Department's original recommendation
3 turned out to be one that was even higher than
4 what the Board of Education indicated at the
5 time that it was comfortable doing.
6 So they created instead a phase-in system
7 for the standards in the hope that it would
8 give people more time to reach the mark.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
10 MS. COXE: Yes, sir.
11 The -- the FCAT basically tests, of course,
12 the performance of -- of each child one by one.
13 But kids go to school in groups, and those
14 groups are found in -- in schools, and there
15 has to be some way of compiling the results of
16 the testing for school determinations of how
17 well are our schools doing.
18 Now, it's important that we do that. We
19 have to know how the kids in schools are doing,
20 because we have to quantify school success.
21 We need to quantify that success for a
22 number of reasons, not the least of which is,
23 when you set a standard, you figure out who's
24 meeting it; you need to know who's meeting it
25 well beyond the -- the minimum expectation; and
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1 it's good public policy to reward those
2 schools, to let people know that their success
3 is recognized.
4 And it's also important to note those
5 schools that make dramatic improvement for
6 children, because it is harder in some schools
7 than in others to get kids up to the mark. And
8 those that -- that make strong gains in that
9 regard, they need to be rewarded.
10 And regrettably, you have some situations
11 where the kids aren't learning to the degree
12 that you would like. And in those
13 circumstances, we need to make sure we provide
14 the kind of assistance that makes children do
15 better.
16 But probably most important from a
17 comprehensive viewpoint is this: We are in a
18 constant state of continuous improvement, all
19 of us, as individuals, as schools. No matter
20 where you are, you can get better.
21 My dad used to say, strive for perfection,
22 settle for excellence. That's the way we are
23 looking at all schools. And you need a
24 measurement system to do that, to help people
25 determine the level of their success.
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1 I would be lying if I told you that what
2 you have before you today is a simple, perfect,
3 all encompassing process for doing what we need
4 to do in grading the schools.
5 But we know it is a good start at
6 implementing the A+ bill as was last passed,
7 and that it carries the State forward on its
8 mission of -- of holding schools accountable,
9 and providing the best kind of education for
10 all children in the state.
11 According to the law that was passed in
12 last session, schools in Florida are to receive
13 grades, and those grades are A to F. And that
14 was done out of a spirit of public truthfulness
15 I guess you'd say.
16 As y'all know, schools have been rated for
17 a long time on a tier level. And we switched
18 from level 1 to 5 to A through F for a more
19 honest presentation to the public of how
20 schools were doing.
21 And further in the law, it states that the
22 centerpiece really for accountability has to be
23 student achievement, and that the -- the one
24 thing, since that's the primary mission of
25 school is to educate kids, the primary thing
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1 upon which children -- schools must be held
2 accountable is the achievement results.
3 The law went on to say, it shouldn't be the
4 only thing. And there was a listing of other
5 factors to be considered in the grading of
6 schools. Those other factors you see on the
7 screen.
8 Now, some people will tell you that this
9 was not the Department's original position that
10 you see in the rule now, and that is true. So
11 I'd like to take a second to explain that.
12 If we hold with the premise that the most
13 important things that schools do are to teach
14 children to read, to write, to cipher, as they
15 used to say, then you -- you would have to say
16 that that needs to be the primary focus.
17 But there are other things about schools
18 that are important. And under the one year
19 that we graded schools, we decided to use these
20 other factors to distinguish between an A
21 school and a non-A school. And that was the
22 rule as it was publicized last week.
23 But JAPC found that the law did not allow
24 for that degree of flexibility, and, in fact,
25 that the other factors were to be considered in
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1 all passing grades of D through A.
2 So the amendment to the amendment that you
3 have received from Commissioner Gallagher does
4 do that. We believe we've done it in a way
5 that gives -- here's a very nonstatistical
6 term -- a bit of wiggle room for schools so
7 that it doesn't hold them inappropriately
8 accountable in these areas, but it does give
9 them a standard, and an expectation.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: What -- can I -- just
11 another historical perspective here.
12 MS. COXE: Yes, sir.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: I remember in transition
14 after the election, I came to
15 Commissioner Brogan, now Lieutenant Governor
16 Brogan's last Cabinet meeting where the school
17 recognition program was -- the rules were
18 passed.
19 MS. COXE: Yes, sir.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: And in those rules, as I
21 recall, which unanimously passed the -- the
22 Cabinet, there was an inclusion of school
23 discipline and attendance in those rules; were
24 there not?
25 MS. COXE: Yes, sir.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: And as I recall, I was told
2 this -- I didn't know this at the time -- the
3 reason why they were included, because they
4 weren't included to begin with, was a similar
5 kind of process of what we've gone through over
6 the last four or five months, to seek public
7 input that educators across the state wanted to
8 include school discipline and attendance as
9 part of that.
10 MS. COXE: Yes, sir. That is all true.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: And so when the bill was
12 passed, attempting to be true to the existing
13 school recognition program so that we could
14 have a smooth transition in our grading
15 program, that those things were included in the
16 passage of the law.
17 MS. COXE: Yes, sir.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay. Thank you.
19 MS. COXE: That is -- everything you have
20 said is accurate. And we would never maintain
21 at the Department that any accountability
22 system should be one dimensional.
23 We just believe that in terms of
24 translation of most important, you have to keep
25 your eye on the prize. And let's make no
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1 mistake, the prize is reading, writing, math,
2 and other content areas.
3 If children are allowed to exit our school
4 system incapable of being productive citizens
5 because they don't know content, we have made a
6 tremendous mistake in their education. A -- a
7 horrific one.
8 Now, these attendance factors and other
9 considerations you see there are important.
10 Obviously kids can't learn if they're not in
11 school, if they quit school, if they go to
12 school in a situation that there's chronic
13 chaos.
14 So you do want schools that are organized
15 to promote strong attendance; a feeling of
16 children staying there; of -- of good, sound
17 discipline. Kids need to do all of these
18 things.
19 So the new rule does reflect those, and
20 does have a -- a vehicle by which schools
21 are -- are held accountable to a certain
22 standard in that regard.
23 But the rule as amended in your proposal
24 this -- is basically concentrating on
25 achievement, and for very good reasons.
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1 I'd like to take a second to talk about
2 that assessment of student achievement. If we
3 roll the tape back to the Sunshine State
4 Standards, then the most important thing that
5 we can do as a State is figure out which of our
6 children have met the -- the requirements of
7 the standard.
8 And historically we have done that by
9 having children take our achievement test, and
10 issuing a report of that child's success. And
11 that report is a one-time status measure.
12 You get a report as a parent, says little
13 Junior took the test, here was his score in
14 reading, writing, math.
15 And that's a very good -- good system. I
16 don't think we need to apologize for that
17 system. It's important for families to know
18 where their kids are in terms of proficiency.
19 But the new law asks us to go a step
20 further, now that we have better systems for
21 measurement. It has asked us to develop a
22 system of annual learning gains, which
23 basically says this: Not just what did Junior
24 do in terms of demonstration of proficiency,
25 how much did he learn in the past year, which
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1 is what we call annual learning gains.
2 What was the growth, what was the bang for
3 our buck in education over the past year for
4 the investment made?
5 And the big change in annual learning gains
6 is that it tracks the success of the same
7 student over time. So you get that picture.
8 I think of it sort of like my family
9 photograph at home with the kids at every
10 Christmas. One thing you do, you look at the
11 picture, and you see that your children have
12 changed. But annual learning gains let you
13 quantify how much they've changed: They're
14 6 inches taller, they -- they can tie their --
15 they're wearing a tie now, whatever it is.
16 It's a different system of looking.
17 But the annual learning gains model will
18 give you both pieces of information. I think
19 that's important. Doesn't eliminate the one,
20 it tells you about the gains. And this is
21 going to be important, particularly for kids
22 who struggle.
23 If you've got a fifth grader who came to
24 school starting at second grade, and he is
25 tested again, and is now at fourth grade after
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1 one year of instruction, that child is still in
2 the fifth grade, functioning at fourth, but has
3 gained two years. And that's a crucial piece
4 of information.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: The -- the rule does not
6 address this, as I understand it, because we --
7 the law was changed to allow for grading of
8 students, instead of four, eight, and ten, now
9 we are four -- three through ten.
10 MS. COXE: Right.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: And in doing so, we'll be
12 able to measure those annual learning gains.
13 And the law --
14 MS. COXE: That's right.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- that was passed that --
16 that I -- that we advocated -- some of us at
17 least here --
18 MS. COXE: Right.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- had from the very
20 beginning included that as an element of the
21 ultimate grading system, which we can't --
22 MS. COXE: That is right.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- we can't get to quite
24 yet, can we?
25 MS. COXE: No, sir. And that will come up
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1 later. It will take us a couple of years. We
2 are starting right now, and you'll see that in
3 an upcoming slide, that in order to do what
4 you're talking about, we do have to expand the
5 FCAT.
6 Students have to, of course, be assessed.
7 And -- and in -- in accountability, the
8 grouping of those scores from kids has to be
9 packaged to make decisions about schools, how
10 have schools done.
11 And in the rule language that you have,
12 there is some talk about the reporting of
13 student achievement. And these are important
14 things, because these are the factors upon
15 which judgments are made about school
16 performance.
17 First of all, in the proposed language, you
18 see the FCAT performance criteria for schools
19 to be rated grades A through F.
20 And those, of course, are different,
21 depending on the subject area being tested, and
22 some other factors.
23 Now, because your decisions are important
24 when assigning a grade to a school, the
25 Commissioner has to be assured that enough
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1 students have been tested to give him an
2 accurate picture of the learning.
3 And this language proposes that 90 percent
4 of students who are eligible for testing have
5 their grades counted for school purposes,
6 95 percent for an A.
7 And I'd like to stop here a second, because
8 this gets real confusing to people, and -- and
9 we can understand why.
10 All kids are tested. I mean, there is
11 provision under Federal law that disabled
12 children are tested. They're not necessarily
13 tested on FCAT, but they have to be tested for
14 accountability purposes.
15 Then the question becomes: Whose scores
16 should count. And that gets a little trickier,
17 because there are kids in certain situations
18 where you wouldn't want their FCAT scores
19 necessarily to count for grading purposes.
20 An example might be a child who is new to
21 Florida, doesn't speak English, has only been
22 in our program for a year. You want to test
23 him to see where he is and how he's doing, but
24 you don't want to really hold the school
25 accountable yet.
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1 So there is a certain represent--
2 representativeness about this. When you remove
3 certain disabled children, certain LEP
4 students, and whatnot from the mix of counting
5 for school grading of the kids that you have
6 left, 90 percent need to be there for testing.
7 And that's what's in the rule.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Governor,
10 this is very confusing, as you say.
11 MS. COXE: It is. Very.
12 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: So what
13 you're -- so what you're telling me, that a
14 student who is IQ challenged, they'll take the
15 test, but -- but that it may not count if --
16 if, let's say, they have --
17 MS. COXE: Right.
18 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- a 70 IQ.
19 So they're --
20 MS. COXE: They have an IQ of what?
21 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Of 70 --
22 MS. COXE: Okay.
23 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- let's
24 say. So -- so that child take -- will take the
25 test, but that test will not count against the
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1 school.
2 MS. COXE: That is correct.
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay. Now,
4 a child who starts in school this year,
5 let's say, in the fourth grade, must stay in
6 the school the whole year, or for six or
7 eight months before that child is tested.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: We're getting to that.
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Oh.
10 MS. COXE: Yes.
11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Again, I'm
12 ah--
13 MS. COXE: To have their's -- I need to
14 address that ESE question because, of course,
15 everybody knows that ESE children, exceptional
16 students, are always judged on an individual
17 basis, as Federal law would require. So your
18 70 IQ I answered in general.
19 But children involved in emotionally
20 handicapped programs are somehow viewed to --
21 to have a disability that pronounced, in
22 general, their grades will not count.
23 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Well, many
24 times, as you know, the IQ challenged child
25 could be --
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1 MS. COXE: Yes.
2 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- your
3 hardest working --
4 MS. COXE: Absolutely.
5 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- child in
6 your classroom. And --
7 MS. COXE: That's right.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: And the Federal law, as --
9 as we -- we know, because the State is obliged
10 to pay for the portion of the money that they
11 were supposed to put up to take care of these
12 precious children, Federal law is quite
13 stringent upon creating individual achievement
14 plans that would be a mini accountability
15 system for each child that is uniquely given to
16 them, as it should be. And so --
17 MS. COXE: Uh-hum.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- they are not included in
19 this grading system.
20 MS. COXE: And that was, frankly, a point
21 statewide that was misrepresented over and
22 over, the ESE kids.
23 Well, the -- the way the language and the
24 rule reads, ESE kids are not automatically
25 included nor excluded since decisions are made
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1 on the individual basis.
2 Obviously, if you're gifted, you're
3 included. I mean, there are certain
4 categories.
5 But by in large, these are decisions that
6 have to first be driven at the individual
7 level, and then transformed to the school. The
8 language in the rule says students in a
9 standard curriculum course of study will have
10 their scores counted.
11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: But many
12 times, the low IQ child will be in a standard
13 curriculum.
14 MS. COXE: But modified for the IQ. And
15 once you get that modification in, then their
16 scores would not be counted.
17 Finally, two more quick points.
18 Statistically, you have to have enough kids
19 in a grade to be fair. And the determination
20 from the researchers has been we need 30. If
21 you only have five, that's too much weight
22 going on one child's movement.
23 And something you just mentioned, General,
24 on stability factor.
25 Yes, this was a major issue in the state.
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1 Schools want to be accountable for learning,
2 but they want to be accountable for the
3 learning of kids that they've had the
4 opportunity to teach.
5 So in the rule, the Commissioner has
6 recommended that we hold schools responsible
7 for kids who are there for both the October and
8 February reporting periods.
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Well, just
10 one question on this.
11 A number of teachers and administrators
12 told me that they think you'd be fairer if that
13 child was there the year before. But you have
14 a child just coming in, so you only had the
15 person for a few months. I know you have to
16 draw the line somewhere.
17 MS. COXE: Yes, sir.
18 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: But from the
19 standpoint of really being able to evaluate a
20 school, if that child was there for a longer
21 period of time -- I wasn't -- let's take
22 Orange County, who I believe the mobility
23 factor in the F school is over 55 percent.
24 How does that work? I mean, you may not
25 end up at some of these --
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well --
2 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- schools
3 with -- with 30.
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: There's a reason
5 that says stability instead of mobility. And
6 if I can, I'd like to address that.
7 You can have a mobility factor of
8 60 percent. One would think that that meant
9 that if there were 1,000 children in the school
10 in the beginning of the year, and there were
11 1,000 children in the school at the end of the
12 year, that 600 of them would be different.
13 That is not true.
14 What we find when we do runs is that -- and
15 looking on a stability side, is even though you
16 may have a 60 percent mobility factor, that
17 factor can be driven by a group of students
18 that come and go. And maybe they only have a
19 20 or 30 percent -- should I say changes.
20 And yet at the end of the school year, you
21 end up with 800 of the same students, only
22 200 are different.
23 So we believe that it's more accurate and
24 fair to look at the stability side, as opposed
25 to a mobility side.
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1 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Well,
2 then -- then just follow-up then. If a child
3 leaves for a few months -- let's say, he leaves
4 from November to February, is that child
5 counted or not --
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well --
7 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- because
8 he's there in October, and he's there in -- the
9 second time you test.
10 What happens to those children?
11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: That -- that
12 child, if he was in the -- if -- if the school
13 system counted him in October, and they counted
14 him in February, I don't know where he was in
15 between.
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: But at
17 the --
18 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: If he was --
19 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- school --
20 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- if he was ill,
21 if there were -- if there were extenuating
22 circumstances that would put him on a
23 critically ill, there is an existing rule and
24 law that -- that takes care of those children
25 and exempts them from being counted.
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1 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Yeah.
2 But -- but from the standpoint -- let's say he
3 goes from one school to another in the same
4 system, or a different system, then goes back
5 into that same public school, but the child was
6 only there maybe two days, the two important
7 dates, how is that one going to be counted?
8 I mean, it -- it's just things like that
9 which --
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, I'm sure,
11 as -- as Mrs. Coxe started out with, there --
12 there is no perfect grading system. And I can
13 guarantee you that we could sit up here and
14 come up with individual circumstances like that
15 that would sound like the whole system isn't
16 any good because of that.
17 But the truth of the matter is, there are
18 very, very few students that that would happen
19 with. And so you can't fix every single little
20 thing. And that -- that would be my answer to
21 that question.
22 And, again, it -- it would be -- it is one
23 student or two students. That's why we have a
24 minimum of 30, so that those kinds of
25 aberrations would not affect the school.
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1 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: So a -- a
2 school can actually challenge maybe some --
3 they can actually, I guess, go to you and
4 challenge certain -- certain students' grades
5 because they might not have been responsible
6 for teaching that child that particular year.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: We allowed -- last
8 year we had a number of incompletes because
9 they were less than 80 percent tested. We now
10 have in the rule 90, so everybody knows in the
11 front end that 90 has to happen, or you can
12 lose a grade.
13 We also allowed a 30-day period which
14 schools could give us data and appeal the grade
15 that they got based on any circumstance they
16 wanted to bring to us, which could include that
17 kind of a circumstance.
18 And we had a committee within the
19 Department that looked at each one of those
20 appeals, and made decisions based on what they
21 thought was the right thing to do.
22 And so that -- that is therestill there to
23 allow extenuating circumstances to be looked at
24 so a grade could be changed based on unusual
25 situations.
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1 I'm not saying that we'd do it because of
2 one student like that. But if there --
3 you know, if the school closed down for
4 three months, and none of them were there, that
5 might be a problem. I don't know.
6 But there could be extenuating
7 circumstances.
8 MS. COXE: In order to go forward with the
9 accountability process, we have to expand FCAT,
10 as the Governor indicated.
11 FCAT has currently been given in grades 4,
12 5, 8, and 10. And for accountability purposes,
13 that will be true this year as well.
14 However, additionally this year, we are
15 adding the field test level to fully implement.
16 And that -- that will take place for grades 3
17 through 10 in every area we haven't tested so
18 far.
19 Now, the field test is -- is a situation
20 where every kid in Florida will take those
21 tests, but they will not be taking the same
22 test items.
23 The purpose for field testing is test
24 development. So the Department and the company
25 will get together and look at the -- the
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1 results of the field test, they will determine
2 which items appear to be appropriate, which are
3 off kilter, and from that experience will
4 develop the first test for next year.
5 In the year 2000-2001, all students in
6 Florida will be taking grades 3 through 10 as
7 identified in law, reading and math, FCAT, for
8 a baseline year.
9 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
10 MS. COXE: And then finally, the subsequent
11 year is when we'll have the growth available to
12 make those very important decisions about how
13 much learning took place in a year's time.
14 Other parts of this rule talk about rewards
15 and recognition. This is an important
16 principle for people once you've said the
17 standard and you want to recognize those who
18 exceed it.
19 You see in the rule the criteria -- or
20 excuse me -- not the criteria, but the
21 authority for the Commissioner to grant
22 financial awards to A schools, and schools that
23 improve one grade, or schools that make
24 dramatic gains.
25 And we need to stop there a second about
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1 that part, because that's for F schools.
2 Now, most of us in the Department,
3 including me, are old teachers at -- at heart
4 and taught for many years, and are used to the
5 system of -- of A to F.
6 And as y'all will know, there's a huge
7 range in an F, typically zero to 69. That's a
8 giant range of numbers.
9 So if you make dramatic gains, you can well
10 make more gains in that zero to 69, than you
11 made from the whole system of D to A.
12 So there does seem to be an appropriate
13 rationale for recognizing schools that make
14 dramatic gains in reading and mathematics, but
15 don't get from F to D.
16 And you -- you know already -- I know y'all
17 do -- that we have 78 F schools this year, so
18 there are a large number. And many of them
19 well may make dramatic gains, but not get clear
20 to the D in one year.
21 So the Commissioner definitely wanted a
22 vehicle by which to recognize that success.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: General Butterworth.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Let me ask
25 you one question on this. Because this is --
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1 this is an important issue, because let's say
2 we see what's happening with the two schools
3 in -- in Escambia, and the other 78 that are --
4 that are F schools.
5 Let's say you have a school that's doing --
6 let's say, you say with your zero to 69,
7 let's say it's at a 2. And they bring it up to
8 66.
9 To give that school a double F would be so
10 demoralizing to the teachers, the
11 administrators, the system, this -- the kids,
12 is there a way -- is there -- is there some
13 type of safety valve here to where, if the
14 Commissioner believes or the committee believes
15 that a school has made such great progress, it
16 would be just fundamentally unfair to give that
17 school the second F, and, therefore, they will
18 not fall within that -- the two Fs within a
19 four-year period.
20 That way I think you'd -- you'd have the
21 incentive out there, even for the school that's
22 way down low, to bring the students up to a
23 much higher level.
24 MS. COXE: General, I wish it were that
25 easy. But, you know, any time you have a
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1 number, you have to get here, there are always
2 those who are one little bit below it; and one,
3 of course, little bit above it.
4 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Let's say 50
5 then to -- from 2 to 50, which is still
6 20 points below. I mean, I'm -- I'm saying
7 that --
8 MS. COXE: Two to three.
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- is there
10 someone out there that could put fairness into
11 something that, when people work so hard, and a
12 District does so much, and -- and a business
13 adopts a school, and children are feeling
14 wonderful about themself --
15 MS. COXE: I know.
16 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- for the
17 first time in their lives, school teachers are
18 feeling great, and to still say, I'm sorry, you
19 failed.
20 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, what --
21 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Yet you made
22 more progress than any other school in the
23 state of Florida.
24 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Because you
25 have -- you have spoken what I -- I think is --
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1 is true, that we should have a method by which
2 we recognize those schools that have done such
3 a great job, even though their students have
4 not yet earned a D, that is why we added to
5 this rule recognition for that gain.
6 But we don't remove them from what grade
7 they are, because that would not be fair
8 either. And the lines are pretty well drawn,
9 and they were drawn back before I was on this
10 Cabinet as Commissioner of Education, on what
11 were -- the levels were going to be.
12 So that's why we say that if --
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well --
14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- you have,
15 in fact, a substantial gain, we will recognize
16 those schools that are Fs with monetary
17 rewards, the same as we do ones that would gain
18 a grade, and the same as we do with the ones
19 that would be an A school.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Which is over and above the
21 amount of money that F schools, as the report
22 showed by the anecdotal stories of all the
23 different strategies being developed. What
24 wasn't stated was there's more money going to
25 the F schools already. So this would be in
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1 addition to that.
2 MS. COXE: Uh-hum.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Tom, just again, I'd -- I
4 want to make sure, because I -- one of the
5 frustrating things about this very important
6 issue, and I know that there's disagreement --
7 trust me, I know that there's disagreement
8 about this -- is the lack of understanding of
9 the historical development of our standards and
10 grading.
11 Perhaps you could describe what it is
12 that -- that designates -- I don't even know if
13 it was a 1 or a 5, because -- and that was the
14 problem with the old grading system, is 5 may
15 have been the lowest, or may have been the
16 highest. Very few people could tell you that.
17 But based on those standards and the
18 current standards, what -- what makes --
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well --
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- a school be designated
21 either a 1 or a 5, or whatever it was, or an F?
22 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: It is interesting
23 to note that this Board, prior to your being
24 Governor, and prior to me being Commissioner of
25 Education, basically voted the standards that
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1 would be set for the grading system.
2 Now, at that time, the grading system was
3 in levels, Level 1 through Level 5.
4 Truly, the educators understood which was
5 the better one and which was the worst. It
6 started, and you'll see -- you'll visit schools
7 periodically, and they'll say, this is a
8 Level 1 school. Some people might think that's
9 an A, but the truth of the matter is, a Level 1
10 was an F; and a Level 5 was an A.
11 The same criteria that was used for Level 1
12 through Level 5 is the basis of the criteria
13 used now from A through F.
14 We have -- one of the things that was asked
15 for in our meetings as we went around the state
16 is stability in the grading system. And we
17 worked very hard to have stability in the
18 grading system.
19 These new rules that we're actually putting
20 in are implementing the A+ plan, but we are
21 doing that, which includes putting level --
22 grades on, as opposed -- letters as opposed to
23 levels.
24 But the basic criteria for how you are at
25 what level is basically there from the rule
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1 that was -- was set by this Board before you
2 and I got here, Governor.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: And what was it?
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: And so --
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Sixty percent of reading,
6 math, and writing -- and writing. All three.
7 MS. COXE: Uh-hum.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Sixty percent of the
9 students had to be below that level --
10 MS. COXE: Right.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- the minimum level, not
12 the median level --
13 MS. COXE: Right.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- but the minimum level.
15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: That's right.
16 It --
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Put it in perspective.
18 I mean --
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: If 40 percent of
20 the students are not at the minimum level --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Say it once.
22 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- expected, then
23 that school is rated an F. And that is a --
24 that is a -- a -- a very low level. And,
25 in fact, when you look at a D, you're saying
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1 all three of those subjects, except for one.
2 That's -- that's a pretty low standard, in
3 all honesty. And it's a concern that it's that
4 low. But the truth of the matter is, we have a
5 long way to go across this state, and we want
6 to have it -- gains shown, and -- and levels
7 that -- that I think we should consider an
8 absolute minimum, and that's what that is.
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Governor, I
10 don't --
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes.
12 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- I don't
13 mean to prolong this. Maybe I'm not --
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, this is important.
15 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- maybe I'm
16 not making myself clear here.
17 I -- I don't mind that school getting
18 another F. That doesn't bother me, because
19 they have -- because they have not reached
20 the -- the D level yet.
21 What -- what bothers me is that if you
22 receive two Fs, you then go into a different
23 category to where then vouchers do check in,
24 and a lot of other things do check in.
25 So my question would be: If a school makes
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1 such great progress, why provide them with the
2 double F negatives where they -- as they start
3 losing enrollment, they will then -- the
4 school board then loses the money.
5 Is there a way to still give them an F, but
6 not put them into the double F category, like a
7 Dixon right now, to where the vouchers check
8 in, everything else checks in, because I -- I'm
9 concerned about stability, too.
10 And I'm also -- I think everything that's
11 been done here has been tremendous of putting
12 education first, and -- and putting education
13 on the front pages of the papers. And the
14 teachers that are motivated -- and also in the
15 courtrooms.
16 -- the teachers are motivated, the
17 administrators are motivated, and -- and
18 just -- I think we'd be doing a terrible
19 disservice if there was just not some mechanism
20 for the Commissioner or a committee to
21 designate that particular school made so much
22 progress to put them in a double F category
23 would just be inappropriate --
24 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, I can --
25 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- not fair.
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- tell you that
2 the law is very clear that a school that
3 receives an F in any two out of four years, the
4 parents and students have the right to an
5 opportunity scholarship, which would allow them
6 to move to a C school or better; or to a
7 private school, if there was room for them.
8 And I don't think that we have the
9 authority to change that. That is -- that is
10 pretty much in law.
11 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
12 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: But then we
13 can change it though in the rule that's before
14 us by may -- putting factors in.
15 And -- and this is one thing that concerns
16 me is that a lot of discussion has been on the
17 issue of could be on poverty, a neighborhood
18 feeding into schools, that something like that
19 should be maybe phased in, as opposed to where
20 it's now.
21 I mean, I -- I think every child can learn,
22 and there are many schools in this state that
23 are here that -- there are some schools that --
24 that have Ds that only have 8 percent poverty.
25 So it goes both ways.
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1 But -- but the thing is, my concern is that
2 there has to be some fundamental fairness here
3 to where the teachers and the principals and
4 other administrators will not go into that
5 double F category if they've done so much good.
6 That's just -- it's fairness.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well --
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: It really
9 is. And I think it even helps the court cases.
10 It's something there that -- that helps us in
11 that regard. That's --
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: General, let me
13 just give you a little history, if I may.
14 This has been moved in in phases. Although
15 the opportunity scholarships is new,
16 recognizing that there were problems with low
17 performing schools is not.
18 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Right.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: In 1995-96,
20 158 schools were designated as critically low
21 performing. In 1996-97, there was a 55 percent
22 reduction in those because of the stigma of
23 being a low performing school.
24 Seventy-one schools in 96-97.
25 In 97-98, there was another 59 percent
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1 reduction, and we saw 30 schools designated as
2 low performing.
3 Now, in 1997-98, 51 percent of all schools
4 had no scores -- scores below the State
5 criteria.
6 In 98-99, four schools were designated as
7 school performance Level 1, or F.
8 So there was a tremendous gain made.
9 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Right.
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Now, I will tell
11 you that the standards were not high for low
12 performing. They were very low.
13 If we were honest, we probably would have
14 known there was five hundred and some schools
15 that should have been on that list, if you
16 really took to what we're talking about today.
17 In fact, probably more like seven or
18 eight hundred.
19 In 1998-99, this Board adopted a new
20 criteria, prior to me being here.
21 And in 99-2000, we designated schools by
22 letter grades, equal to low performing would be
23 the F. There are 78 schools so mentioned.
24 This year, I would expect, hopefully --
25 I've -- truly hopefully expect, that we would
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1 see a reduction in those critically performing
2 schools that are Fs, by -- I'm not going to
3 guess, but I would hope that we'll see a -- a
4 good improvement, because I know a lot of work
5 is happening in those schools.
6 That's why -- and knowing that some will --
7 will improve a lot, but may not get to where
8 they need to be, that's why we wanted to reward
9 those ones that showed that tremendous
10 performance gain with cash awards to be used
11 for the school as the teachers and principals
12 and SACs want to -- want to do it.
13 But to basically say that because -- that
14 they should not -- that the parents shouldn't
15 have the opportunity to have the same choices
16 that so many other parents have that may not be
17 in the lower socioeconomic area I think would
18 go against what the -- what the law says.
19 MS. COXE: Okay.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
21 MS. COXE: The law also requires that we
22 address the issue of deregulation and budget
23 authority for those schools that do exemplary
24 jobs. And you'll see that mentioned.
25 We have to give assistance and intervention
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1 for D and F schools, and we would want this.
2 There needs to be intensive efforts to get
3 everyone up to the standard. And if we don't
4 waiver from that, if we say everybody can get
5 there, given the right resources, then we will
6 get everybody where they need to go.
7 The law requires, and the rule supports a
8 two-year district plan for assistance; that the
9 Commissioner grant preference for State and
10 Federal grants in funding D and F schools; that
11 where necessary, school boards can declare
12 contractual emergencies to assist them in
13 providing a different delivery model of
14 instruction; and finally, you, sitting as
15 State Board, have the power to make differences
16 in these schools.
17 That is the rule in a very cursory fashion.
18 We would like to state that there are many
19 people going to come for you to-- before you
20 today, and they're going to say some really
21 good things about the rule, they're going to
22 say some things that they very much don't like.
23 We would like to let you know that the
24 primary responsibility is for us to develop for
25 you a rule that is statutorily compliant, and
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1 that speaks to the intent and the heart of the
2 law. And we believe that we have done that.
3 That doesn't mean we have developed for you
4 a rule that is flawless, or a rule that will be
5 universally accepted. We do think it is one
6 that serves the greater good, and puts the
7 focus on kids and their learning; that keeps
8 the attention on standards, which is what our
9 system has to have, stability on the standards,
10 with an underlying belief that all children can
11 reach them.
12 And finally, we've tried to give you today
13 a rule that reflects your wishes as leadership,
14 as they have been translated to us, that
15 reflects the honest input from the public to
16 the degree we had the statutory authority to do
17 so; and that bears in mind that these are
18 difficult, important, and challenging
19 decisions, and need -- need our full effort.
20 And to that end, we have a large team of
21 people here that have helped work this rule,
22 and there are quite specific areas that they
23 have far more expertise than do I. So they are
24 here at your disposal, and eager to provide you
25 any additional information you may have.
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1 Thank you.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Thank you, Betty.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I think probably,
5 Governor, we've heard the presentation. I'm
6 going to ask those that -- we know that people
7 have signed up. I'm going to ask Wayne to go
8 through the list that's signed up.
9 And I'd like to do it this way: If you
10 want to talk about -- there is -- there is one
11 area that I'd like to hold till the last,
12 because it has -- it is by itself a -- an area
13 that should have discussion, and that would be
14 the poverty factor included in the school
15 grading system.
16 Those that would like to speak to that
17 alone, I'd ask you to hold off until we go
18 through the rest. Those that would like to
19 speak of that, and everything else, feel free
20 to come in -- in line as we come through the
21 list.
22 Thank you.
23 MR. PIERSON: How many of these do you want
24 me to identify to start with? If I go through
25 this whole list, they won't remember where they
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1 are.
2 We've got --
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Why don't you just do,
4 like, five or six at a time then.
5 MR. PIERSON: Okay. The -- the first
6 speaker will be Mary Compton from
7 Sarasota County; second, Catherine Kitto from
8 Sarasota County; next, Maureen Dinnen from
9 FTP-NEA; Beth VanVranken from Braden River
10 Elementary School, Manatee County; and
11 Jenny Limbacher from Braden River Elementary
12 School Advisory Council, Manatee County.
13 MS. COMPTON: Good afternoon.
14 My name is Mary Compton, and I'm a
15 fourth grade teacher at Gulf Gate School in
16 Sarasota, which has been identified as an
17 A school.
18 I am speaking on behalf of five educators
19 who have accompanied me to speak to this
20 important issue.
21 We believe that Rule 6A-1.00998, or better
22 known as the school grading rule, is having a
23 detrimental effect on our schools.
24 This rule misuses the Florida Comprehensive
25 Achievement Test and subjects our schools to an
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1 unfair grading system, which is both
2 demoralizing, and counterproductive.
3 There is simply no way of fixing this rule,
4 because the very foundation of this rule is
5 both shallow and faulty.
6 First of all, this rule measures student
7 achievement solely on the basis of the FCAT
8 test. Now, we have all fallen under the spell
9 of the FCAT test today. The FCAT is a good
10 test. It was designed to measure how well
11 teachers were teaching the Sunshine State
12 Standards.
13 In order to meet these high standards,
14 schools across the state were adopting programs
15 which developed higher order thinking skills.
16 And these skills are the backbones of our
17 excellent State standards.
18 The fault with this rule lies in the fact
19 that it uses only the FCAT to measure student
20 achievement. And when you use only one tool to
21 measure accountability and student achievement,
22 you're asking for trouble.
23 The effect is that our schools have become
24 centers for test preparation. As teachers and
25 administrators are now adopting programs which
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1 promise that their schools won't end up on the
2 wrong side of the bell curve.
3 The curriculum in our schools have been
4 narrowed to teaching for the test. Subjects
5 which are not tested, such as the fine arts,
6 civics, and extracurriculum activities, are
7 being squeezed out of our schools, as more time
8 and money is dedicated to getting ready for the
9 big test.
10 In my hand, I hold a children's classic,
11 Johnny Tremain. This book burns forever in the
12 hearts of my students. It's about the freedom
13 we enjoy in this country.
14 These kinds of books are being replaced by
15 test prep workbooks. Now, I ask you, and I ask
16 the audience, what do you want your
17 fourth grader learning about in our schools?
18 And as long as I'm talking about freedom,
19 under the current rule, it appears as if
20 legislators are mandating exactly what will be
21 taught in our classrooms.
22 I'm sorry. There is something ominous
23 about children learning only what the State
24 wants them to learn. Textbooks, only covering
25 what the State considers to be important.
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1 And if a teacher, or student, should stray
2 from this path, they will be found out at the
3 time of testing. The result has been a loss of
4 creativity on both the part of teachers and
5 students. Fear is doing away with any original
6 thoughts in our schools.
7 Finally, we do not approve of the grading
8 of schools. This is a simplistic way of
9 evaluating schools, and does not measure how
10 much progress each child makes.
11 Because of this misuse of data, we have
12 seen several fine schools and hardworking
13 teachers who are dedicated for -- to working
14 with the poor and disadvantaged children
15 receive a grade of D or F.
16 As a professionals -- as professionals, we
17 cannot endorse a program which treats our
18 colleagues in such an unjust manner.
19 So we ask you today to begin to rethink
20 your accountability program. Accountability is
21 necessary, and part of a good education system.
22 But the goal of accountability should always be
23 to improve our schools, and not hurt them.
24 And speaking to accountability, my
25 principal, Ms. Kitto, will address that.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Welcome.
2 MS. KITTO: Thank you.
3 Governor and Cabinet, thank you for
4 listening to us today. Indeed, it has been for
5 us -- or at least for me, a lesson in civics
6 just being here, and I -- I appreciate that.
7 I would like to address just some -- some
8 personal views that I have. I consider myself
9 on the front line, although I know my teachers
10 are the real front line people.
11 But I'm -- I'm watching them, and I'm very
12 concerned about what is happening, a lot of
13 which Mary spoke about. A couple of points
14 in fact.
15 Last Friday we had our annual arts day.
16 And it's something we all look forward to.
17 Community artists come to our campus and share
18 not only their visual arts, but the performing
19 arts. We have dance groups and musical groups.
20 And all day, the students are out about campus
21 appreciating the arts, and participating in
22 them.
23 And at the end of that wonderful day, a
24 teacher came up to me and said, well, another
25 day shot not practicing for the FCAT. And it
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1 broke my heart. It -- it doesn't feel good
2 when teachers feel that way.
3 And I -- I see that happening in other
4 instances as well. We developed a beautiful
5 state of the art science lab at our school, and
6 it's for third, fourth, and fifth grade
7 students. And the teachers asked me last month
8 if they could please disband the schedule for
9 the month of January so they could prep for the
10 FCAT.
11 The -- what goes on in that science lab is
12 unbelievable learning. But it isn't tested
13 directly on the FCAT, and so --
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: You didn't let them, did
15 you? I'm sorry.
16 MS. KITTO: Excuse me?
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: You didn't --
18 MS. KITTO: Well, as a matter of fact, I
19 didn't let them. But --
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good for you.
21 MS. KITTO: -- but they asked me if they
22 could deviate from the curriculum, and -- and
23 practice on scientific experiments and
24 activities that will address the FCAT.
25 So there -- there's that -- that sense of
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1 nervousness for -- for the FCAT.
2 What we would like to offer, I -- I
3 certainly am not against testing. And as Mary
4 said, the FCAT is a -- a good test. It has
5 wonderful potential. If it's used for what it
6 was designed to be used, and that's to help us,
7 to inform us, about what we need to be doing
8 better. And not to grade us with rewards and
9 punishments.
10 And that's what we see happening with the
11 FCAT, which -- which, again, narrows the
12 curriculum, and that worries me a lot. We --
13 we are very focused on what is on the test.
14 And that's what happens when high stakes
15 testing occurs. And it will be high stakes as
16 long as schools are receiving grades, and
17 money.
18 What I would like to see instead -- and
19 I think we're heading in the right direction
20 when we talk about individual student gains.
21 That's a good thing, and I'm glad that's going
22 to happen.
23 But also accountability systems must take
24 in other factors. They must not be driven by
25 one single indicator, one single test.
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1 They must include community, teacher,
2 student, and school based indicators, as well
3 as test scores.
4 They must include monitoring and support
5 for equitable and substantial learning for all
6 students. And I could give you an example
7 where focusing on the FCAT doesn't necessarily
8 do that.
9 We must not use punitive methods for
10 students and teachers. And I think grading Ds
11 and Fs is punitive. It makes people feel
12 terrible. And it causes people to want to
13 leave D and F schools, not -- not students, but
14 teachers.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can we stop a second on
16 that? Because that's an excellent point.
17 And I've looked at data that shows that
18 that was going on the -- we're going to use
19 stability or mobility rates, one of the two,
20 was either higher or lower, in the schools that
21 were lower performing long before the grading
22 system was in place.
23 Has that been your experience?
24 MS. KITTO: That low SES schools are lower
25 performing, is that what you're saying?
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Lower performing schools
2 have always had higher mobility rates for --
3 MS. KITTO: Oh, yeah.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- teachers.
5 MS. KITTO: Oh, I think that's certainly --
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
7 MS. KITTO: -- our experience, right.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah. I'm not sure if
9 the -- that's why I was asking is I'm not sure
10 the grading system is the cause for that, or
11 the factor is that maybe -- and different
12 counties have different ways of doing it, but
13 the collective bargaining agreement --
14 MS. KITTO: Uh-hum.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- allows teachers with
16 longer service --
17 MS. KITTO: Right.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- to be able to move to
19 schools --
20 MS. KITTO: I --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- of their choice.
22 MS. KITTO: Yeah.
23 I think to a degree, that's true. For one
24 thing, the burnout rate in those schools is
25 very high. It's very exhausting.
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1 And I think that that, coupled with the
2 fact that you get labeled with a D or a F,
3 increases that humil-- humiliation, I think.
4 I just see teachers in our two D schools --
5 and I hate to call them D schools, because it
6 acknowledges that I believe they are, and
7 they're not -- but those teachers feel awful.
8 And it has made our teachers at, quote, an
9 A school feel badly, too, because we know that
10 they're working just as hard as we are. And
11 we -- we come up with a bonus.
12 So --
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: If you know that they're
14 getting more money at the D schools, then
15 you --
16 MS. KITTO: Yeah, we -- we know that. And,
17 as a matter of fact, they -- they actually -- a
18 lot of those schools get more money anyway.
19 I mean, they get the title funds and --
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Notwithstanding the Title I
21 money --
22 MS. KITTO: I understand that. Right.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- the D schools are
24 getting more money than your school --
25 MS. KITTO: Correct.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- the $100 per student --
2 MS. KITTO: We know that. I -- I think --
3 I think my point would be that, rather than go
4 with the reward system, we need to put adequate
5 funding into all schools so that we don't have
6 to -- to struggle with this competition factor.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: If I may, just one
8 second. Recognizing that this has been an
9 issue.
10 I took the -- the county that does have the
11 largest number of F schools, and I had graphed
12 a -- teacher transfers for five years, both
13 transfer requested, as well as transfers
14 received.
15 And I'll -- the top line is the transfers
16 requested --
17 MS. KITTO: Uh-hum.
18 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- the bottom one
19 is the transfers received. And you'll see that
20 this year, when they had a grade, truth of the
21 matter is, it was the lowest of those years.
22 Now, maybe it's all -- everybody that
23 wanted to leave, already left.
24 But the bottom line is that all of this
25 talk about -- you know, all the teachers are
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1 leaving just isn't true in this county.
2 Now, I haven't done --
3 MS. KITTO: Uh-hum.
4 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- a cross, but I
5 will tell you that we have seen teacher
6 transfers across the board at about a
7 15 percent level, and it's pretty much still
8 there.
9 MS. KITTO: Uh-hum.
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: So although that
11 is an argument that people like to talk about,
12 I think this sort of refutes that somewhat.
13 MS. KITTO: Right.
14 Well, and -- and I don't have statistics,
15 but I can only speak from the experience that I
16 am hearing from teachers, teachers who are
17 calling me and asking if I will have
18 openings -- openings next year.
19 I think the -- the last factor in
20 accountability system, and that's what we've
21 just been talking about, must ensure that
22 teachers are compensated at levels commensurate
23 with their critical importance -- with the
24 critical importance of their work.
25 And I think, you know, when that happens,
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1 then the -- the reward system won't be as big
2 an issue.
3 Now, all of those things, and -- and
4 probably many more, should be in an
5 accountability system, and not -- not heavily
6 related to just one test. And all of these
7 elements would, of course, be very complex and
8 costly and difficult to implement.
9 But, look, this state has done a wonderful
10 job so far with the Sunshine State Standards.
11 They're fantastic.
12 And our school district welcomed them.
13 We -- we worked hard to create a curriculum
14 that was in line with the standards.
15 And along with that, we have put in staff
16 development that -- that is again aligned with
17 the standards and with our curriculum.
18 And our teacher evaluation system is also
19 aligned with the standards and the curriculum,
20 and our administrative evaluation system as
21 well.
22 All of these things are fitting together
23 very, very nicely in a very complex sort of
24 play. And I think it's time to make sure that
25 our accountability system is just as complex.
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1 It shouldn't be simple, it shouldn't be
2 simplistic. And we need to work on it until we
3 get it right, because it's -- it's just not
4 right the way it is.
5 Now, last year, as you have heard, we were
6 declared an A school. And I can guarantee you,
7 we worked very hard, as we do every year, to
8 ensure that all of our students reach their
9 potentials.
10 However, we don't believe that we worked
11 harder or better than our sister schools in
12 Sarasota, or throughout Florida, who received
13 lesser grades. We think every school has a
14 difficult job to do. I don't know that -- of
15 one school that's slacking in its effort.
16 Every school needs more funding, every
17 teacher needs to be compensated better. And
18 that's why we are returning the bonuses that we
19 received for being an A school.
20 We'd like you, please, to just add this as
21 a very small token, we know it is, to the
22 general fund, the education fund, until we're
23 able to adequately fund all schools in Florida
24 and implement an effective accountability
25 system. Thank you.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: You may have to give this
2 to General Milligan. You're the Comptroller,
3 aren't you?
4 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: This week.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: We -- we gave out, I think
6 30 million dollars this year for improving
7 schools and schools that were A rated. And --
8 so we'll subtract that from the -- the 2,500
9 from the 30 million.
10 MS. LIMBACHER: Hi. My name is
11 Jenny Limbacher. I'm a parent of a
12 fifth grader at Braden River Elementary School.
13 It's an A school. I'm also a SAC committee
14 member.
15 We have probably the biggest SAC. I'm not
16 sure about that, but we have, like, 52 members
17 on our SAC. We tried to get at least one
18 representative from each classroom. So we're
19 trying to represent the majority of our
20 schools.
21 So far we're doing pretty good with it.
22 Let's see. I was brought -- it was brought
23 to the attention of the SAC that parents were
24 unhappy with the emphasis put on the
25 standardized tests. They felt their children
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1 were not getting a well-rounded education, and
2 that teachers were having --
3 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
4 MS. LIMBACHER: -- to teach to the test.
5 As we investigated the matter further, it
6 was discovered that an overwhelming amount of
7 parents felt the same way. And SAC formed a
8 legislative committee, which I'm chairing and
9 brought here today.
10 We held an open forum at our school, and
11 this was open to everyone, not just our school.
12 A few other SAC reps came and stuff from other
13 schools.
14 We started the letter writing campaign and
15 petition drive. We obtained around
16 150 signatures. And this was just in a short
17 time. This was around Thanksgiving time.
18 And we have several letters from -- a few
19 from parents -- or quite a few from parents,
20 and a few from children.
21 And I have some of them here today.
22 I am here today representing those parents
23 and children, and would like to read a small
24 part of some of the letters.
25 Patricia and Michael Harshbarger state --
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1 this is what they say in their letter:
2 Please realize that the A+ plan grading
3 system does have an effect on our children.
4 An exceptional amount of pressure comes
5 down from the State level, through school
6 boards and administration, to the teachers, and
7 ultimately to the children.
8 From the first week of school, children are
9 gearing up for the Florida Writes test, the
10 FCAT, and SATs.
11 Emphasis is being taken off understanding
12 the subject matter itself and being placed on
13 test performance. These are tests that do not
14 reflect as directly on the students as they do
15 on the schools. The A+ grading system places
16 the stress on the child to uphold the integrity
17 of the school.
18 Please don't spend Florida educational
19 dollars on more standardized testing, but
20 rather on quality academic opportunities for
21 students.
22 We have a piece from Kathryn Boudreaux.
23 She says that:
24 I am writing to ask for your help in
25 changing the way the Bush-Brogan A+ plan for
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1 schools is being implemented in our school
2 system. While I agree that schools and
3 teachers must be held accountable, and there
4 should be checks and balances in the system, I
5 don't think the legislator --slature realizes
6 what effect this plan is having on our
7 children.
8 I feel that too much emphasis is being
9 placed on the standardized test scores. Many
10 bright children simply do not do well on
11 standardized testing. The children know they
12 can be held back if they do not perform well on
13 the tests.
14 My own child, who makes straight As on his
15 report cards, was unable to sleep or eat before
16 last year's fourth grade standardized test. He
17 was certain he'd do poorly and never make it to
18 the fifth grade. This year he's already
19 worried he'll never make it to the middle
20 school.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'm sorry. I just --
22 MS. LIMBACHER: Of the 180 --
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- I want to -- before --
24 before I forget. Please -- is that your child,
25 or do you know the child?
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1 MS. LIMBACHER: Yes.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Please tell that child that
3 that's not possible, that there won't be social
4 promotion based on the FCAT test --
5 MS. LIMBACHER: That's what they're --
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- and if they're doing --
7 MS. LIMBACHER: -- being told.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, I just not -- it's
9 not --
10 MS. LIMBACHER: Okay. I will.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Please tell him --
12 MS. LIMBACHER: But that's how they --
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- I want to make sure he
14 knows that before Christmas.
15 MS. LIMBACHER: Okay.
16 Okay.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Straight A students.
18 MS. LIMBACHER: Of the 180 days of school
19 this year, the first 100 are devoted to the
20 FCAT test.
21 Until recent protests from parents, our
22 school had a 100-day countdown televised each
23 morning in the classrooms.
24 I compare that to being warned every day
25 for 100 days that you're going to be hit by a
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1 train. Ninety-nine days till the train hits,
2 seventy-three days till the train hits.
3 Our principal finally agreed to remove the
4 countdown broadcast.
5 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
6 MS. LIMBACHER: In turn -- these are coming
7 from children.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Smart principal.
9 MS. LIMBACHER: In turn, the stress of
10 knowing their school's grade and their
11 teacher's bonus, depending on how well their
12 scores -- they score, makes many children
13 anxious.
14 Young children want to please. They feel
15 like they're letting down their teachers and
16 parents if they don't score well.
17 They are endlessly comparing themselves to
18 their peers. Johnny got a higher grade on FCAT
19 than I did. In a ten year old's mind, the
20 quick -- that quickly translate to -- that
21 quickly translates to, I must be dumber than
22 Johnny.
23 If we teach our children to obsess about
24 their grades, they will lose interest in what
25 they're doing. The fear of failure could
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1 ultimately lead to that child dropping out of
2 school altogether.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can I make another point
4 real quick, just for information purposes,
5 to -- when you -- when you go back to --
6 MS. LIMBACHER: Sure.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- Manatee County?
8 I -- I think that the majority of the
9 money -- the schools that have accepted this
10 money, the majority have not given bonuses to
11 teachers. They have put the money in to
12 technology, a lot of times; or after-school
13 programs for remediation.
14 They've -- they've used it as -- some have.
15 Some have done bonuses, and -- and -- but
16 I believe the majority have not.
17 And so the point about this money is that
18 it -- it's the discretion of you all to decide
19 how that's spent, the principal and the --
20 MS. LIMBACHER: Well, that's part of the
21 problem, too. And I don't know where that
22 comes from exactly, because we're just now
23 getting our money and starting to spend it.
24 But this is -- I'm saying this off the top
25 of my head. But when we got our 108,000
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1 I think it was for being an A -- A school,
2 there was a Board formed to decide what to do
3 with that money and how to split it.
4 The Board consisted -- I don't have it in
5 front of me -- but I would say 12 to
6 15 teachers, and -- and administrators, and
7 three SAC representatives.
8 We had no chance of voting it the way we
9 wanted to as parents.
10 Now, where that comes from, some people
11 think that maybe you guys, or somebody up
12 higher should be deciding how that's split,
13 or -- or making sure that there are an equal
14 amount of SAC or parents -- somebody --
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good point.
16 MS. LIMBACHER: -- on that Board --
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: That --
18 MS. LIMBACHER: -- because --
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- you're advocating my
20 position --
21 MS. LIMBACHER: -- it's out of our control.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- in front of the
23 Commissioner right now.
24 MS. LIMBACHER: Yes. We have parents right
25 now and teachers fighting over this now. It's
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1 a big fight. We're all -- they're all unhappy.
2 They don't --
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: The point is --
4 MS. LIMBACHER: -- want the money anymore,
5 the parents --
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: The teachers --
7 MS. LIMBACHER: -- you know.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: The -- the children
9 shouldn't worry about the teachers not getting
10 a bonus, when, in fact, they may not be getting
11 a bonus anyway, because it's -- it's for the --
12 whatever the format is, really it's -- it's not
13 at anybody's discretion here how the money is
14 spent.
15 And it can be spent on, as I mentioned,
16 anything that would enhance student learning.
17 MS. LIMBACHER: Right. Except from --
18 you know, from your end. But they're getting
19 it from the principal. You know, she's mak--
20 we're making Board members, like I said,
21 you know -- where it makes it impossible for us
22 to get what we want for even a part of that
23 money.
24 We already gave seventy to the --
25 70 percent to our teachers and staff. All we
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1 wanted was 30 percent for the parents and
2 teachers to help, you know, decide what to do
3 with that for the classrooms.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Senator Cowin's here
5 watching. That might be something we could
6 look at through the Legislature to provide a
7 little guidance since these rules are a
8 reflection of law.
9 MS. LIMBACHER: Okay. And then I have just
10 a -- a couple here, small ones from children.
11 This is Rhonda Makki.
12 I am an eighth grader at Braden River
13 Middle School. I'm in the advanced language
14 arts class, and I will be taking the
15 Florida Writes this year.
16 Since the beginning of the year, students
17 have been under pressure, as well as the
18 teachers, about the Florida Writes. The only
19 thing that we do in English class is practice
20 for the Florida Writes. We haven't done any
21 poetry, grammar, or literature. These courses
22 also need to be taught.
23 I'm nervous about this test. And so are
24 all my friends.
25 How about if I, or anyone, gets put in the
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1 wrong level due to one test? That would maybe
2 make it easier if it was lower than before, but
3 they wouldn't be learning anything at all.
4 Many kids are being put under some
5 pressure. If not some, lots of pressure. The
6 teachers are stressed out, and are stressing us
7 out, and the students are already stressed out
8 as it is.
9 Grammar, poetry -- these were written by
10 these kids -- grammar, poetry, literature, and
11 much more are all essential to anyone's life.
12 So we should all try to make it happen. And
13 then maybe we could pass a grade without it
14 depending on the Florida Writes.
15 Then there's one from a fifth grader,
16 Aubrey Helm. She signs it: A Bored 5th
17 Grader.
18 All we do is math and reading and writing.
19 I love to read, but math is just okay.
20 I am so bored in school. We are preparing
21 for the test. They tell the kids -- oh,
22 I'm sorry -- when we are preparing for the
23 test, they tell the kids who don't know the
24 answers, the answers so they can remember them
25 for the test. I don't think that's fair. It
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1 is too easy that way.
2 We aren't doing any social studies or
3 science. We only did one project on endangered
4 species, which I really liked. I have begged
5 my mom to home school me, but she says we are
6 in walking distance from a good school and
7 won't let me.
8 Please help.
9 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: You know, I think
10 I might need to know what school that is where,
11 in fact, they know the questions --
12 MS. LIMBACHER: They are --
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- and the
14 answers --
15 MS. LIMBACHER: -- Braden River --
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- of the test.
17 Because really --
18 MS. LIMBACHER: I think -- I think what she
19 means by that is that apparently they are
20 drilling them. And they were -- you know, they
21 are telling the kids -- if the kid can't figure
22 out the -- the answer by himself -- instead of
23 making them think for themselves and come up
24 with that answer somewhere, they're eventually
25 telling them the answer.
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1 And I don't mean on a real test, like on
2 pretes--
3 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Let --
4 MS. LIMBACHER: -- you know --
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- but that isn't
6 going to help --
7 MS. LIMBACHER: -- in preparing them.
8 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: That isn't going
9 to help a child if you're talking about the
10 reading test who has to read, comprehend what
11 they wrote, and be able to extrapolate that
12 information into --
13 MS. LIMBACHER: Right.
14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- into the answer
15 to a question.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
17 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: So the bottom line
18 is, what we're looking for is -- and what we're
19 measuring is the ability for children to read
20 and comprehend any subject --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can we --
22 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- any time.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'm -- I'm -- I'm really
24 sorry, because this goes against my basic
25 principal of high air fare or high costs of
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1 travel to get -- to get up to Tallahassee. And
2 I want to make sure everybody has a chance to
3 speak.
4 But we have a couple of Cabinet members
5 that may be having to leave in the afternoon to
6 go out of -- out of town. And if we could
7 encourage everybody to stay within an allotted
8 time, it would be great.
9 I'm more than happy to hear -- this is my
10 favorite subject. I could stay here till
11 midnight, but I think others may want us to
12 move on. And plus we have a lot of people that
13 have been waiting a long -- long hours since we
14 had a long -- a long morning.
15 So if we can -- I promise I won't ask
16 another question.
17 MS. LIMBACHER: Do you want me to just --
18 do you want me to just end it then; is that
19 what you're saying?
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, we've got two more
21 teachers, and we've got about 20 other people
22 that are against; and we've probably got 10,
23 15 people that are for; and it's going to take
24 about 3 hours.
25 So you can keep talking, but just -- I'm
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1 just --
2 MS. LIMBACHER: Well, we traveled a long
3 ways up here, too.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: That's why I'm telling
5 you --
6 MS. LIMBACHER: And we noticed that
7 everybody was taking quite a bit of time up
8 here.
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: Exactly. And that's why I
10 want you to keep going.
11 MS. LIMBACHER: Well, I didn't have much
12 more to say anyway, except for that I didn't
13 like the attendance issue. I think that that's
14 a parent issue.
15 I think that you cannot make your -- the
16 school and the principals responsible for
17 attendance. You know, I'm the one that decides
18 whether my child goes to school or not.
19 Nobody's going to tell me whether she needs to
20 go to school or not.
21 I mean, I'm a responsible parent, I realize
22 they're not all that way. But I think that's
23 ridiculous to make the schools responsible for
24 attendance.
25 And then I just wanted y'all to know that
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1 there -- I cannot express enough the
2 overwhelming response in this regard since this
3 issue has been opened up in that area, and feel
4 that the current draft needs serious revisions
5 before voting yes.
6 We all seem to agree that we need to hold
7 schools and educators accountable for the
8 performance of the students they are entrusted
9 to educate. However, is this how we want to do
10 it, and I feel it's at the expense of our
11 children the way that we're currently doing it.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
13 MS. LIMBACHER: Thank you.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
15 Good afternoon.
16 MS. VanVRANKEN: Good afternoon.
17 I'll try and be brief.
18 My name is Beth VanVranken, and I'm a
19 mother of a kindergartner and a third grade
20 student, and a member of the SAC committee at
21 Braden River Elementary School, which, as we've
22 said, is an A school in Manatee County.
23 And I've come here today, along with the
24 others, to express my concern about the
25 A+ plan.
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1 And I want to begin by just telling you how
2 this plan has affected my family, as the
3 well -- as well as the family of 26 other
4 third graders at Braden River Elementary.
5 It can be best related to you in a letter
6 that I brought from another parent, and she's
7 the mother of one of these 26 children, but it
8 could have been written by any one of us.
9 This is from Karen Wilson. She said: I
10 would like to share with you a quick glimpse of
11 my nine year old son, Ryan's, first four months
12 of third grade.
13 He began this year with Mrs. Parniske, a
14 teacher with 25 years of experience in teaching
15 third through fifth grades, voted Teacher of
16 the Year in 1997, and someone who was able to
17 teach my child in the first couple of weeks
18 that teaching was a well respected and fun
19 profession, something he actually said he would
20 like to learn how to do in college.
21 Wow. What a wonderful feeling to have a
22 teacher instill such wonderful aspirations into
23 the mind of a nine year old.
24 After a short three-and-a-half weeks, to
25 our dismay, Mrs. Parniske decided to leave.
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1 And the reason, in her words, was to tea-- be
2 able to teach the way she knew how to. She was
3 feeling the pressure to teach her students how
4 to take tests, and was expected to reward
5 students for attendance, rather than reward
6 students for what they were accomplishing while
7 at school.
8 Not only did our school lose a great
9 teacher, but my son and his classmates entered
10 into what I describe as a downward spiral as
11 they are now on their third teacher, who is a
12 permanent, yet temporary substitute.
13 We are about to get our fourth, and
14 hopefully, permanent teacher as of January --
15 after we get back from Christmas break.
16 Just know that I attribute the loss of this
17 teacher and my son's current situation to the
18 Florida public schools grading system.
19 Now, I also bring to you some information
20 from the teachers, and how they feel, how the
21 teachers feel about the tests and the grading
22 of the schools. And I'd like to read a lett--
23 a short excerpt from Karen Washington's letter.
24 She's a teacher in Manatee County, 15 years
25 teaching in the school system.
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1 And she speaks about -- about teacher
2 morale.
3 Says: I want to address the morale at
4 schools. I have taught at two schools. One of
5 the schools received a D rating, and my present
6 school received an A.
7 Having taught a number of years at both
8 schools, I find no difference in the teaching
9 ability of either staff. Both schools imply --
10 employ outstanding teachers who devote
11 countless hours of unpaid overtime to their
12 classrooms, as well as spending many hours in
13 training courses to keep abreast of the latest
14 research about effective teaching.
15 I knew what the differences --
16 (Commissioner Gallagher exited the room.)
17 MS. VanVRANKEN: -- in the schools were as
18 soon as I began teaching.
19 Teachers at the school which received a D
20 rating spend more time meeting the children's
21 physical needs; i.e., adequate clothing, health
22 concerns, such as lice and impetigo.
23 These children come to school with less
24 background knowledge and experience to help
25 prepare one for reading, math, and other
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1 subjects.
2 Schools such as the one mentioned have a
3 much higher ratio of special needs children.
4 And despite these circumstances, the child--
5 the teachers at these schools are dedicated to
6 ensuring that each child makes great strides in
7 learning each year.
8 What is their reward for doing the very
9 best they can? A public acknowledgment that
10 they are a failing school.
11 Instead of using tests to determine which
12 children need extra help, the tests indicate
13 that teachers are not doing their jobs.
14 This could not be farther from the truth
15 and is truly discouraging to teachers. And
16 then when -- when the teachers are discouraged,
17 obviously that's going to be passed down on to
18 the students.
19 While I do not disagree with the
20 standardized testing, I feel that
21 accountability is important. We've all
22 determined that accountability is very
23 important here.
24 I do disagree with the emphasis of the
25 subject matter for these tests and the
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1 subsequent grading of the schools based on
2 these tests.
3 You know, there are a few of us who would
4 deny that -- you know, that the standards of
5 the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic
6 are important. But what has become of such
7 other subjects, such as science and
8 social studies and language arts.
9 And what price do we pay to maintain our
10 A grade?
11 (Commissioner Gallagher entered the room.)
12 MS. VanVRANKEN: And are the children
13 really learning the fundamentals of these three
14 Rs, or are they learning what they need to know
15 to pass the test?
16 Teach a child how to take a test over and
17 over and over again; spend hours and days and
18 weeks preparing; and chances are, they're going
19 to do great on the test. But will that child
20 be able to perform in the real world, or only
21 know the techniques needed to score well on
22 these tests?
23 These are just a few of the many concerns
24 that we have as parents and teachers. We ask
25 that the A+ plan be reviewed and modified.
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1 Grading schools is not effective in proving
2 student achievement.
3 Please listen to the parents, the students,
4 and the teachers, and come up with a better
5 solution to help every child succeed to the
6 best of his or her ability.
7 Thank you for your time.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you. Thanks a lot.
9 Now, y'all -- your school was an A school
10 last year, right?
11 MS. VanVRANKEN: Uh-hum.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Was there the same focus on
13 testing for the test last year as there are
14 now?
15 MS. VanVRANKEN: Not to -- there was --
16 there was an extreme focus, but not to the
17 pressure and the extreme that it's felt now.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: So --
19 MS. VanVRANKEN: In order to maintain that
20 A --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: But if you got an A
22 already, why would you be -- why wouldn't you
23 do the exact same thing that you did
24 successfully the year before?
25 MS. VanVRANKEN: Because they feel they
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1 have to do even better than they did before,
2 and they're -- which is fine, except that it's
3 to such an extreme. I mean, where other things
4 are --
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay. Thanks.
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Excuse me one
7 second.
8 You want to read the next list?
9 MR. PIERSON: There's still one more after
10 her.
11 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Oh, okay.
12 MS. GANTLEY: My name is Julie Gant--
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Welcome.
14 MS. GANTELY: Thank you.
15 My name is Julie Gantley, and I'm from east
16 Manatee County. I'm speaking as a concerned
17 parent of a child at an A school, and ask you
18 to reconsider your intent to implement the A+
19 education plan.
20 Why should I be complaining when our
21 school, Braden River Elementary, received
22 $100,000 and the bragging rights from the
23 A grade?
24 Because I believe that the plan's emphasis
25 on the FCAT is counterproductive to learning,
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1 and, in fact, harmful to our children.
2 Secondly, because I hope we can improve
3 education for all of Florida's children, not
4 just the privileged.
5 My first concern is with the FCAT as the --
6 as the major factor in determining how well a
7 school is educating our children. I'm not
8 opposed to education reform, standardized
9 testing, or assessment.
10 However, standardized testing should be
11 used as a guideline for remediation and for
12 developing new curriculum.
13 The current emphasis on FCAT is absurd and
14 misdirected. This is counterproductive to
15 learning by creating a very stressful
16 environment for our children.
17 I think it is very sad that the State has
18 decided that a child's academic success can be
19 measured by a couple of standardized tests.
20 The children I know are worried about the
21 FCAT to the point that they are getting
22 physically sick. There is tremendous pressure
23 for children to perform well on these tests.
24 Suddenly children have to take ownership,
25 not only for their own education, but for
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1 teacher bonuses, school funding, and the stigma
2 of less than an A grade.
3 Most parents I know agree how difficult it
4 is for a child to learn when they are under
5 stress. Studies show that ongoing situations
6 which produce high stress for children cause
7 the brain to downshift, reducing the ability to
8 think clearly.
9 Conversely, relaxed alertness produces a
10 high level of learning.
11 We all know that many good students just do
12 not test well. Test anxiety is very real, and
13 the fear of being retained is overwhelming.
14 As a mother of a child with learning
15 disabilities, I'm fearful as well. This is one
16 more barrier for my daughter, Erica, to
17 overcome.
18 Schools are becoming giant test prep
19 centers where the focus on FCAT is frightening.
20 True enrichment in the hope of a well-rounded
21 education are lost.
22 By trying to raise test scores, we end up
23 actually lowering the standard. This is taking
24 the joy out of learning and teaching. We will
25 see more and more teachers finding new careers
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1 out of frustration.
2 Florida Writes has already done its best to
3 eliminate any shred of creativity that a child
4 may want to express. What's next?
5 There is pressure on the administration for
6 the school to perform to get an A rating and
7 receive funding, and that pressure is passed on
8 to our children.
9 It is unfair that the children should bear
10 this responsibility. Please let our children
11 live in a healthy, less stressful environment.
12 The role that demographics play in this
13 plan is being ignored. Should we feel good
14 about being an A school because we happen to
15 live in an affluent area?
16 This plan blatantly favors children coming
17 from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and
18 majority populations. Children who are well
19 fed, well rested, and live in a safe and secure
20 and nurturing environment are more likely to
21 show up for school and do well.
22 When children from more privileged homes
23 struggle in school, we pay for private tutoring
24 and buy books and computer programs to bring
25 our children up to speed. We expose our
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1 children to a variety of cultural and learning
2 experiences as part of every day life.
3 The parents are working in a tomato field
4 all day, are struggling just to put food on the
5 table, chances are, they don't have the --
6 these same opportunities.
7 So what does the grading system do? It
8 applies labels that no one benefits from. Poor
9 schools are penalized again.
10 Sure, we have great teachers at
11 Braden River Elementary, but many of these same
12 teachers came from schools that received Cs and
13 Ds. Are teachers at affluent schools working
14 any harder than the other teachers? I think we
15 all know the answer to that.
16 Instead of pla-- placing the blame on
17 teachers, administrators, and children in low
18 performing schools, let's work on the
19 socioeconomic inequity that plays the major
20 role in how our schools rate.
21 Even though it's harder than giving kids a
22 one-shot test and attaching a label, it's the
23 right thing to do. Addressing poverty in
24 Florida is the real issue.
25 I ask that you put more research into this
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1 plan and involve educators. Let's reexamine
2 this and look for other means for education
3 reform.
4 Plans that focus on standardized testing in
5 Massachusetts, Michigan, and Ohio are also
6 meeting mounting opposition. A similar plan in
7 Wisconsin was implemented and quickly
8 abandoned. Let's do our homework here and do
9 it right the first time.
10 Thank you for caring about our children and
11 for the opportunity to speak.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you for coming.
13 MR. PIERSON: After the next speaker,
14 there'll be Leon Russell from Florida NAACP;
15 John Due, Miami-Dade NAACP --
16 (Commissioner Crawford exited the room.)
17 MR. PIERSON: -- and Anita L. Davis, NAACP.
18 MS. DINNEN: Good afternoon.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Welcome.
20 MS. DINNEN: Thank you. Nice to be here.
21 Good afternoon.
22 My name is Maureen Dinnen. I am President
23 of the Florida Teaching Profession/NEA, and a
24 34-year veteran of Florida's classrooms.
25 I'm speaking for 62,000 members of our
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1 association, people who actually work on the
2 front line in Florida public education every
3 single day.
4 And I request -- I request that you not
5 adapt this proposed rule, even with 15 current
6 or last minute amendments --
7 (Commissioner Crawford entered the room.)
8 MS. DINNEN: -- that were added.
9 And my reason for this is really very
10 simple. I know that you have a difficult role.
11 You have a role as the Florida Cabinet and
12 State Board of Education. And that is somewhat
13 dictated by law. Your role is to implement
14 that law.
15 But you also have a constitutional
16 responsibility that I'm sure you're aware of,
17 and that is to guide our public school system.
18 And that should not be impaired, that role
19 should not be impaired by what I consider a
20 flawed piece of legislation.
21 And I think you were handed a fatally
22 flawed grading system. I don't think there are
23 enough amendments available --
24 (Governor Bush exited the room.)
25 MS. DINNEN: -- for you to adopt to fix
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1 what I consider fatally flawed.
2 Now, how come I say that? I say that
3 because the criteria used in the grading
4 system, in my opinion, was unfair,
5 discriminatory, and designed to continue the
6 failure of certain schools. In other words,
7 I think it's a stacked deck.
8 The criteria used in this grading system
9 ignores what I consider competent, reasonable
10 research on student success.
11 Now, what do I mean? I mean criteria like
12 student readiness for the 1st grade.
13 I mean like the socioeconomic advantages
14 and disadvantages that affect those students
15 before they ever get to our schools.
16 I mean like the effects of large class
17 size, which I can speak to with authority.
18 And I mean like parental involvement.
19 None of these things are the fault of the
20 students there, including socioeconomic
21 background. Anyone who's taught for a long
22 time knows that. You probably work harder with
23 that kid that comes out of poverty than you
24 work with anybody in that room. And it's not
25 that kid's fault. And it's not impossible to
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1 overcome.
2 However, it makes a difference when that
3 student walks in that door, and that school is
4 graded. And we need --
5 (Governor Bush entered the room.)
6 MS. DINNEN: -- to take that into account.
7 There are obvious, in my opinion; proven;
8 and I guess common sense indicators of student
9 success. And I think we can choose to ignore
10 them. But if we do, we're not going to find a
11 cure, we're not going to find an answer to our
12 problems.
13 Any valid measure of student achievement
14 must take into account, must recognize all the
15 revelant -- relevant -- excuse me -- factors.
16 In other words, if we have -- if we have
17 something that we think needs to be fixed
18 anywhere in our lives, we will take into
19 account all the factors, not just a few.
20 I guess what I'm asking you to do is to
21 listen to us, and I can say us, because I am
22 one of those teachers who stand in front of
23 those chalkboards all across this state, and
24 I'm asking you to listen to us.
25 Listen to the parents that we work with
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1 every day who continue to send you a message.
2 Stop this policy today, because we honestly, to
3 our very core being, feel that it is not
4 accomplishing what you want, as well as what we
5 want, which is improvement.
6 What we're asking is -- you to do is to
7 send it back to the Florida Legislature, and
8 tell them to fix it. It's plain and simple.
9 And when they fix it, to use criteria for
10 grading schools that are relevant and that
11 cover the waterfront, that don't just have a
12 couple of items on the list.
13 And then you can do the job that I know
14 that you work very hard to do, and that is to
15 write and adopt rules that will help every
16 student succeed in our Florida public schools,
17 because I honestly believe that that's what
18 we're all here for, that's what we all want,
19 that's what I've dedicated my life for. And
20 that's what the citizens of this state have in
21 front of them as a goal.
22 Thank you.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
24 Mr. Russell, welcome back. Seems like
25 yesterday.
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1 MR. RUSSELL: Or at least early this
2 morning.
3 I'm really going to change the direction of
4 my remarks. And let me --
5 For the record, I'm Leon Russell, President
6 of the Florida NAACP, here representing our
7 branches in 67 counties across this state,
8 college chapters, and youth councils.
9 I think, without becoming redundant, it
10 becomes clear to me that what you all need
11 to -- to ask yourselves this afternoon is do we
12 have the buy-in, the important buy-in from
13 people who count in this process.
14 We all want our schools to be better, we
15 all want our children to have the best
16 education possible.
17 But this rule -- this proposed rule has
18 some problems. But the major problem has
19 become very obvious to me, and I hope to you as
20 we sit here. And that's buy-in from the
21 teachers, and from the parents who really are
22 critical to the success of the accountability
23 effort here in the state of Florida.
24 And when I say buy-in, what I'm -- what I'm
25 really meaning is that there needs to be more
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1 opportunity in the development of the rule for
2 people who actually have to deal with it on a
3 day-to-day basis, to have input. That is
4 something that appears to be critically
5 missing, something that I would -- would ask
6 that you think about as you go forward in this
7 process.
8 There are elements that I would like to
9 address, but I think they're going to be
10 addressed by other speakers.
11 I at this point would simply say to you
12 that this is the time for us to step back.
13 Just because it's the millennium, the end of
14 the millennium, if you will, doesn't mean that
15 we need to rush hell bent on putting something
16 into effect that ultimately we have to change.
17 Let's get it right. Let's do it with the
18 input from the people who really know and are
19 on the front lines, the people you've heard
20 from already this afternoon.
21 Thank you.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, sir.
23 MR. DUE: Good afternoon.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good afternoon.
25 MR. DUE: My name is John Due. I'm an
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1 attorney. I represent the Miami-Dade branch of
2 the NAACP.
3 And as I told an attorney from the
4 Florida Bar, I also, on a pro bono basis,
5 represent the parents of black children in the
6 Dade County school desegregation case who are
7 there as -- as intervenors.
8 I want to thank you, Mr. Nelson, and the
9 rest of the Cabinet, for recognizing
10 Mr. Leon Russell, because you're also
11 recognizing the NAACP, because the role that he
12 has played, particularly in the evolution of
13 development of the accountability law.
14 And my concern is -- and -- and he
15 mentioned it when he accepted your honor, that
16 you continue your commitment to equal
17 education, a commitment that was started over
18 40 years ago when the Brown versus Board of
19 Topeka, Kansas, case was ruled by the
20 Supreme Court and the southern governors, most
21 of them said, we're not going to comply with
22 the school desegregation. They talked about
23 nullification into position.
24 But, you know, your Governor here said we
25 are going to desegregate, Governor Collins.
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1 And pursuant to that tradition, our
2 Dade County public schools, when it was found
3 to have a dual system enter into a voluntary
4 agreement of desegregation, and when parents --
5 white parents from south Dade, Governor Bush,
6 filed a lawsuit in State court to enjoin the
7 implementation of this agreement, the school
8 district removed -- filed a petition of
9 removal, and had the case removed to the
10 United States District Court so that
11 Judge Clarence C. Adkins could continue
12 jurisdiction over that case.
13 And this is important because it shows how
14 the state of Florida and the school district
15 wants to do the right thing.
16 And as we discussed this rule, we're very
17 much concerned as to whether or not are we
18 going backwards maybe unintentionally.
19 One of the things we're trying to do in
20 Dade County --
21 By the way, Governor, I need to tell you
22 something. There are some good things about
23 the A+ plan.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'm happy to hear it.
25 MR. DUE: One of the good things I like
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1 about the A+ plan is that you maintained the
2 educational goals that was for -- and added to
3 them.
4 One of those goals was to make sure that
5 civil rights compliance was continued as an
6 educational goal. But I think what you added
7 as -- as an educational goal was parental and
8 community, you know, involvement as
9 stakeholders.
10 And in that process, we were very much
11 concerned about this rule. One of -- just last
12 night, the Commun-- Miami-Dade Community Action
13 Agency voted -- I don't think Pat Tornillo
14 knows this -- I think he's here somewhere --
15 voted that they will enter into a partnership
16 with the United Teachers of Dade County and the
17 principals of the schools in the poverty areas
18 that are served by the Community Action Agency
19 in Dade County.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Excellent.
21 MR. DUE: And those are 19 poverty areas.
22 But, also, Governor, we need to know who we
23 want to try to work with. See, many of our
24 children from our poverty areas go to schools
25 in other areas where they're not the majority.
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1 And, Mr. Gallagher, I need to tell you
2 this: I hate to make it public about this, but
3 I need to tell you.
4 This is, what, December the 14th? We still
5 do not have the disaggregated scores of the
6 subpopulations of our children in our schools.
7 And this is important.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Let the Commissioner
9 respond to --
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: You're going to --
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- that.
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: You're going to
13 have those on Thursday.
14 MR. DUE: Okay. I've -- I've been hearing
15 that since July, you know.
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I never told you
17 Thursday before.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: You may want to ask which
19 Thursday, just to be --
20 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I'll even commit
21 to this Thursday.
22 MR. DUE: Okay. Governor Bush, you know
23 about partnerships, you know about community
24 partnership, because I personally met you in
25 1988. You were -- when you were -- came to
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1 West Perrine to the funeral of
2 Arthur Lee Lawrence, who had been killed in
3 West Perrine, because he was part of a
4 partnership between the police, the public
5 housing tenants, and the West Perrine Christian
6 Association to work against crime --
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes, sir.
8 MR. DUE: -- in that neighborhood. And if
9 you recall, Governor Bush, you said, I may live
10 in East Perrine, but this neighborhood is my
11 neighborhood also.
12 But there's a -- let's fast forward to a
13 meeting of the School Board of Dade County a
14 few months ago when they were considering the
15 budget.
16 The School Board had -- had received a
17 proposal from the superintendent to use some of
18 the funds in order to assist -- not the State
19 funds, but their own funds, to assist the
20 children of schools in the F and D schools.
21 And that auditorium was filled with parents
22 from the C schools. And they were all saying,
23 please don't take money from us to give to
24 those people.
25 And I guess this is what some of the
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1 teachers are saying, is that labeling, that
2 stigma has already caused divide in our
3 community, where -- again, we begin to hear
4 back in the '60s when I used to be an attorney
5 for CORE here in Tallahassee for
6 Reverend C.K. Stihl, you always heard that
7 reference, those people?
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: I know.
9 MR. DUE: So we need to get beyond that. I
10 understand that we're a total community.
11 So, Mr. Gallagher, I would hope very much
12 you would rescind that piece of your proposed
13 rule, at -- now, there's other parts that need
14 to be rescinded.
15 But it's very important to -- not to
16 rescind that -- that requirement that's now
17 there, that there should be disaggregation of
18 the scores of the subpopulation based upon
19 poverty and ethnicity where the children are
20 minorities in these schools.
21 And that way, we can then join you as a
22 partner so that we can begin to be part of a
23 process to help the school districts, and help
24 the State of Florida to achieve.
25 Thank you very much.
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, let me just
2 say real quickly that we do not have
3 disaggregated data as a requirement in this
4 rule --
5 MR. DUE: Uh-hum.
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- because we want
7 to look at education as generic.
8 MR. DUE: Uh-hum.
9 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: And we are most
10 import-- most interested in the lower
11 performing quartile --
12 (Attorney General Butterworth exited the
13 room.)
14 MR. DUE: Uh-hum.
15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- no matter what
16 race, no matter what poverty level, no matter
17 anything --
18 MR. DUE: Uh-hum.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- across the
20 whole state, as well as those students that
21 may --
22 MR. DUE: Uh-hum.
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- not have any --
24 any -- 25 percent in their particular school,
25 but yet --
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1 MR. DUE: Uh-hum.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- they would have
3 some at Level 1 and Level 2 as for individual
4 students.
5 But I still --
6 MR. DUE: Uh-hum.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- will provide --
8 MR. DUE: Uh-hum.
9 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- the
10 disaggregated data on a per school basis,
11 because I think it helps you, and it helps
12 others to give those students the additional
13 help that they need to get where they need to
14 go.
15 MR. DUE: Well, just one short response,
16 Governor.
17 There's a book written by Belinda Williams.
18 She is with the Association for Supervision and
19 Curriculum Development. It's called Closing
20 the Achievement Gap. I'm going to try to get
21 the school district to send you a copy.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: That'd be great.
23 MR. DUE: See, some of the conditions and
24 problems are cultural problems. And this --
25 this talks about education and segregation
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1 where we're not using relevant teaching
2 practices to meet the needs and the learning
3 styles of the parents and the children in those
4 communities.
5 So we need a process of diagnosis and
6 assessment so we can identify what the real
7 problem is so that we just don't dump
8 everything on the school district, but look at
9 the problems in the community that need to be
10 resolved that might be culturally based.
11 Thank you.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
13 And that -- the information will be part of
14 the annual data collection that -- that exists.
15 We're just not going to use it as part of the
16 grading system --
17 MR. DUE: Okay.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- at this -- I think there
19 was a misunderstanding on that.
20 MR. PIERSON: We'd -- we'd appreciate it if
21 people could keep their comments to 3 minutes.
22 We've got a lot of speakers, and -- and we'd
23 like to give them all a chance to -- to speak
24 today.
25 I called Anita Davis, but I don't see her,
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1 so apparently she isn't here.
2 The next -- next speaker would be
3 Pat Tornillo, followed by Dr. Howard Hinesley
4 from Pinellas County, and Dr. James Popham
5 from -- a consultant from Pinellas County, and
6 Tom Fisher from the Department of Education.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Mr. Tornillo. Welcome.
8 MR. TORNILLO: Welcome. Thank you,
9 Governor.
10 Members of the Cabinet, first I would like
11 to say to you that what is happening here
12 today, and regardless of whether as a person
13 you're for or against the A+ plan, and the
14 grading rule, the debate has raised the degree
15 and level of dialogue on education --
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Absolutely.
17 MR. TORNILLO: -- to the highest level
18 ever. And that is in the best interests of
19 students, of parents, and of teachers.
20 I've been around a long time, and I can
21 tell you that there have been Cabinet meetings
22 in which the education agenda was over almost
23 before it began. And so what you're doing here
24 today, regardless of whether you're pro or con,
25 is a service, and a service to the people of
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1 the state of Florida.
2 Secondly I want to tell you that there are
3 features of the A+ plan that we have always
4 supported, and continue to support, such as the
5 Sunshine State Standards, the testing program
6 to measure those Sunshine State Standards. And
7 the expanded testing of FCAT.
8 And it should be evaluated for reliability
9 and fairness, and it needs to be stable. It
10 needs to be in place without changes for awhile
11 so that everyone can understand it, become
12 comfortable with it, and you don't teach to the
13 test. You teach to standards.
14 And if you do that, the tests will take
15 care of themselves.
16 We also have long supported the grading of
17 schools. But I have to tell you that our
18 version of grading of schools is not the
19 version before you today.
20 We think as long as it's fair and
21 consistent, and includes many of the other
22 variables; and includes all schools, charter
23 schools, private, religious schools, there
24 needs to be a level playing field.
25 You can't take a student from a public
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1 school, give them a voucher, send them to a
2 private and religious school, without knowing
3 what the level of that school is. You could be
4 sending that student to a school that's worse
5 than where he came from. Or you could be
6 sending him to one that's better.
7 Now, I know there are difficulties in
8 achieving that. But it's something that we
9 need to think about.
10 We have always been for higher standards
11 for teachers, and educators, and we continue to
12 be. And we're for annual learning gains, if
13 they're valid, reliable. And we obviously are
14 for closing the achievement gap between those
15 students who have -- cannot learn, and have not
16 learned, and those that have.
17 And technology, as a tool for instruction
18 and the reduction of paperwork for teachers;
19 and more than that, but in the instructional
20 program.
21 So there are features of the A+ plan that
22 we have always supported, and we continue to
23 support.
24 Third, I hope you follow through with
25 Bob Butterworth's request for data from private
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1 schools and other public schools, because, as
2 I've already said, that could be the beginning
3 of comparing apples and apples, and we need a
4 level playing field.
5 We need a level playing field for a lot of
6 reasons. But probably the most important one
7 is a sense of fairness on the part of the
8 people that you're asking to implement this
9 rule.
10 And finally, I was asked whether I was for
11 or against these rule changes. And the answer
12 is neither. I can't be for or against changes
13 to something that I believe is inherently
14 flawed. It's like asking death penalty
15 opponents which form of execution they prefer,
16 electrocution or lethal injection.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: Don't mix your metaphors,
18 Mr. Tornillo.
19 MR. TORNILLO: And the Governor's going to
20 find out about that very soon.
21 It's like asking me to choose between what
22 I believe is bad and worse. Reminds me of the
23 movie from a couple of years ago, Dumb and
24 Dumber.
25 We believe that the grading system is a
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1 flawed system, and does penalize our schools,
2 stigmatize our children, and causes extremely
3 low morale among teachers and school staff.
4 So I say to the Cabinet that the Governor
5 and the Education Commissioner are asking the
6 rest of the Cabinet to vote for a plan that no
7 one is sure will work, including the people
8 that devised it and developed it.
9 I'm asking you to consider not voting for
10 this plan today because each of you is going to
11 be held accountable for your vote.
12 If Mr. Crawford and General Milligan, if
13 you can honestly say you understand what this
14 rule says and how it will work, vote for it.
15 If not, vote to reexamine. Don't -- don't
16 necessarily even vote against, but vote to
17 reexamine that portion of the A+ plan.
18 Convene a State Board of Education Task
19 Force, not a Governor's Task Force, not a
20 Commissioner's Task Force, but a State Board of
21 Education Task Force, of all stakeholders to
22 develop a plan that works -- or has a chance of
23 working -- and is accepted by everyone.
24 And when I say "all stakeholders," I want
25 to be clear that you understand what I mean.
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1 Not just administrators in the Department of
2 Education, not just the people who work in the
3 Governor's office, and not just the
4 Legislature.
5 But the people in the trenches, the people
6 you're asking to do this, and to improve the
7 education of students in Florida. But include
8 a wide range of people. Everyone needs to be
9 included and involved in this debate.
10 I have to tell you, there may be people who
11 will tell you that this has happened up to now.
12 I'm going to tell you, that is not the case.
13 As I go into -- as I read the e-mails and I
14 go into schools, after school, I mean, if you
15 took the open hearings -- and I've already
16 complained to the Commissioner about having all
17 those open hearings on the same day, and -- and
18 in such restricted fashion in terms of getting
19 input.
20 I know if there's one thing that -- about
21 Jeb Bush that I have learned, and personally
22 and as an operating style as Governor, it's
23 that he listens. He wants to hear all sides,
24 he wants to hear different views, and
25 everything.
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1 Do that. Give this plan an opportunity to
2 be debated, to be examined for people. He goes
3 into schools. Do more than that.
4 As a State Cabinet, convene a task force,
5 get the people who oppose it on that
6 task force.
7 And, Governor, I would invite you, as part
8 of this debate -- I did once before, and you
9 accepted. And I'm now going to invite you to a
10 dialogue with the Executive Council of
11 FEA United who are the leaders across the
12 state. You've been there before, you know
13 them, you've met them.
14 And any other member of the Cabinet who
15 would like to meet with the presidents, the
16 people who get input on how they feel about
17 this, they may -- you may not agree with them,
18 and they may not agree with you.
19 But, Governor, that has been one of your
20 hallmarks, and I'm urging you to open the lines
21 of communication far more than they have at
22 this point, because that is what's healthy.
23 That is what's good about the debate that's now
24 going on.
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
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1 MR. TORNILLO: Thank you very much.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: And there has been a
3 debate. There's no question about that.
4 Thank you, Pat.
5 MR. TORNILLO: I'll be happy to answer any
6 questions.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any questions?
8 MR. TORNILLO: Thank you.
9 MS. CASTILLE: I have to urge the speakers
10 to please limit your comments to 3 minutes.
11 Many people have flown up here, and would
12 like to speak before the Cabinet members leave,
13 and they have 3:00 o'clock flights.
14 So please limit your speeches to 3 minutes.
15 We have 18 speakers left.
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Based on my FCAT math
17 knowledge, that will -- we won't finish if
18 there's a 3:00 o'clock flight.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I think it's -- we
20 need to leave somewhere in the 3:00 to 3:10
21 range, leave here.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: All right.
23 DR. HINESLEY: Governor Bush and other
24 honorable members of the State Cabinet, my name
25 is Howard Hinesley, Superintendent of Schools
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1 in Pinellas County, Florida.
2 First I appreciate very much you having us
3 here today. I would point out to you that my
4 comments are to address the rule that was
5 advertised in accordance with the APA. I am
6 not prepared to address the amendments that
7 were proposed today.
8 I would ask your indulgence. We have a
9 consultant here. Our presentation is longer
10 than 3 minutes. We would ask your indulgence
11 to give us the same amount of time that you
12 have given other speakers so that we can
13 properly go through our presentation --
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: I -- I -- I urge your
15 consultant to be brief, because the pros are
16 going to be the ones that don't speak at all.
17 And that -- that fairness has been the catch
18 word for the last 2 hours, and that is not
19 fair.
20 So if you can bring the consultant up, and
21 see if he can do it in 3 minutes, we've been
22 reading about him and welcome him. Wherever he
23 may be.
24 DR. HINESLEY: Thank you for providing the
25 opportunity to express concerns and suggestions
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1 for improving the rule you are considering.
2 Before I get into my remarks, please allow
3 me to specifically thank Commissioner Gallagher
4 for personally listening to my concerns, and
5 providing access to his staff to share the
6 detailed document before you today.
7 I am here today representing the
8 School Board of Pinellas County. Our school
9 district stands shoulder to shoulder with you
10 in support of a strong accountability system.
11 Our record in previous State accountability
12 systems, and the present system speaks for
13 itself. We have successfully pioneered change
14 for years throughout our school district, so
15 we're not here today to whine or complain about
16 the necessary change.
17 We take our responsibilities seriously, and
18 tell our administrators, teachers, and support
19 staff, there are no excuses for children not
20 learning.
21 So why are we here today?
22 We want an accountability system that is
23 fair to students, employees, and communities.
24 It is also critical that the system of
25 accountability be accurate, especially when the
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1 stakes are as high as they are in Florida, with
2 financial rewards being issued for schools and
3 failing labels being placed on others.
4 Above all else, we support your concern
5 that real learning of the skills delineated in
6 the Sunshine State Standards be increased in
7 every classroom across Florida.
8 My school district fully supports this
9 goal. However, in my presentation, I will
10 question the appropriateness of the FCAT to
11 measure the performance of all students in
12 attaining the State's standards. And,
13 therefore, I will also question the
14 appropriateness of using the FCAT for measuring
15 the school's performance.
16 It is our opinion that parts of the
17 proposed rule are arbitrary and capricious.
18 Recently, you discussed students being eligible
19 to be counted in the -- in the testing program
20 if they attended during the October and FTE
21 count.
22 We suggested one word be added to that
23 rule: Continuous attendance. We believe that
24 improves the rule, as opposed to what was
25 already stated, young people perhaps being
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1 there one day in one count, one day in another.
2 We believe that improves the rule.
3 The suggestions we will have still allows
4 school to be graded as required by the law; and
5 unlike last year, the most effective schools
6 will get the best grades.
7 (Attorney General Butterworth entered the
8 room.)
9 DR. HINESLEY: The schools that are --
10 schools that are least effective would get the
11 poorest grades, even Fs.
12 I want to emphasize again, our concern is
13 that the FCAT was not designed to be used as
14 the proposed rule before you today.
15 As you may know, my School District has
16 monitored the rulemaking process from the
17 beginning. We, along with many other citizens,
18 suggested improvements at the public hearings
19 that were held around the state in the fall.
20 We are not satisfied that everything has
21 been done to make the school grading rule fair
22 and accurate.
23 Thus we decided to use the processes
24 available to us for presenting our concerns and
25 suggestions.
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1 We realize the accountability law contains
2 certain requirements that cannot be implemented
3 immediately due to the lack of information
4 available to the State. The rule revision
5 attempts to address certain requirements of law
6 over a period of years, ultimately creating a
7 stronger accountability system after several
8 years.
9 Therefore, our focus is not on the
10 long-term, our focus is on the interim years.
11 We, the FCAT -- we believe the FCAT was not
12 designed to be used as the proposed rules
13 require. Of critical concern to us is the
14 issue of fairness. We believe the FCAT may
15 contain a significant number of items that are
16 norm reference, rather than criterion
17 referencing.
18 Some Department of Education officials have
19 confirmed our point. Throughout this process,
20 we are not questioning the DOE representatives
21 because the FCAT was designed and constructed
22 well before the rule was developed, requiring
23 it to be used for the grading of schools.
24 Does the FCAT measure what is taught in
25 school, or measure what a student comes to
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1 school with?
2 I'm going to stop my presentation, and now
3 introduce -- for the sake of time, introduce
4 our consultant, Dr. James Popham. He's
5 Professor Emeritus from UCLA graduate school.
6 We brought him in to study our concerns,
7 and to validate our concerns. Dr. Popham has
8 worked for the Department of Education in years
9 past, testifying on your behalf, representing
10 the accuracy of tests that have been questioned
11 in years passed.
12 Dr. Popham will walk through our concerns
13 for you as it relates to the FCAT.
14 DR. POPHAM: Thank you.
15 I just received 3 minutes from one of the
16 other presenters, so that gives me 6.
17 I now live in Hawaii, which is about
18 6,000 miles distance. So that's a -- a
19 minute 1,000, and I'll try to speak rapidly.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: I hope you got paid to
21 come.
22 DR. POPHAM: Sure. All the way.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: There you go.
24 DR. POPHAM: But -- but not for travel.
25 First off, I want to commend the -- the
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1 Governor and the Commissioner for trying to
2 install a system of accountability, and
3 particularly a school grading system.
4 I was contacted by Pinellas. I don't get
5 the feeling that this is a -- a school district
6 that wants to do away with the school grading
7 model. They have some concerns about certain
8 features of it, and they offer in their
9 materials they've given to you several specific
10 recommendations.
11 One of them has to do with the nature of
12 the FCAT itself. And they want to supplement
13 FCAT results with other important kinds of
14 data.
15 And clearly your system is predicated on
16 the FCAT. That's the dominant feature of it.
17 And if I could have that first little
18 slide.
19 Any kind of accountability system or
20 grading system that is -- went to a particular
21 test, is clearly only as good as that -- that
22 test is.
23 And from your perspective, because you're
24 not specialists in educational testing, that's
25 my field, you would assume that any kind of
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1 test that is designed to measure the
2 effectiveness of schools ought to, indeed,
3 actually reflect how well those schools are
4 doing their jobs. But this is not the case.
5 Some kinds of tests are built for different
6 kinds of purposes.
7 And to illustrate, you think about
8 standardized achievement tests, such as the
9 Stanford Achievement Test or the Iowa Test of
10 Basic Skills.
11 These tests are created by commercial
12 testing firms, whose primary purpose is to
13 spread out examinee performance such that you
14 can make discriminations between students of
15 the 87th percentile, the 85th, and so on.
16 In order to preserve that kind of score
17 spread, there are items on those tests which
18 clearly are antithetical to the purpose you
19 want this particular school grading system to
20 accomplish.
21 And I want to show you some examples of
22 real items taken from those tests, slightly
23 modified, to illustrate the point I'm making,
24 because it bears on the FCAT.
25 The first one is an item that -- that is
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1 clearly linked to student's socioeconomic
2 status. Now, here we say, a 6th grade science
3 item, a real kind of item, a plant's fruit
4 always contains seeds. Which of the items
5 below is not a fruit: Orange, pumpkin, apple,
6 celery.
7 You're going to have a much better chance
8 to answer that item correctly if you come from
9 a family where they can afford to buy celery;
10 where each October pumpkins are purchased, and
11 they know that -- this particular --
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Let me -- let me
13 ask a question.
14 DR. POPHAM: Sure.
15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: This question, if
16 you're talking about an exam -- the FCAT exam
17 for reading, would follow a paragraph that
18 would discuss that subject, and the person
19 answering the question would be the ability to
20 have read the paragraph and to have come to the
21 conclusion from the knowledge in the paragraph;
22 is that correct?
23 DR. POPHAM: I'm not sure it's correct.
24 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well then --
25 DR. POPHAM: I haven't had a chance to
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1 look --
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- you're telling
3 me that --
4 DR. POPHAM: -- at the test.
5 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, let me --
6 let me tell you that we don't have in a reading
7 exam a question that has no reference to come
8 from.
9 DR. POPHAM: Well, I take your -- your
10 word, but I'd rather take the -- a review of
11 the test to make my opinion about that one.
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, I --
13 DR. POPHAM: Because --
14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: We'll have
15 somebody explain it that -- that does that
16 after you're finished. I'm sorry.
17 Go ahead.
18 DR. POPHAM: Well -- well, surely.
19 But I'm trying to persuade the Cabinet
20 members that there's some items on tests that,
21 in fact, are not necessarily designed to
22 measure anything other than socioeconomic
23 status.
24 That's very heavily influenced by the SES
25 level of the kid.
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1 Let's take a look at the next one.
2 And this is also an item where what they're
3 trying to do is see if the youngster
4 understands the meaning of the word field.
5 Okay. This is from a real test. And I'm not
6 saying anything about the FCAT yet.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Yeah. Let's --
8 please, it's -- it's very important that you do
9 clarify that these are questions from tests,
10 not the --
11 DR. POPHAM: Oh, absolu--
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- FCAT test.
13 DR. POPHAM: -- absolu-- absolutely.
14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Nor are these
15 questions even like FCAT questions.
16 DR. POPHAM: All right.
17 The reason that I'm not sure about what's
18 on the FCAT is, in spite of two requests to
19 your office, I was refused permission to review
20 the items, even under security monitored
21 conditions. So you're quite correct. These
22 are items, as I stated earlier, from
23 standardized achievement tests, not from the
24 FCAT, okay?
25 But I'm trying to suggest to the Cabinet
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1 members that if you come from a family where
2 your mom is an attorney, or your -- your father
3 is a -- a journalist, you have a field. But if
4 your mother happens to work at the local
5 grocery store, she may not have a field.
6 So kids from lower SES situations don't do
7 as well on these kinds of items.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: But how -- I'm just --
9 if -- are you assuming that there is a bias at
10 FCAT, or do you have evidence of it?
11 This is a test that was prepared not by
12 anybody in this illustrious Board of Education.
13 It was prepared, after years, as I understand
14 it, of work by professional educators --
15 DR. POPHAM: Well, let me --
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- here in Florida.
17 Floridians.
18 DR. POPHAM: Let me -- let me give you two
19 reasons, Governor, why I think this may not be
20 the case.
21 In the first place, there is a very strong
22 relationship between FCAT scores and poverty
23 indices, incidents of free and reduced lunch.
24 Those correlations run sometimes between .7 and
25 .9, very, very strong relationship.
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1 And that suggests there's something going
2 on in the test that clearly is measuring those
3 kinds of factors.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Does that suggest we lower
5 the standards for groups because of income?
6 DR. POPHAM: Absolutely not.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good.
8 DR. POPHAM: Okay. Now, the second thing
9 is that the test was produced for the State by
10 a commercial testing firm that produces the
11 same kinds of items you're seeing on the -- on
12 the screen now.
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: And let me just
14 tell you that that may be true. However, we do
15 not accept, and have not, although we have had
16 a few examples of trying to use their previous
17 items, et cetera.
18 But these items that are on the FCAT are
19 all specifically for us against the
20 Sunshine Standards, and against the
21 specifications for that test, that do not allow
22 open-ended questions like this without a
23 reference from which that would come in a
24 reading exam. So --
25 DR. POPHAM: Well, this is -- this is not
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1 an open-ended question. This is a multiple
2 choice question.
3 Let's turn to the next example of -- of
4 items which you find on these kinds of tests,
5 not on the FCAT yet. And these are the kinds
6 of items --
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, the reason
8 we did the FCAT test was to make sure this kind
9 of thing didn't happen.
10 DR. POPHAM: These are the kinds of items
11 you find that are designed to measure a kid's
12 inherited academic aptitude. There are many
13 such items on those kinds of tests.
14 And -- and what you -- you want these kinds
15 of items for is to maintain that spread of
16 scores, because these items do it very well.
17 Kids are born differently. I have four
18 children. Some of them are better in
19 mathematics, verbally. My -- my daughter's
20 very good verbally. In spatial aptitude, she
21 ranks with turtles. She cannot possibly deal
22 with spatial factors. And -- and -- and kids
23 do vary. Okay.
24 Now, this kind of item though will tap a
25 kid's ability to figure out what conserve
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1 resources means, and that kid will figure out
2 the right answer to that question because the
3 kid has good verbal aptitude.
4 The next item is an even more stark
5 illustration of this. This is one, the test
6 that the kids -- spatial ability that they're
7 born with. And this is --
8 And we have manual dexterity as being one
9 of the techniques, too.
10 And -- and this is an item where the -- the
11 kid is asked to indicate which of these
12 letters, if folded in half, will have two parts
13 that match exactly.
14 Okay. Those of you who are astute -- my
15 daughter would never get it -- those of you who
16 are astute will figure out that B is the
17 correct answer. Okay.
18 Now, this is not taught in schools. We do
19 not do mental letter bending. But this is the
20 kind of item that spreads people out very
21 nicely.
22 Now, if it is the case that -- the FCAT has
23 many items of this sort on it. If it is the
24 case, then what it's measuring is what kids
25 come to school with, not what is taught there.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: And what happens if it
2 isn't the case?
3 DR. POPHAM: Pardon me?
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: If it's not the case, then
5 this whole -- then -- I mean, this whole --
6 your whole argument is -- is off base, is that
7 the point?
8 DR. POPHAM: The argument is not trying to
9 show you guys are wrong, the argument is to
10 suggest that this is a question that has not
11 been seriously considered.
12 We do --
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well --
14 DR. POPHAM: -- not know --
15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- in your mind,
16 it hasn't. You don't think it's been seriously
17 considered.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: I think the point about the
19 FCAT test was that -- again, this was prepared
20 and approved by this Board of Education before
21 I came here, before this was -- I don't even
22 remember the -- it's four or five years ago
23 perhaps?
24 That this was developed over an extensive
25 process to move away from the kind of tests
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1 that you're describing, to something that would
2 truly measure the broader aptitudes that --
3 that the State thought was necessary to move to
4 a standards based system.
5 And -- I mean, if -- I understand the
6 dilemma you face, you didn't get to see the
7 test. But you're assuming that the tests
8 that -- examples that you describe are what the
9 FCAT looks like --
10 DR. POPHAM: Possibly. Possibly, Governor.
11 I'm -- I'm not asserting that.
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well, here's the
13 Commissioner of Education. He says it's not.
14 DR. POPHAM: I don't take his word for it
15 at all. I don't think he was involved when the
16 test was created, and I don't think he knows
17 how those tests are created, and I don't think
18 he's right on this one.
19 But I don't know the answer. I simply
20 don't know the answer. We asked him twice if
21 we could review it.
22 You see, in -- in -- in my state right now,
23 Hawaii, they're developing the same kind of
24 tests, and the same kind of model that you're
25 using, a standards based system, they want to
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1 create a test that measures their standards.
2 I've seen your standards. They're very
3 good, to be assessed for sure. You could still
4 build a test that is related to those standards
5 that has some of these same problems with it.
6 And all I think that the folks in Pinellas
7 would like to do is have some kind of
8 independent review of the extent to which the
9 items in this test are of that sort.
10 If you don't have items of this sort, then
11 there's no problem at all. We just don't know
12 though.
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I am glad to hear
14 that. So go ahead and continue. That --
15 DR. POPHAM: Okay. The -- the second
16 recommendation that the folks in Pinellas would
17 like to offer you is some possibility of making
18 an adjustment for poverty variables on the --
19 on the FCAT.
20 And the reason for that is fairly clear.
21 If it is the case -- big if -- if it is the
22 case that the FCAT contains many items such as
23 the -- you just saw on the screen, if that is
24 the case, then you do need to make some kind of
25 adjustment, because you're perennially dooming
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1 people who are not scoring well enough.
2 In other words, teachers who are serving
3 high populations of low income youngsters,
4 they're never going to be able to succeed as
5 well as -- as they would like to. And -- and
6 that's not fair to -- to low income kids for
7 sure.
8 I don't think there's anyone in Pinellas --
9 I can't speak about Pinellas County, but in the
10 Pinellas County leadership, that doesn't think
11 that minority kids can't succeed, low income
12 kids can't succeed.
13 The question is: Does this test provide
14 the opportunity to measure that. And they're
15 simply not sure of it.
16 So what they'd like you to consider is the
17 possibility of making some kind of statistical
18 adjustment to see whether or not people are --
19 oh, are serving large chunks of low income
20 youngsters can do very well on that test.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: The -- the implication in
22 that -- the troubling implication is that leads
23 us to where we are today, which is high
24 expectations for one group of people, low
25 expectations for another.
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1 And if you look at -- and you may not have
2 been here when we recently had this -- a
3 version of this topic receive a lot of
4 attention, which relates to an initiative that
5 I proposed related to admissions policies --
6 you would find that there were large sections
7 of student populations in high school that were
8 not able to take the PSAT, would not be able to
9 access AP courses, were not being given the --
10 nothing near the same level of support that was
11 existing in other schools. And the
12 expectations were lower.
13 And my concern about factoring in income is
14 that we create expectations different between
15 one group and the other.
16 And -- I mean, I -- let me just quote
17 something that -- that I have said in a
18 version, but I won't tell you who said it.
19 But we don't want anyone -- we don't want
20 to do anyone any favors by holding them to high
21 standards. Often we do -- I didn't say that
22 right.
23 We don't do anyone any favors by not
24 holding them to high standards. Often, when we
25 see people in difficult circumstances, we feel
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1 compassion for them, and we should. But when
2 this compassion leads to expecting less of
3 their children, that is a mistake, for it sells
4 their future down the drain.
5 I'm tired of being told that children
6 cannot succeed because of the difficulties of
7 their circumstances. All we do is consign them
8 to staying in the same circumstances.
9 We must not replace the tyranny of
10 segregation with the tyranny of low
11 expectations.
12 And that's what we've done in this state,
13 and across the country, is we've lowered
14 expectations for people. And put aside the
15 cultural aspects of the test, which we can sort
16 out some other place, by including factors of
17 income, or race, because other people have
18 advocated that, then we move to this system,
19 and we institutionalize it.
20 Bill Clinton said this to the NAACP
21 convention. I could have given this speech,
22 and that was why I am an advocate of this.
23 And to suggest as -- and as with the best
24 of intentions, I know, Superintendent, that you
25 all are grappling with this, and trying to find
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1 suggestions of why the outcomes are as it is,
2 why don't we focus, you and I, on -- on saying,
3 this is the outcome, let's improve it. And
4 that's what we're trying to do.
5 DR. POPHAM: Let me say why I so
6 thoroughly --
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Whoa. It --
8 this --
9 GOVERNOR BUSH: It's a --
10 DR. POPHAM: -- agree with what you --
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: It's a --
12 DR. POPHAM: -- just said.
13 Okay. I agree totally with it. The -- the
14 only issue that we're discussing here is the
15 extent to which the FCAT is a legitimate
16 assessment of what those kids need to learn.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- moved on to income now.
18 I -- I gave you a break on the FCAT. But
19 moving to income as a factor.
20 DR. POPHAM: It's -- right. But -- wait a
21 second.
22 The -- the income is an important
23 adjustment factor, only if the FCAT is used as
24 the prime grading criterion. It's only then.
25 If the FCAT is devoid -- if the FCAT is
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1 devoid of the kinds of items that I just
2 flopped on the screen, then you don't need an
3 adjustment. You're quite right.
4 But if it does have a strong, powerful
5 relationship to poverty status, then it has to
6 be adjusted.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I agree.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: If you believe that the
9 FCAT test is biased so that it -- it is unfair
10 to people of lower income, then that's a good
11 point.
12 But if you say because of people's low
13 income, we have lower achievement, and it's not
14 fair to grade kids, which is what we hear over
15 and over again, then I beg to differ.
16 DR. POPHAM: Okay. We're -- we're in
17 agreement on the central premise. The issue is
18 the extent to which --
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Then why --
20 DR. POPHAM: -- the FCAT --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- for the past five years,
22 this whole state has had a broad consensus that
23 this test was a meaningful, culturally neutral
24 test, and all of sudden it isn't now that we're
25 attaching it to accountability.
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1 DR. POPHAM: Not talking about cultural
2 bias. Indeed, I know Tom Fisher very well.
3 We've worked together for many years.
4 And I cannot imagine he'd have a -- a test
5 emerge from his shop that didn't undergo very
6 serious scrutiny for bias factors.
7 The question is: Once you have a test
8 created, and the Sunshine State Standards, and
9 you turn it over to a commercial testing firm
10 that historically has created items designed to
11 spread out examinees, you still may have some
12 items in there that are, in fact, correlated
13 with poverty.
14 Right now you have correlations of .8.
15 That's a very strong relationship. What's
16 going on? Why is that so related?
17 Pardon me?
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: We're going back and forth
19 now. Let's move on.
20 DR. POPHAM: Okay. The last point, and
21 then I will conclude. And thank you for your
22 patience.
23 I guess if -- if you, in fact, can make
24 this system work well, you have to attend to
25 some of the things you've heard today.
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1 Leon Russell said that every child has a
2 capacity to learn. You -- they can learn with
3 a decent school grading system.
4 If you make the kinds of changes that
5 Pinellas is suggesting, powerful improvements
6 where you're looking at other data, or you're
7 making some realistic adjustments for poverty,
8 if it's -- if it's a problem with the FCAT.
9 If you make those kinds of changes, then
10 I think you'll have a system that'll do the
11 State some good.
12 On the other hand, if you don't, it's going
13 to be bad for the teacher, it's going to be bad
14 for the kids.
15 If, on the other hand, this is simply a
16 mechanism to install vouchers statewide, don't
17 change a thing, because no harm will be done.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you for coming all
19 the way from Hawaii.
20 DR. POPHAM: You're welcome.
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Let me mention
22 a -- a couple of things. I just want to
23 mention to the Cabinet just in a second before
24 our next speaker comes up.
25 Throwing poverty into the -- into the
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1 grading system without -- just the way it is,
2 we have three elementary schools that are As,
3 with a poverty level of 77 percent free and
4 reduced lunch; one is a 74 percent free and
5 reduced lunch; one, a 52 percent free and
6 reduced lunch.
7 By the way, it goes all the way down to 35,
8 and they're all As.
9 In Bs, we have 76 percent free and reduced
10 lunch, 72, 69, 66, 65. We have 22 schools that
11 are rated B that have a 50 percent poverty
12 level or above.
13 So we know that there are schools in this
14 state that have overcome income in regards to
15 getting good grades by those students. And
16 I think that's the kind of thing that we should
17 try to emulate, as opposed to take the other
18 ones, and lower those standards.
19 And I think we have a -- a speaker that'll
20 probably talk to the FCAT now as to help --
21 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I have a --
22 make one --
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: General Butterworth.
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- comment
25 here.
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1 I -- Tom, I agree with you there, and maybe
2 we have the same list here. But we also
3 have -- have a couple of schools that are Ds
4 that have only a 7 and 8 percent poverty.
5 My question would be: Those schools where
6 we have a high poverty level and a high grade,
7 are those -- are the neighborhoods that -- that
8 we're doing more school readiness in and -- and
9 such like that, and -- and maybe --
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Good question.
11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- what
12 you're dealing with is not -- not affecting the
13 grade, but pretty much looking at the school
14 readiness of the -- of the issue.
15 And I think that -- it'd be interesting to
16 find out what those particular districts have
17 been doing, because that might be our -- our
18 whole key right there.
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, you know,
20 we're strong believers in that, and there is a
21 major move on readiness. So I don't want to --
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Commissioner Nelson.
23 TREASURER NELSON: Governor, I -- from the
24 list that Bob had showed me here, I counted on
25 here only 11 schools in the entire state that
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1 had an A or a B rating that came with a poverty
2 rating of 50 percent or more.
3 Now, that's what I counted on this list was
4 11. You said it was 22. But whether it's 11
5 or 22 --
6 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Actually it's 25
7 if you count 50 percent poverty level or higher
8 As and B schools.
9 TREASURER NELSON: Whatever we --
10 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Elementary
11 schools.
12 TREASURER NELSON: Whatever the number is,
13 is the point not fairly dramatically made that
14 out of how many schools we have, 1,000 plus
15 schools in the state, that only 11 or 25,
16 in fact, score high that have high poverty
17 rates.
18 So it seems to me that the point is
19 dramatically made, the flip of what you were
20 saying, which is that the correlation is there
21 dramatically that, from high poverty as
22 measured by eligibility for the Federal school
23 lunch program, it correlates with the schools
24 being designated Ds and Fs. And it doesn't
25 seem to me that those statistics are
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1 contradicted.
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, let's hear
3 from our next speaker, and we can get back to
4 that debate.
5 MR. PIERSON: Tom Fisher.
6 Next speaker is Dr. Tom Fisher. And for
7 the record, Dr. Fisher is the Educational
8 Policy Director responsible for the Assessment
9 and Evaluation Section, 24 years of service.
10 He has a Master's degree from the
11 University of Toledo; doctorate from
12 Wayne State University; responsible for
13 implementation of the State testing programs in
14 K to 12, including the nation's first required
15 high school graduation test, implementation of
16 Florida's College Level Academic Skills Test,
17 and several other tests.
18 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: This is the same
19 Dr. Fisher that Dr. Popham talked about, right?
20 DR. FISHER: Yes, sir.
21 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Just checking.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Like there's two of them.
23 DR. FISHER: I want to hit a couple of
24 highlights, and stay within a very short period
25 of time. But there are some things that have
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1 been said that I think need to be corrected.
2 First of all, you need to put this in the
3 context of what it is. I believe this is about
4 standards. Standards are very important to us,
5 they have been to previous members of the Board
6 of Education and to our Legislature for some
7 time.
8 Florida doesn't do too well compared to
9 national comparisons, and the United States
10 doesn't do too well compared to international
11 comparisons. It's very easy to say this is
12 about academic standards.
13 The FCAT program is now approaching its
14 third administration. It is going through an
15 expansion.
16 As I said, there have been some comments
17 made that I think are erroneous about FCAT, and
18 I wish to take a second to clarify some of
19 that.
20 The purpose of FCAT is articulated in the
21 law. Basically it is to assess learning gains,
22 inform parents, and provide data for decisions.
23 That's what we're all about.
24 The FCAT measures challenging content. It
25 includes a variety of item types, including
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1 20 percent performance items in which the
2 student actually has to do something. They
3 have to show their work or write a paragraph.
4 The items are written all within the
5 context of a variety of subject areas that
6 correspond to everything that the
7 Sunshine State Standards covers.
8 The math items are not simple computation,
9 single step items, they require the student to
10 think. That's what makes the FCAT math test
11 harder than the minimum competency tests that
12 we're used to dealing with.
13 FCAT is not a minimum competency test. You
14 have to keep that in mind. The items span a
15 range of difficulty, from easy to moderate, to
16 more difficult.
17 It's been said that we were perhaps at the
18 beck and call of our test contractor,
19 CBT/McGraw-Hill, as this test was constructed.
20 Nothing could be further from the truth.
21 We were in complete control of the
22 development of the test. It is true that
23 CBT had item writers who provided draft items
24 to us, but we had a series of extensive
25 committees that reviewed those items for
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1 factors such as geographic possible bias,
2 linguistic problems, race-ethnic bias, gender,
3 facton (phonetic) individuals with
4 disabilities, socioeconomic factors, prior
5 knowledge, clear wording, and so forth.
6 Every single item was reviewed by a
7 committee of people, or several committees, for
8 that matter. And on several of those
9 worksheets, it specifically asked for comments
10 about whether or not the item was reviewed --
11 or had problems for socioeconomic bias.
12 I'd point out that Pinellas County has had
13 extensive development in the Sunshine State
14 Standards, as well as their review. And there
15 are 19 people from Pinellas County currently
16 involved with the development of the FCAT
17 program this year.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: So they've got -- they --
19 they basically -- they -- they administer the
20 test, they helped build it, they have a pretty
21 good idea what it's -- what it's like.
22 DR. FISHER: That's correct.
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: Okay.
24 DR. FISHER: As far as the issue of
25 inclusion of non-FCAT type of evidence in this
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1 program, I would say that it's reminiscent of
2 the program I helped administer in the
3 mid-1980s called the Meritorious School
4 Program.
5 Each school was permitted to establish its
6 own improvement goals and its own criteria for
7 measurement. And what we ended up with was
8 trivial improvement objectives.
9 This state, since 1976, has moved
10 consistently and constantly in the direction of
11 common measures. I'll remind you, common
12 high school exit tests, college -- college exit
13 tests, a common teacher and principal
14 certification test, common college placement
15 test, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The
16 public deserves a common standard, and that's
17 what FCAT does.
18 As far as poverty as an adjustment factor,
19 I'd point out that correlation does not imply
20 causation. Florida is --
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Repeat that. I'm going to
22 write that down.
23 DR. FISHER: Correlation does not imply
24 causation. Has a certain rhythm to it.
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: And a truth -- and
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1 a truth to it.
2 DR. FISHER: Yeah. Think of it this way:
3 Florida is measured against about 42 other
4 states and territories on the National
5 Assessment of Educational progress.
6 We have a ranking of Florida compared to
7 other states. I said we didn't do too well.
8 Suppose we adjusted those scores for whatever
9 factors you wish, and it changed Florida's
10 ranking?
11 Policymakers like yourselves and
12 legislators would then have a different
13 impression about what the problems are and what
14 the solutions are.
15 I'd also point out that, if adjustments are
16 made for any factors of this nature, it may
17 help low schools score higher, but it will
18 reduce the scores of higher scores -- schools.
19 Excuse me. They move toward the middle any
20 time you make adjustments of this nature.
21 There are a couple of comments made by
22 people who testified earlier today, and I just
23 want to touch on a couple of them.
24 The point was made that the curriculum is
25 being narrowed, that the book Johnny Tremain
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1 can't be used; not using the science class;
2 only thing we do in English is Florida Writes,
3 no poetry, no literature.
4 I don't understand that. I just don't
5 understand it. Take the book, Johnny Tremain,
6 or any of these other things here.
7 Johnny Tremain, look at the reading
8 content, some of the reading benchmarks that
9 could have been taught using that. Word
10 meaning demonstrates -- or determines the main
11 idea or essential message, recognizes cause and
12 effect relationships. I could go on.
13 There's not one thing in the Sunshine State
14 Standards that could not be reenforced by any
15 of the common materials that are used in an
16 instructional program.
17 Science. Not using science to teach
18 mathematics and reading and writing is part of
19 Sunshine State Standards is beyond -- I have a
20 science minor.
21 Just imagine the math that's involved in
22 that, the writing that could be done in that.
23 Poetry? You can write and write and write
24 about interpretations of the great poems, and
25 poetry of our ages. I can't imagine why anyone
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1 would say that Florida Writes Program
2 suppresses creativity.
3 I've seen some of those essays. They're
4 beautiful essays. They're written in
5 45 minutes as a first draft, that's true. But
6 no one has ever suggested that that is all we
7 are supposed to teach in our schools.
8 Lastly, the point was made that FCAT
9 contains norm reference test items. Perhaps
10 there's a bit of confusion about that. The new
11 FCAT expanded program will include a national
12 norm reference test. But FCAT Sunshine State
13 Standards version is completely separate.
14 Closing point, I want to share with you a
15 sentence that I took from something that was
16 written in 1981. Talking about minimum
17 competency tests at a time in which we -- at
18 the height of the national debate over minimum
19 competency tests, and we were still in the
20 Debra P. versus Turlington litigation.
21 Quote: Educational tests, albeit,
22 imperfect, are sufficiently accurate for the
23 purposes of discriminating between competent
24 students and those who are not competent with
25 respect to the skills being measured by the
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1 tests.
2 The use of these tests is preferable to
3 other less database methods of examinee
4 categorization.
5 And going on: The investment of money in
6 tests are minimal when compared to the costs to
7 society, both fiscal and humane, of having our
8 schools produce numbers of students who are not
9 competent with respect to the basic skills.
10 Written by Dr. James Popham in conjunction
11 with an NIE presentation in Washington in
12 July 1981.
13 Thank you.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: I hate that when they --
15 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Thank you,
16 Dr. Popham.
17 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- do that to me,
18 Dr. Popham. I hope you --
19 I've been there.
20 MR. PIERSON: We -- we're going to -- to be
21 perfectly fair, we're going to switch over and
22 let a few pros have a chance to speak before
23 you all leave. And --
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: No, no. We're not leaving
25 until we've -- the people have come from other
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1 parts of the state --
2 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, we're going
3 to let some of those that have come from far
4 away places like Miami, that are in favor of
5 this plan, speak before they miss their
6 flights, too, if you don't mind.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Absolutely.
8 I mean, I just -- this is -- I don't know
9 what other -- other people have going on, but
10 this is pretty important. And people have been
11 here since 9:00 in the morning.
12 So onward. If we can be --
13 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Well, we heard --
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- brief, it'd be great,
15 but I think --
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- from the people
17 from Miami.
18 MR. PIERSON: Leonard Miller, Council of
19 100.
20 And next will be Rheb Harbison,
21 Florida Chamber; and Dr. Tina Dupree from
22 Miami.
23 MR. MILLER: Good afternoon.
24 I'd intended to say good morning.
25 I -- I want to thank the Governor,
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1 Commissioner Gallagher, and the Cabinet for
2 letting me address this group.
3 My name is Leonard Miller, and I'm here in
4 really three capacities: Number one, as the
5 spokesperson for the Annenberg Challenge, which
6 I'll describe in a minute; number two, as the
7 spokesperson for the Council of 100; and
8 number three, as a fellow who's lived and been
9 in business here in Florida for now 45 years.
10 And I have one other characteristic, and
11 that is, I love children.
12 You know, it was about two years ago that I
13 took over as the Chairman of the
14 Annenberg Challenge. And I'd like to describe
15 what that challenge is, and it is so relevant
16 to what we've been talking about today.
17 You know, the Annenberg Challenge is a
18 hundred million dollar effort, a partnership,
19 with its sole goal to make systemic change in
20 K through 12 education. And it's made up of
21 the private sector versus both profit and
22 nonprofit, and also the public school system.
23 And one of the things we did early on a
24 couple years ago -- actually before the A+ plan
25 came out, was to visit low performing schools,
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1 many of them poverty schools, to try to see how
2 we would put out our hundred million dollars in
3 grants.
4 And as we went to poverty schools, we tried
5 to pick -- and these were for our Board
6 meetings -- we tried to pick poverty schools
7 that were failing, but for some reason had
8 turned around, and become good schools.
9 And what we found, as we went to those
10 schools, was that they had certain
11 characteristics in common.
12 And, yes, there are schools that are
13 poverty schools that make it, minority schools,
14 what have you. And those characteristics are
15 invariably a strong leader, a strong principal,
16 one who marshals the teachers around him,
17 inspires those teachers on, who deals in
18 professional development, who deals in
19 incentivizing the teachers that are there
20 working, who brings in -- for parents and has
21 parental involvement, who does all the good
22 things that we've been talking about on and off
23 today.
24 And what my message is, is don't give up on
25 these kids, they can make it. Don't blame the
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1 customer for the product. The product has to
2 be adjusted, and, therefore, the customer will
3 learn if you have done that.
4 And the Council of 100 now that I'm also
5 representing is a group of some 150 business
6 leaders, academic leaders, from across the
7 state who've always had a marked interest and
8 desire to help in the system of education.
9 And the reason is because education is so
10 important, not only to our economy, but to our
11 very way of life in this great state.
12 So we're all about children, and we want to
13 see children learn.
14 Now, I must tell you that -- speaking both
15 for Annenberg, and for the Council of 100,
16 myself personally, I want to thank you from the
17 bottom of my heart, because from what I've seen
18 in the last two years, and spending countless
19 hours out in the field, out at schools, giving
20 grants, meeting after meeting, there has been a
21 whole change in this state, a whole change in
22 the thinking process of schools.
23 People all of a sudden -- and I attribute
24 it to the A+ plan. People are now starting to
25 think, hey, we do have a problem. These kids
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1 aren't learning. How are we going to turn it
2 around?
3 So it's -- it's more now the system of
4 accountability, the system of setting
5 standards. And this business of, hey, let's
6 not look at those poverty kids, let's put them
7 in another category. Another category be
8 damned. They're every bit as good as anyone
9 else. Those children can learn, just like
10 everyone else. And to please, I implore you,
11 stick with where you are.
12 Last but not least, let me say that it was
13 two weeks ago that I was representing the
14 Annenberg Challenge, and we announced a
15 partnership with the Barbara Bush Foundation
16 for family literacy.
17 And at that meeting -- it was a great
18 meeting -- it was at a school. And that school
19 was the Fisher-Feinberg (sic) School --
20 Elementary School in Miami Beach.
21 Jeb, you certainly know about that.
22 And I sat on that podium, and I looked down
23 over the hundreds of children that were sitting
24 in the audience. And they were great kids.
25 They were beautiful kids.
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1 But, you know, they had to miss it all
2 because 90 percent of those kids were minority
3 kids, 90 percent of those kids were on either a
4 free lunch or a reduced lunch program,
5 40 percent of the kids came to that school
6 speaking virtually no English, and 60 percent
7 was the mobility -- mobility rate in that
8 school.
9 Well, as I looked down, I had a smile on my
10 face. And the reason I had a smile on my face
11 was because those children were not an F school
12 constituency. They were not a D school
13 constituency. I'm proud to say, they were a
14 C school, and within 6 points in math of being
15 rated a B school.
16 Now, that's damn impressive. It shows you
17 what we can do. So stick to your guns, keep
18 the standards, don't make exceptions. You're
19 on the right road.
20 I implore you. Please.
21 Thank you.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Mr. Miller.
23 MR. MILLER: Yes.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
25 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I have one
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1 question on the --
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yeah.
3 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- if I can.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Go ahead.
5 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Mr. Miller,
6 thank you very much for your good presentation,
7 and all your good works at all levels of
8 education, even my -- our alma mater, the
9 University of Miami, that you've served with
10 also.
11 But let me ask about the
12 Annenberg Challenge. Is that -- is that
13 limited to Dade County District, or is that --
14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Dade, Broward, and
15 Palm Beach.
16 MR. MILLER: No, it's actually Dade,
17 Broward, and Palm Beach Counties. And what we
18 are doing now is in concert and collaboration
19 with the Council of 100, doing some initial
20 planning on expanding it across the state.
21 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: That will
22 need additional money; will it not?
23 MR. MILLER: What's that?
24 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: That will
25 need additional money?
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1 MR. MILLER: Yes. All the time.
2 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: All right.
3 And I'd like to work with you on -- on getting
4 money into that.
5 Does Annenberg work at all for preschool,
6 early childhood learning? Or they only --
7 MR. MILLER: We have --
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- deal
9 with --
10 MR. MILLER: -- what Annenberg is is a
11 program where we put in pilot programs in a
12 very -- a myriad number of areas, and some are
13 in preschool right now. Yes.
14 So we are doing -- we are setting up a test
15 program of all these different pilots to show
16 that they work, then expand them out, and
17 that's the -- that's the program.
18 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Okay.
19 Thank you.
20 Very good program.
21 MR. HARBISON: Governor, members of the
22 Cabinet, my name is Rheb Harbison with the
23 Florida Chamber of Commerce.
24 We represent the largest federation of
25 businesses, large and small, and by type in the
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1 state of Florida.
2 A lot of people that we talk to on the
3 education issue ask us, well, why would the
4 Florida Chamber be interested in education?
5 A little known fact is that the Chamber has
6 a long history of being active in the education
7 arena from world class schools on forward to
8 today.
9 And I wanted to be here today to make sure
10 that you knew that education and work force
11 education far and away are the number one issue
12 among the minds -- on the minds of our members,
13 Florida businesses, who hire the students of
14 our school system. It has been that way for a
15 number of years, and it continues to grow in
16 significance each and every year.
17 Number one, to the extent that it's often
18 surprising when I tell someone that education
19 really is a bigger issue among the minds of our
20 chamber members than legal reform.
21 So, in essence, we have been operating on
22 what we consider to be a mandate at the Chamber
23 over the last several years to try to make some
24 significant difference in our education system.
25 And when we saw an opportunity with a new
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1 Governor, we were happy to see that, and we
2 were happy to support with extreme vigor,
3 passage of the A+ plan.
4 Let me tell you what our members say. And
5 I guess I'm a little disappointed that, among
6 all the conversations, some entertaining, this
7 morning and -- and this afternoon, I've heard a
8 lot of discussion about administrators, and
9 I've heard a lot of discussion about teachers.
10 And I've heard a lot of -- of folks say
11 things like, don't grade us using rewards and
12 punishment. Grading people using Ds and Fs is
13 demoralizing.
14 But I haven't heard a whole lot of
15 discussion, if any at all, about what our
16 school system is producing in terms of an
17 employable Floridian.
18 And I will tell you just an example of what
19 I hear on a day-to-day basis, it's a -- it's a
20 huge operating issue for our members.
21 Sun Trust Bank in Tampa had one opening for
22 a bank teller, took in 120 plus applications.
23 Of those 120 plus applications, found nine
24 individuals who were qualified for an entry
25 level position in a bank.
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1 What we hear from our members is that the
2 applicants that they're seeing today don't read
3 well, don't write well, can't compute, don't
4 have a fundamental grasp of grammar, have very
5 poor interpersonal skills, and those -- those
6 kinds of basic things.
7 And so we look at this as the sort of
8 Y K-12 problem I guess. So we're -- we're on a
9 mission.
10 And I, like the previous speaker, would
11 urge you not to back away. We have a
12 significant situation in our state today. Our
13 members that would normally be here to speak on
14 this issue are -- happen to be in Jacksonville
15 today, because Mr. King is having a work force
16 education meeting in Jacksonville, which is
17 another piece of this whole puzzle.
18 But I just wanted to be here today, again,
19 to tell you that education and work force
20 education are far and away the number one issue
21 on the minds of business men and women, large
22 and small across this state. And ultimately,
23 that's where our students end up. And the vast
24 majority of our students don't go on to
25 postsecondary education.
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1 And so we are looking for a way to make
2 those students employable right out of the --
3 the high school system. And that's where our
4 interest lies in the K through 12 issue.
5 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: I have a
6 real --
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: General.
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- quick
9 question, sir.
10 I'm really pleased to see what a
11 Florida Chamber is insofar as education of
12 being its number one priority next year.
13 And since we have what -- what
14 Commissioner Gallagher has said a few months
15 back, perhaps over 50 percent of our
16 high school kids are not graduating.
17 In order to have a fully funded school
18 system, we will then have many more people who
19 will be qualified to be tellers, and every--
20 and everything else.
21 MR. HARBISON: Right.
22 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Therefore, I
23 would assume that the Florida Chamber then will
24 be four -- four square behind of a fully funded
25 educational system in this state.
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1 MR. HARBISON: I think the Chamber has been
2 there when it comes to -- as long as those
3 factors of accountability are in place. I
4 don't think you'll have any problem --
5 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Even when it
6 comes to money, additional money going into --
7 MR. HARBISON: I --
8 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: --
9 education.
10 MR. HARBISON: -- we were --
11 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: A whole lot
12 of it.
13 MR. HARBISON: -- we were there last year,
14 and I -- as long as there is an accountability
15 factor involved in that, I don't think you'll
16 have any problem with the Chamber on that
17 issue.
18 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Thank you.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
20 MR. HARBISON: Thanks.
21 DR. DUPREE: Good afternoon.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good afternoon.
23 DR. DUPREE: My name, for the record, is
24 Reverend Dr. Tina Dupree. And I am delighted
25 to be here today --
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: And we're delighted that
2 you took -- you've showed tremendous patience,
3 and --
4 DR. DUPREE: Thank you.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- hung in there with us.
6 DR. DUPREE: Thank you.
7 I would like to thank the Governor and the
8 Cabinet for hearing my comments.
9 I am standing here today speaking to you as
10 a grandmother and a pastor. I am an advocate
11 for quality education for all children.
12 I've been involved in public education for
13 about the past 13 years. And just some of the
14 involvement, I've been a past PTA president.
15 Also part of the County Council of PTAs; the
16 Past President of ACE, Alliance for Career
17 Education; and the list goes on and on and on
18 for my involvement in public schools.
19 I am here today in support of keeping the
20 high standards for all children. Lowering the
21 standards will send the wrong message and
22 create yet another negative label for our
23 children.
24 We don't want to give any student a cheat
25 sheet. I think they should all be able to
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1 measure up to the standards, and I think they
2 can measure up to the standards.
3 I believe that our educational system has
4 been able to change because of the A+ plan, and
5 these are very needed changes that we needed.
6 I have never seen my grandson read so much.
7 I have never seen him go off and willingly turn
8 off the TV because he has to catch up with his
9 reading.
10 So I would like to thank you all for the
11 A+ plan in my home.
12 I'd like to say that we do need better
13 prepared teachers for -- in the low income
14 schools, because they do have more of a
15 requirement. So the teachers are the ones who
16 need to be prepared, because the teachers are
17 the ones who teach the students.
18 I believe that the grading of schools is a
19 good choice. It allows every parent, and the
20 community to better understand what the
21 contributions that their child is receiving in
22 their education. In other words, grading of a
23 school will allow us to see a total picture.
24 A grade is a tool that shows where you
25 stand. And I believe that all students need to
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1 know where they stand, parents needs to know
2 where the child stands, and also where the
3 children stand.
4 I don't believe that we should send the
5 wrong message, because if we send a message
6 that we lower the standards, I believe that
7 what we're saying, that if you're poor, you
8 cannot learn.
9 I bought into the A+ plan when I heard the
10 Governor give his inauguration speech when he
11 said, all children can and should learn a
12 year's worth of knowledge in a year's worth of
13 time. And that sold me.
14 So when someone said earlier, where's the
15 buy-in, I was willing to jump up and say, here
16 it is right here.
17 I grew up in the inner city, and was
18 challenged by my teachers. No one lowered any
19 standards, and I'm happy for that, because
20 that's the reason that I believe that I have a
21 Ph.D. today is because no one ever lowered any
22 standards for me. So I always stressed,
23 achieved the highest.
24 I believe that the teachers are underpaid
25 and underappreciated and frustrated and not
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1 motivat-- motivated. So let's prepare them to
2 become motivated.
3 I'm in the training field, and I know that
4 motivation really helps you to learn, because
5 then you have the desire to learn.
6 There are certain things that -- that --
7 that we know in the training industry as
8 accelerated learning techniques, which puts the
9 motivation in the training and gives you
10 creative ways to teach, which we saw in a
11 presentation earlier with the schools that have
12 made the improvements because of the
13 innovation, because of the motivation that's
14 been put back into the school.
15 I have spoken to more than 1 million
16 teenagers internationally. I tell students,
17 it's not where you live, it's who you are that
18 is important.
19 If we lower the standards, we'll be sending
20 the opposite message. Don't send the wrong
21 message. Give our children the best education
22 that they can receive.
23 My daddy always told me that can't was
24 dead. So I believe that my daddy, who's been a
25 roofer for 40 years, should get down off the
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1 roof, get a teaching certificate, and teach the
2 kids, can is alive.
3 Thank you.
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
5 MR. PIERSON: Next speaker is
6 Lora Holcombe, Dr. Patrick Heffernan,
7 Janice Gilley, and Donna Calloway.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: If we can be relatively
9 brief, it'd be great.
10 MS. HOLCOMBE: Good afternoon.
11 I had some prepared remarks, but given
12 what's been said here today, I've sort of
13 changed them, so I'll -- I'll be brief.
14 My name is Lora Holcombe, and I'm a parent
15 of three young boys that are in the Leon County
16 school system. They're all in public school,
17 and one of them is taking advantage of the
18 wonderful things that have happened because of
19 the A+ program. My son has been allowed to go
20 to the pre-IB program in south Leon County,
21 which would not have been possible without the
22 A+.
23 So I want you to know how much I appreciate
24 that, and what's also happening at my sons'
25 schools.
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1 There are a lot of facts and figures that
2 you can take on any -- either side of the
3 school choice issue, and I don't -- I'm not
4 going to try to argue that kind of data with
5 you. But to me, school choice is a lot more
6 than that.
7 It's -- it's matt--
8 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
9 MS. HOLCOMBE: -- more a matter of personal
10 liberty, being allowed to make the choices
11 that -- that you know are right for your own
12 children, not having someone tell you what
13 those choices should be.
14 I also want to say though that I understand
15 the frustration coming from the teachers and
16 the principal from that school in Bradenton.
17 If my child were at that school, I tell
18 you, I'd be stressed out, too. But it doesn't
19 have to be that way.
20 My children go to a school here in
21 Leon County that's a B school, but we all know
22 it's really an A school. I mean, it's the
23 greatest school -- I can't even imagine a
24 better school than the one my children go to.
25 Our teach-- our principal -- we have a
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1 really strong leader. And our principal sets
2 it up such that everybody knows that FCAT is
3 important, but it's not everything. And they
4 do other things at that school as well.
5 And I feel like as -- as long as the school
6 has strong leadership, and the principal puts
7 the teachers in the right direction, that you
8 don't have to have that stressful situation.
9 It doesn't exist at my son's school.
10 And by the way, I'm on the SAC, too, so I
11 know some of what the pressures are.
12 But anyway, I'd like to say, I also like
13 the A+ plan for several other reasons. First,
14 it finally really introduces accountability in
15 my way of thinking.
16 I am an economist by training. And to an
17 economist, accountability is nothing like what
18 you are talking about. Accountability is if
19 you can take your dollars and walk away from a
20 situation that's not providing you with the
21 services and the goods that you want.
22 The A+ plan finally introduces
23 accountability as far as I'm concerned, and
24 that is by allowing parents that don't have the
25 opportunities to -- to move to a better school
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1 district, or to enroll their child in private
2 school. It finally gives them some
3 accountability, too. So that's my best thing
4 about the A+ plan is the accountability that it
5 introduces.
6 But I also appreciate it for other reasons,
7 and that is the standards -- I finally know
8 what my third grader is supposed to know. I --
9 I love the FCAT test. I'm so happy to -- to
10 see him tested to find out what he has learned
11 based on those standards.
12 And this is something that I have been
13 interested in for years. When my sixth grader
14 started at kindergarten, I went to my principal
15 that year and asked, well, what's he going to
16 be learning this year? What are the standards?
17 And she told me, well, we don't have any
18 standards.
19 I said, well, how do I know the first grade
20 teachers won't reteach him everything that he
21 learned in kindergarten?
22 Oh, no, we -- we talk, you know. But there
23 was nothing for me as a parent that I could
24 take home and look at and try to supplement and
25 augment at home.
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1 So I just want you to know how much I as a
2 parent appreciate what the A+ plan has done for
3 us.
4 Thank you.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
6 Mr. Heffernan.
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: I know it's tough
8 to keep it to 3 minutes, but we're really
9 tight.
10 DR. HEFFERNAN: Good afternoon.
11 I'm Patrick Heffernan. I'm known, and
12 I think beloved, by many people in the room as
13 the President of Floridians for School Choice.
14 But I -- it is really my academic --
15 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
16 DR. HEFFERNAN: -- background. I've been a
17 public school teacher; head of a private
18 school; and most importantly for these remarks
19 today, I was on the -- I was a lecturer in
20 philosophy of education for six years at
21 Cambridge University, and did much of my
22 postgraduate work on the analysis of a test.
23 My points are going to be fairly
24 straightforward. And I think the first one's
25 perhaps the only one I need to make.
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1 Grades are one thing, explanations of what
2 led to them are another. The grading of the
3 schools should simply say to us, and does
4 simply say to us, as designed, what -- that --
5 that a certain percentage of students have
6 failed to learn what the State considers
7 important for them to learn, a significant
8 percentage have failed to learn that, period.
9 Now, what caused that is now up for us to
10 explain. And the variables are enormous. It
11 could be that the child didn't apply himself
12 very well, it could be that there was a high
13 level of absenteeism in that school, it could
14 be that the teachers at that school were less
15 qualified than the teachers at better schools.
16 It could be that the materials that were
17 needed for that child to learn weren't there.
18 It could be that what the child should be
19 learning wasn't even being taught at all,
20 because people had assumed the child wasn't
21 capable of it.
22 For us to try to put into the grade the job
23 of explanation, rather than simply the job of
24 identifying what has happened, is to make a
25 terrible mistake.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: So it's back to that
2 correlation versus causation.
3 DR. HEFFERNAN: Absolutely.
4 I was so delighted -- other than I was
5 hoping to say that myself. Dr. Fisher took
6 that one.
7 The value of the grade from my point of
8 view absolutely depends on its specificity. It
9 should be a distinct measure of what the
10 children have learned.
11 It simply says to the people, not this is a
12 bad school, or that it's full of ineffective
13 teachers, or that they don't care.
14 It simply says, a high number of children
15 in this school didn't learn what we consider
16 important for them.
17 Now, let's roll our sleeves up and figure
18 out why. And will poverty be part of that?
19 Certainly.
20 But if we try to blend into that grade all
21 these others factors, it would -- here would be
22 the exact equivalent. When I see my child's
23 report card now, he gets an academic grade, a
24 grade for effort, and a grade for conduct.
25 Because they are distinct, they tell me
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1 three very meaningful things about my child.
2 If we blend those into some overall blended
3 grade for the student, and someone were to
4 propose that, I now have something that is
5 quite useless.
6 I don't know whether the B or the C is
7 because he didn't master the material, is it
8 because he didn't try, is it because he was
9 acting up, et cetera, et cetera.
10 So the value of this grade depends on its
11 specificity.
12 The poverty factor. All I want to say on
13 that is it's one completing -- competing
14 explanation, among many others. I've already
15 touched on those. I won't repeat myself on
16 that.
17 It's absolutely wrong to single it out,
18 it's irrational, and I think it's immoral
19 because it takes a factor that the child has no
20 control over, and uses it, while exonerating
21 the adults involved with any -- any
22 responsibility or blame.
23 All of those things that they control, like
24 whether or not the child had books, or was even
25 taught what he was supposed to be taught, or
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1 whether the teacher was there on a regular
2 basis. No one has proposed that those be
3 entered in as factors on the grade.
4 Finally, I want to say this, that I think
5 the primary purpose of the grade, and I believe
6 this was in the legislation, if not the
7 argument, is to help parents understand the
8 school.
9 It's -- it's to -- it's to help a parent
10 know simply this: There are or are not large
11 numbers of children at that school who are
12 meeting the State's expectations.
13 It's then up to the parents, with their
14 intelligence and their judgments, to make an
15 assessment of whether the reason for that is to
16 be laid at the door of those who are providing
17 the school, or at their own door of those who
18 are providing the children.
19 So thank you very much.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Patrick.
21 Ms. Calloway.
22 MS. CALLOWAY: Governor Bush, and
23 Cabinet --
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: I'll see you tomorrow.
25 MS. CALLOWAY: You'll see me tomorrow at
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1 8:00 o'clock in the morning. We've already
2 checked it out. You're on target.
3 I don't know if we'll do breakfast or not
4 yet though. We'll see -- I'll see when I get
5 back to school this afternoon.
6 Thank you for the opportunity. And I'm --
7 there have been -- there's been lots said
8 today. Let me just say that I'm a very
9 optimistic person.
10 The last two years as an administrator, I
11 have been more optimistic than I've ever been
12 in my life, because I see hope. Most of us
13 believe that all children can learn. I believe
14 that. We formed our school with that as a
15 basic premise. And I think we've proven that.
16 Last year, we were the only secondary
17 school in this district to be a school of
18 recognition. But my school, according to many,
19 is an inner city school. We have a 32 percent
20 minority; we have all exceptionalities there;
21 we have two EH classes, emotionally handicapped
22 classes; community-based instruction classes;
23 some kind of every child we have at Raa Middle
24 School. And yet we work very hard to make it
25 happen. And this plan is helping us.
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1 It's giving us money -- and I'm going to
2 talk about money. That's been skipped over
3 sometimes today. But we've gotten money the
4 last two years, and I'm delighted with that.
5 Let me tell you how the system works,
6 I think. I'm not an A school. I'm a B school.
7 And the reason for that -- all of our subgroups
8 achieved what they were supposed to achieve,
9 but we were just a few small perc-- tenths of a
10 point over the State average in out-of-school
11 suspensions.
12 And when I got that, I thought, wait a
13 minute. I even talked to the Governor. I
14 said, wait a minute. We've got zapped for,
15 you know, making our kids behave.
16 But the more I thought about it, the more I
17 thought we need to look at this. So we formed
18 a committee, we brainstormed throughout the
19 community, throughout our -- our school. And
20 what we decided was, that does -- does need
21 attention. We looked at it.
22 We in-serviced our teachers, we explored
23 programs for kids in interventions, how to
24 handle stress and anger, all those kinds of
25 things we thought kids should learn, and we
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1 were responsible for teaching.
2 And I could do that because I had the money
3 to pay for the staff development, and the
4 in-service. I bought the programs through the
5 money that I got through the school of
6 recognition money.
7 It has made differences already. We're
8 only one semester into the next year, but our
9 out-of-school suspension rate is lower now
10 because we are getting --
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Let me ask --
12 MS. CALLOWAY: -- kids before they get to
13 the point.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Have you gotten squishy
15 though? Have you gotten soft because you're
16 worried about the --
17 MS. CALLOWAY: No way.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: I didn't think so.
19 MS. CALLOWAY: No way. No way.
20 No. One of the things that I know that I'm
21 not the only person in the wor-- in the state
22 of -- that one thing made me think about
23 looking at the thing was -- at the -- the score
24 was that I knew that I was not the only law and
25 order choice and consequence principal in the
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1 state of Florida. There has to be other
2 schools that do that same thing.
3 But we zapped them right off the bat.
4 I mean, my parents sent me e-mail messages and
5 said, we don't care if you're a B school, as
6 long as you have law and order at Raa. And we
7 do have it there.
8 But there are kids who need attention
9 before they get to the point that they need to
10 be suspended. And we were using that maybe as
11 a crutch, and we don't have to do that.
12 Now, as far as what I got this year, I'm --
13 all my subgroups came up, so I have $82,000,
14 wonderful dollars, and I will not be giving you
15 a check back today, because it's already been
16 spent on staff development and providing
17 resources for my kids.
18 I thank you for what you're doing for the
19 kids of the state of Florida. We wanted to do
20 this for a long time. And it's no surprise.
21 We've known for years that schools had grades,
22 you just were brave enough to say it for all of
23 us.
24 Thank you.
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Thank you.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
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341
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1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
2
3
4
5 STATE OF FLORIDA:
6 COUNTY OF LEON:
7 I, LAURIE L. GILBERT, do hereby certify that
8 the foregoing proceedings were taken before me at the
9 time and place therein designated; that my shorthand
10 notes were thereafter translated; and the foregoing
11 pages numbered 158 through 340 are a true and correct
12 record of the aforesaid proceedings.
13 I FURTHER CERTIFY that I am not a relative,
14 employee, attorney or counsel of any of the parties,
15 nor relative or employee of such attorney or counsel,
16 or financially interested in the foregoing action.
17 DATED THIS 27TH day of DECEMBER, 1999.
18
19
20 LAURIE L. GILBERT, RPR, CCR, CRR, RMR
100 Salem Court
21 Tallahassee, Florida 32301
850/878-2221
22
23
24
25
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
T H E C A B I N E T
S T A T E O F F L O R I D A
Representing:
REPORT: TEAM FLORIDA 2000
STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION
DIVISION OF BOND FINANCE
DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY AND MOTOR VEHICLES
ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS' AFFAIRS
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
VOLUME III
Pages 342 through 412
The above agencies came to be heard before
THE FLORIDA CABINET, Honorable Governor Bush
presiding, in the Cabinet Meeting Room, LL-03,
The Capitol, Tallahassee, Florida, on Tuesday,
December 14, 1999, commencing at approximately
9:17 a.m.
Reported by:
LAURIE L. GILBERT
Registered Professional Reporter
Certified Court Reporter
Certified Realtime Reporter
Registered Merit Reporter
Notary Public in and for
the State of Florida at Large
ACCURATE STENOTYPE REPORTERS, INC.
100 SALEM COURT
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA 32301
850/878-2221
343
APPEARANCES:
Representing the Florida Cabinet:
JEB BUSH
Governor
BOB CRAWFORD
Commissioner of Agriculture
BOB MILLIGAN
Comptroller
BOB BUTTERWORTH
Attorney General
BILL NELSON
Treasurer
TOM GALLAGHER
Commissioner of Education
* * *
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I N D E X
ITEM ACTION PAGE
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION:
(Presented by Wayne V. Pierson,
Deputy Commissioner)
4 Continued Approved 410
CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER 412
* * *
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 MR. PIERSON: We're going to close out the con
3 list. We have Patricia Lucas, Wayne Blanton,
4 Kathy Davis, Dr. Jim May.
5 I guess that's everybody.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: How about Anna Cowin?
7 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: She's --
8 MR. PIERSON: She's only --
9 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: She's --
10 MR. PIERSON: She's coming.
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: She's here. Okay.
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: She's here.
13 We're going to let her do cleanup.
14 MS. LUCAS: Good afternoon, Governor --
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: Good afternoon.
16 MS. LUCAS: -- and Cabinet members.
17 I'm here speaking on behalf of
18 Superintendent Gene Denisar from Manatee County
19 Schools.
20 On behalf of Manatee County's 34,000
21 students and 2,000 teachers, I thank you for
22 this opportunity to share our thoughts on the
23 State system of school improvement and
24 accountability.
25 Since most of us believe that well reasoned
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1 accountability is a giant step towards
2 educational excellence, our District welcomes
3 school accountability as an important tool to
4 help identify the progress of our students and
5 the effectiveness of the learning process.
6 We appreciate your willingness to receive
7 input from around the state through public
8 hearings, and to learn from the experiences of
9 the 67 counties in -- in managing the impact
10 the school grading process has had upon our
11 students, teachers, and administrators.
12 The negative effects that the school
13 grading process has had on the public opinion
14 of our schools are a concern for -- to us.
15 Our public believes that the quality of
16 education is superior in schools with grades of
17 A or B, and inferior in schools of lower
18 grades.
19 Clearly, some adjustments are in order. We
20 strongly support rule revisions as follows:
21 Revise the design so that we are measuring the
22 same students. There is compelling evidence
23 of the strength of longitudinal studies; focus
24 upon student gains, not student achievement.
25 Of our 26 elementary schools, our greatest
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1 gains were achieved by three of our D rated
2 schools.
3 Reward the highest performing teachers, not
4 the highest performing schools. Avoid the
5 implementation of any school grading formula
6 which would lure or drive high performing
7 teachers out of low performing schools.
8 Finally, in any way possible, please help
9 us reduce the negative impact the school
10 grading process is having upon our students and
11 teachers. We pledge our full cooperation and
12 support of equitable accountability measures.
13 We encourage you to change those things in
14 the current process that do not promote equity
15 and fairness.
16 Sincerely, S. Gene Denisar, Superintendent.
17 Thank you.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much.
19 Good afternoon.
20 MR. BLANTON: Good afternoon. I'm
21 Wayne Blanton, Executive Director of the
22 Florida School Board Association.
23 I would like to start one of those
24 Tom Fisher introductions, if I could. I got my
25 Ph.D. at Florida State, I got my Master's at
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1 Florida A&M, I got my undergraduate at
2 Florida State.
3 I want to say that, because I'm a native
4 Floridian, and I got educated in Florida, and I
5 could answer all those test scores that were --
6 those test questions that were -- by the way.
7 I want everybody to know that for the record.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Sixth grade. That's --
9 MR. BLANTON: And I was able to get most of
10 those. And -- and I got a good education in
11 Florida.
12 And one of the things that we're missing
13 today, and we're going to miss in the future --
14 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
15 MR. BLANTON: -- if we're not careful, is
16 we have to do what's right for all Floridians.
17 That's education, that the business community,
18 that's for the students we represent. And I
19 mean all of us.
20 And the last thing we should do is to turn
21 this in an us versus you or us versus them or
22 whatever it may be.
23 I'm glad to hear the public -- private
24 schools start to talk about being held more
25 accountable, and we're going to try and help
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1 them with that.
2 And -- and they want to work with us. I'm
3 sure we're going to work with them.
4 But the grading system you're talking about
5 has to be fair. It has to be fair. Because,
6 Governor, if we're not careful, and we're not
7 fair with the test, and we're not fair with the
8 grading system, we will again disenfranchise a
9 large segment of our community when we should
10 not be doing that. We have to be very, very
11 careful with that.
12 We should allow opportunities for everyone.
13 We need to make sure that we do not turn this
14 into us versus them in any capacity. There's a
15 lot of things we need to do in that -- that
16 area.
17 I don't believe in grading schools. I know
18 the reason for grading schools. But what
19 I believe is is what every parent wants is to
20 grade their student.
21 And what we need to have in this state is a
22 system that can tell every parent at every
23 grade on every subject exactly where their --
24 where they are being tested, exactly what their
25 test scores are, and exactly where their
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1 strengths, and exactly where their weaknesses
2 are.
3 And until we get to that point, grading a
4 school is not going to mean a lot. We need to
5 be grading individual students, and following
6 them through their career.
7 That way we can strengthen our curriculum,
8 we can strengthen our students, and then we
9 will have true parent accountability, because
10 they will know exactly where their child is.
11 And I think we can do that as a group.
12 I think we can go to the Legislature and ask
13 for substantial dollars to do some of those
14 things. There are states that are doing that
15 right now. I have visited one of them. You
16 have a good friend in one of them that's doing
17 that right now.
18 You have a brother that's in one of them.
19 Texas is doing those kind of things.
20 We need student accountability on a
21 grade-by-grade level, on a test-by-test level,
22 if, in fact, in our state --
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: You mean that with the FCAT
24 test?
25 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Sure.
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1 MR. BLANTON: It is -- when -- when we get
2 there. We're not there.
3 GOVERNOR BUSH: Well --
4 MR. BLANTON: We're -- we're not there.
5 We're not there. We're trying to get there --
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Those three --
7 MR. BLANTON: -- and I compliment you --
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: It's not --
9 MR. BLANTON: -- on that.
10 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- it's not trying.
11 It's -- it's a done deal --
12 MR. BLANTON: We should get there --
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- in grades 3 through 10.
14 MR. BLANTON: -- in two or three or
15 four years. I believe when you -- when you
16 design -- when you design all the tests, and
17 you have all the test scores for each
18 individual student, how they're testing out,
19 and you can report that back directly to each
20 parent, grading of schools is not a big issue
21 anymore.
22 And I think that's one of the things we
23 have to -- we have to look at. Because
24 currently right now, we have A schools that
25 have F students in some of them, we have F
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1 schools that have A students in there.
2 And we need to make sure that the parent
3 accountability portion of this is the strongest
4 thing we have in there. And I think we can do
5 that by working together.
6 And I just compliment you on what you're
7 trying to do. But I do want to say that --
8 that there's a lot of problems in a program
9 this large. Remember what's happening in
10 Florida. Remember how big we are.
11 We employ -- just us -- employed
12 260,000 employees. We have 2.5 million
13 students showing up every day. What you're
14 doing here today, and what we're going to do in
15 the next couple of years impacts millions and
16 millions of parents.
17 And we have to make sure those parents get
18 the right information on their students, on
19 their children. And we have to assure them,
20 under any circumstance, that what we give them
21 is fair.
22 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
23 MR. BLANTON: Thank you.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
25 Good afternoon.
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1 MS. DAVIS: Good afternoon. And I am one
2 of those parents.
3 I'm Kathy Davis from Escambia County,
4 Florida. And as a parent of children in our
5 priv-- public and private school systems, I am
6 deeply concerned about the effects of this
7 plan.
8 It is time for us to look at the impact at
9 the local level. And there are some very
10 serious changes that need to be made to the
11 plan. Too much focus is being placed on
12 testing, rather than learning.
13 For example, during his fourth grade year,
14 my youngest child will take the FCAT reading,
15 the FCAT writing, the Stanford 9, the FCAT
16 field testing.
17 And my question to you is: How much time
18 is left for my child to learn, when this
19 inordinate amount of time is spent preparing
20 for these high stakes tests that are producing
21 very high levels of anxiety in our children?
22 While accountability is a very realistic
23 goal of education, let's look at the actual
24 effects. The FCAT introduced the testing of an
25 entirely new level of learning, that of applied
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1 knowledge.
2 While this is a very worthwhile goal, our
3 students were only given a few short years to
4 transform to this level before they were being
5 graded by the A+ plan. Teachers have been
6 diligently working to adjust to the changes
7 needed for this higher level.
8 But it's unrealistic to expect that one or
9 two years of adjusted curriculum will transform
10 the results of many years of instruction that
11 have been geared toward multiple choice type
12 questions.
13 The FCAT is not the problem. The problem
14 is that the measurement device is being changed
15 at the same point in time that our schools are
16 being graded, and determinations are being made
17 with respect to their financial funding, and
18 their reputations.
19 This serves no purpose, except to
20 negatively impact the morale of our teachers
21 and our students.
22 I'm also concerned about the inaccurate
23 measurement of different groups of children.
24 Instead of tracking my child's individual
25 progress, his school is being graded by
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1 comparing his present group with that of a
2 completely different group of students from the
3 prior year.
4 Without taking into account any of the
5 variables even associated with the voucher
6 program, it's unrealistic for us to expect a
7 sampling of one fourth grade class to be the
8 same from one year to the next.
9 How can a school's success be determined by
10 using different samples in the measurement
11 comparison?
12 The A+ plan does not take into
13 consideration many of the external factors that
14 influence the result of this testing.
15 If we want to -- to track the progress of
16 our schools, then what we need to do is take
17 the same class and pre- and post-test them on a
18 regular schedule. The desired result of
19 accurately measuring growth within the same
20 sample would then be achieved.
21 Testing the same class at the end of each
22 grade is another viable alternative.
23 Why is it necessary to attach a grade to
24 the school, especially so early in the
25 implementation of this plan?
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1 Is the goal to measure the growth of our
2 children, or is it to produce a competitive
3 atmosphere that ultimately is producing
4 unreasonable pressure in our children, and
5 demoralizing our teachers.
6 Businesses recognize the value of having
7 satisfied employees as it relates to
8 productivity. On a regular basis, I see the
9 dedicated work of the teachers and the need for
10 them to be compensated for the level of the
11 expertise being required of them, rather than
12 rating them with unjust measurements of their
13 value.
14 Is it plausible to believe that the
15 teachers in the lower performing schools will
16 be better teachers if they are placed in a
17 competitive, comparative situation?
18 That belief is demoralizing to anyone who
19 knows what it takes to be a teacher. The
20 scores are lower in the D and F schools because
21 of external factors. External factors such as
22 poverty, poor nutrition, lack of parental
23 involvement, and lack of preschool stimulation.
24 Sending students with low performance to
25 other schools will not solve the problem, it
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1 will only serve to disburse the problems
2 throughout your school system.
3 Prior to my -- the first of my three
4 children being born 16 years ago, I was a
5 teacher in the Florida public school system,
6 with plans of returning to the classroom when
7 they became older.
8 In the meantime, I've been active in all of
9 their classrooms. But I do not feel that I
10 would be able to effectively teach in the
11 environment that has been developed as a result
12 of the A+ plan.
13 Teachers are being unfairly judged, and the
14 thought of their salaries being connected to an
15 unjust grading system is absurd.
16 The morale of teachers is the lowest that
17 I've ever witnessed, regardless of the plan
18 that is put into place, if we do not take care
19 of our teachers, our schools will not be
20 successful.
21 We all want the same thing. We all want
22 the same things for our school. But it's
23 mandatory that we take a second look at the
24 effects of this plan.
25 Let's get back to meeting the educational
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1 needs of our children.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you very much for
3 coming.
4 MS. DAVIS: Thank you.
5 GOVERNOR BUSH: Mr. May, welcome back.
6 DR. MAY: I'm the one you've been waiting
7 for, I think.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Oh, yeah.
9 DR. MAY: Well, by that I mean, I'm the
10 last one, Governor, and --
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Oh, no. There's one more,
12 I think.
13 DR. MAY: Oh, there is. Okay.
14 Well, Honorable Governor, and -- and
15 Cabinet, thank you so much. I really would
16 like to begin --
17 My name is Jim May, I'm the Superintendent
18 from Escambia County schools. I also am the
19 only school system in the county that had two
20 schools that were graded F two years in a row
21 that are eligible for the voucher program.
22 I want to begin though by complimenting
23 you, first of all, on listening. And I -- and
24 I do mean that, gentlemen.
25 You -- you really have paid attention, you
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1 really have tried to give every speaker an
2 opportunity to come before you and voice their
3 concerns and voice their feeling.
4 And I want you to know, I admire that.
5 That truly is what public service is about.
6 And I thank you for that. And that is not an
7 easy thing for you to do.
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: You mean, you guys don't do
9 that at the School Board in Escambia County?
10 DR. MAY: I will tell you this: Our
11 School Board limits speakers to 2 minutes. And
12 I am -- now, don't take that for a suggestion,
13 please.
14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: We would like you
15 to follow your School Board's --
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: I just --
17 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- good lead.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- my fellow Cabinet
19 members might --
20 DR. MAY: However, I do mean that
21 sincerely. Thank you so much for the kind of
22 men you have been today. And I do appreciate
23 it.
24 I want to ask you this: I think we have
25 some beliefs in common, and if you disagree
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1 with any of these, please let me know
2 immediately.
3 I believe our first belief that we have in
4 common is that you want what's best for
5 Florida's children.
6 Secondly, I believe you all feel that all
7 students can learn.
8 Third, we want, and accept, that there must
9 be accountability for public education in the
10 state of Florida.
11 Do we have any disagreement on that at all?
12 I didn't think we would.
13 I would also like to ask you what is your
14 aim. And I really believe it's important for
15 any group to have developed an aim for whatever
16 they're trying to accomplish.
17 I do believe after having had the
18 opportunity to talk with many of you, that your
19 aim is to ensure that every child receives a
20 year's worth of learning for a year of
21 schooling.
22 Am I -- am I inaccurate at all in that aim?
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: I would add particularly
24 the bottom 25 percentile.
25 DR. MAY: Thank you.
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1 And I support that 100 percent, Governor,
2 and thank you for saying that. And I mean that
3 to you sincerely.
4 You know, you've heard from parents, and
5 you've heard from a lot of individuals. But I
6 want to just talk to you about something I
7 heard Mr. Blanton mention briefly, and that is
8 the idea of fairness.
9 Is everything that we're doing fair to
10 students? And they are our number one
11 customer, and I hope we never lose sight of
12 that.
13 Is everything that we're doing fair to
14 parents, is everything that we're doing fair to
15 teachers, is it fair to principals, is it fair
16 to every citizen in the state of Florida?
17 Do all students start school with the same
18 readiness level? In answering that question, I
19 would do very little more than referring you --
20 and I think Mr. Pettis has a copy that I'd like
21 to just hand to you of the results of the
22 A+ grading system in terms of distribution
23 based on free and reduced lunch.
24 In handing you this distribution package, I
25 want to answer the question: Do all students
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1 start school with the same readiness level?
2 And by the way, I will not stand here and
3 make any excuses, because that's not what we're
4 about. We're about success for all students,
5 and I believe you are, too.
6 But if you look at this distribution
7 package, you will find, 80 percent of all A and
8 B schools were above the State average for free
9 and reduced lunches -- or by the way, by above,
10 I mean they had less than the 43 percent State
11 average for free and reduced lunches.
12 If you go for those schools that were above
13 the 43 percent for free and reduced lunches,
14 that would be in the far right-hand corner at
15 the bottom, you'll notice 96 percent of all F
16 schools would be included in that group. They
17 were below the State average.
18 Why do I make that point? Because I do
19 believe that not every child starts at the same
20 readiness level. And you don't have to go far
21 to prove that.
22 What I want to ask you to do is what I hope
23 is somewhat of a compromise, because it does
24 meet your aim, and it meets every aim that I've
25 heard here today.
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1 What about us holding every school
2 accountable for every child, and demand that
3 they have a year's worth of learning for a
4 year's worth of schooling?
5 That's what I ask you to do. Let us test
6 every child --
7 Let me give you two examples of why I bring
8 this up now. We have the only two failing
9 schools in the state of Florida that have done
10 that two years in a row.
11 One of those schools had NCE gains of 2 --
12 and those of you that know much about testing,
13 like Mr. Fisher -- Dr. Fischer back there will
14 tell you, that's a pretty incredible gain.
15 The other of those failing schools had NCE
16 gains of 4. That's almost unheard of. I would
17 challenge how many A schools in the state of
18 Florida had NCE gains of 4, because I don't
19 think they did.
20 So what I am saying to you is, those
21 students didn't just have a year of progress at
22 those two failing schools, they had 1.3 years
23 of progress, and yet they're still labeled
24 failing.
25 Doesn't mean we don't want to be held
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1 accountable. I'm just asking: Is that fair?
2 If that's not acceptable, there are some
3 other factors that we could use. I want to end
4 with just a few suggestions, and -- and -- and
5 I do think that you've been so tolerant and so
6 patient in listening to each and every one of
7 us today, and I commend you again.
8 But I would like to hand out to you some
9 other pieces of paper. One, rather than for me
10 to stand up here and say this, I'm going to ask
11 Gene Pettis --
12 MR. PETTIS: I did them all.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: I think we already did it.
14 DR. MAY: You've already handed this out.
15 Okay. There are some suggestions to
16 amending the State Board of Education rule,
17 which we've all been discussing. There is a
18 synopsis, which I think you might find very
19 handy when you want to look at the changes as
20 they occur from year-to-year. And we
21 appreciate our data people putting that
22 together, and I think that you'll find that
23 quite useful for yourselves.
24 And finally, there's an errata sheet to
25 help correct just some errors in language,
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1 and -- and perhaps bring about some more
2 clarity that would help, for all of us to
3 understand what's happening.
4 I want to end with this: As long as you
5 have so many laws and lawmakers, there probably
6 will be rules that seem inherently unfair to
7 some of us. And that's not really a problem to
8 me, or to anyone else.
9 Not doing something about that unfairness
10 does become a problem.
11 I want all of us to really examine the
12 factor that I've kind of stressed today, not
13 about poverty, not about anything else, but
14 about do all children start with the same
15 readiness level?
16 And I think that anybody that you ask would
17 say, no. It's not about making excuses.
18 I believe all students can learn.
19 All that we ask of you today is correct the
20 inequities. It's not really that complicated.
21 It's not something that we have to develop this
22 elaborate plan that goes into all kinds of
23 categories that probably you need a Ph.D. to
24 understand.
25 It can be about this: Let us measure every
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1 child's progress, and every school, and see if
2 they make a year's worth of progress for a
3 year's worth of school. And I beg you, let
4 that be the measure of success.
5 Thank you so much for letting me speak to
6 you today.
7 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you,
8 Mr. Superintendent.
9 Now we're getting near the end, I think,
10 aren't we?
11 MR. PIERSON: The final three --
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Oh, three.
13 MR. PIERSON: -- final three speakers in
14 this order: Janet -- Janice Gilley --
15 (Comptroller Milligan exited the room.)
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: We'll all be here, General.
17 MR. PIERSON: -- Marva Collins, and
18 Senator Anna Cowin.
19 MS. GILLEY: Well, I had no idea when I got
20 up at 4:00 a.m., it would take this long to get
21 up here.
22 I come to you --
23 GOVERNOR BUSH: How's your child?
24 MS. GILLEY: Pardon me?
25 GOVERNOR BUSH: How's your baby?
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1 MS. GILLEY: Just wonderful. Just
2 wonderful. I did get to kiss him good-bye this
3 morning.
4 I come to you today -- get to see my
5 neighbor. Superintendent May's one of my
6 neighbors in the rural community that we live
7 in.
8 I come to you today as a -- as a resident
9 of Escambia County, a lifetime Floridian. I
10 come to you as a taxpaying citizen, I come to
11 you as a small business employer.
12 I also come to you as a -- as someone who
13 has had the opportunity to sit on a
14 school board; and I also come to you as the
15 mother of two beautiful babies, even if I do
16 say so myself. I have pictures.
17 I would like to tell you that there are --
18 our community -- I come from a community where
19 there are challenges. Pensacola's been
20 challenging St. Augustine for centuries as to
21 which one of us was the first settlement.
22 We're the cradle of naval aviation where
23 young men and women are trained every day to
24 protect our country around the world. We're
25 the model for welfare reform across the nation.
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1 We have also -- we are looking for new and
2 innovative ways to provide services to the
3 developmentally disabled. We're one day going
4 to be a good front porch Florida community.
5 Now, I want to tell you that some of our
6 other challenges are --
7 (Comptroller Milligan entered the room.)
8 MS. GILLEY: -- we had two hurricanes in
9 one year. That's devastating to a community.
10 But there have been very few challenges
11 that have affected our community as education
12 reform has affected our community.
13 What we have seen in our community is, no
14 matter where you are, whether it's at the
15 grocery store -- I get stopped at the grocery
16 store. Whether it's in business meetings,
17 whether it's at your Rotary luncheon, whether
18 it's at your -- whether it's at your
19 women's club, dinner with friends, or a family
20 dinner on Sunday afternoon, the issue always
21 comes around to education.
22 In the past, those discussions have been,
23 education is important, we need to do something
24 about it. Well, let me tell you what it is
25 today. Today it is, education's important, and
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1 we're all going to do something about it in our
2 community.
3 As a School Board member, I had the
4 opportunity to tour 14 different schools in our
5 community. What I saw in those schools were
6 teachers working hard, students working harder,
7 parents who were dedicated to making sure that
8 that community and that school was a success.
9 The principals are very, very dedicated and
10 very hard. They pull everything together.
11 There is no doubt in my mind that a principal
12 has one of the most difficult jobs in the
13 country.
14 I also want to tell you what else I saw. I
15 saw community organizations and businesses who
16 have come into those schools, not just one and
17 two at a time, by the dozens; not just one and
18 two employees at a time, but as many as 50 and
19 60 employees.
20 People ask me, they say, what can we do to
21 be involved? I tell them, one -- for example,
22 one of my friends has an engineering firm. I
23 said, you have engineers proficient in math,
24 let your employees go tutor. They're letting
25 their employees take time to go tutor math,
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1 students that need that.
2 Business partnerships in Escambia County no
3 longer mean a pizza party for students who
4 have -- who have excelled somewhere. They mean
5 active participation, not one -- one day a
6 week, but every day a week.
7 Our community has -- has risen to the
8 challenge, and we are -- the community
9 awareness has been phenomenal.
10 I think one of the things that I want to
11 make sure that's -- that's expressed here is we
12 need to talk about facts and not fiction.
13 The facts are -- these are not my numbers.
14 These are numbers from our junior college --
15 47 percent of the students that graduate from
16 our high schools need some form of remediation
17 when they go to junior college.
18 We can argue about what type of certificate
19 they receive, or what type of -- what type of
20 high school edu-- diploma they receive. But
21 the bottom line is, they need some form of
22 remediation.
23 And Department of Education, their numbers
24 are that we have dropout rates of 35 percent.
25 I don't think those numbers are acceptable to
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1 anyone in our community. We want to make
2 changes.
3 Also, I want you to know that, when
4 education reform came to Escambia County, not
5 one teacher has been fired in Escambia County
6 because of education reform. Remember that.
7 Also I want you to know that those two
8 failing schools received a phenomenal amount of
9 attention, fiduciarily, as a responsibility
10 from the Board. And the other seven whose
11 names you don't know also received that kind of
12 support.
13 You can name the two that you've heard
14 about, but there are seven others that you
15 can't name.
16 I also want to tell you that the best and
17 the brightest --
18 (Attorney General Butterworth exited the
19 room.)
20 MS. GILLEY: -- students didn't flee.
21 Opportunities were provided, it was a mixed bag
22 of students who took advantage of those
23 opportunities.
24 I -- I wish I had more factual information.
25 But I can tell you from all of the studying
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1 that I have done from across the country,
2 poverty does not equal failure.
3 In Escambia County, poverty equals
4 opportunity. People are going and being active
5 participants in those schools.
6 Now, I also want to tell you one final
7 thing. It doesn't matter how I feel, it
8 doesn't matter how you feel, it doesn't matter
9 how any other adult feels about this particular
10 rule.
11 We've all exited the public education
12 system. This rule is about students. This
13 rule is about student's achievements and what
14 their successes are, where there is room for
15 improvement, and where there is need for
16 improvement. This rule is about their future.
17 You and I are tested every day. Every day
18 we're tested. When we get in our car and
19 drive, can we follow the proper driving rules?
20 If we don't, we get a ticket. That's -- that's
21 elementary.
22 I'm -- I'm tested. Can I grammatically and
23 properly prepare correspondence. In my
24 small -- in my husband's company, in our small
25 business, simple mathematics. Can an employee
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1 calculate percentage of shipping, whether it's
2 from Pensacola to Atlanta, Georgia; Canada;
3 Europe; or California. Simple mathematics.
4 (Attorney General Butterworth entered the
5 room.)
6 MS. GILLEY: If those students fail those
7 tests, ladies and gentlemen, they don't succeed
8 in life. And none of us will be standing there
9 with them when they make those failures.
10 Now, I want to tell you, education reform
11 is not easy, and it's not a panacea. But the
12 sky has not fallen in Escambia County as of the
13 time I left this morning.
14 I'm very passionate about this issue, and I
15 hope all of you will favorably consider this
16 rule. It's very important to our future, and
17 it's very important to the future of our
18 children.
19 And I do have one more comment I must make.
20 I don't have a law degree -- it would have been
21 nice to have had one. But --
22 Well, that's probably good.
23 -- I don't have a CPA degree, and I don't
24 have a medical degree.
25 But I do know that when you go and you
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1 pursue those activities, there is a minimum
2 standard that you must meet to be accepted as a
3 lawyer, to be accepted as a doctor, and to be
4 accepted as a CPA.
5 And if you don't meet that minimum
6 standard, you don't get those designations. So
7 I think that, when we talk about people making
8 minimum standards, there are minimum standards
9 that have to be met for the rest of your life.
10 Thank you very much for your attention, and
11 I do hope you will favorably consider this
12 rule.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you, Janice.
14 I'm glad that the 2-minute rule didn't
15 apply to you when you're at the Escambia County
16 School Board.
17 Who's next?
18 MR. PIERSON: Marva Collins.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Marva Collins.
20 Welcome. What an honor to have you here.
21 MS. COLLINS: I suppose I must have sent
22 out the wrong karma or something. Every touse
23 that I endeavor is always the most difficult.
24 So since I'm the last, that means I must
25 somehow hold the attention of the audience.
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1 GOVERNOR BUSH: I think you'll be able to
2 do that. I'm pretty sure.
3 MS. COLLINS: And, Governor Bush, I'd like
4 to say to you that our -- if there are anything
5 I say about what can happen, you can use your
6 parents as references. They have visited our
7 school. Okay.
8 I think I've heard the word poverty here
9 today more than I ever have in a lifetime. I
10 still cannot understand what poverty has to do
11 with the brain. And I often think of
12 Abraham Lincoln, who at fourteen, had yet not
13 learned to read.
14 And yet if he were in today's school
15 system, he never would have had the opportunity
16 to become President of the United States.
17 I think it's about exposure, or I'm -- also
18 it's a matter of personal pride. Having grown
19 up in Atmore, Alabama, a very, very rural town.
20 So rural that you have to give some proximity
21 as to where it is, and that's near Pensacola,
22 Florida, at a time when black kids had no
23 libraries, there were no private schools, or my
24 one sister and I came from a very nutured home.
25 My parents, grandparents, made a very, very
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1 good living.
2 But are -- in order to obtain a book, I
3 either -- either had to get them through mail
4 order or travel all the way to Pensacola or
5 Mobile just to purchase a book.
6 We had teachers who only had a tenth grade
7 education, or most of the kids -- I was very
8 fortunate. I'm 14 years older than my sister.
9 I was tenth grade in high school when my one
10 sister was born.
11 But usually sometimes I was the only kid in
12 school, because the other kids had to pick all
13 of the cotton before they could come to school.
14 But when they did arrive at school, every
15 teacher -- I never remember having one teacher
16 who had the attitude that the kind of homes
17 some of those kids came from had something to
18 do with what they could achieve.
19 And I think again -- I call it stepping
20 outside the square. To me it would be a
21 personal affront to have someone set standards
22 for me. Usually other people's standards are
23 not good enough for me.
24 I am always a bit embarrassed that if I
25 worked on a job, or -- and if I was due there
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1 at 9:00 o'clock, I was always there by 7:30,
2 8:00 o'clock. It didn't make me very popular
3 with the other employees.
4 I always took it as a personal affront if I
5 had to be warned; or if I was typing a report;
6 or I remember coming from our -- Alabama, I
7 went to Chicago, and I talked my way into a
8 medical secretary job.
9 And I had never heard a medical term in my
10 life. But when I'd get to a word that I
11 couldn't spell, I would call the medical
12 association, made friends with the secretary
13 there, play the machine over and over until she
14 heard the words and told me how to spell it.
15 I never got one rewrite back again. It's
16 taken the personal pride and what we do, or the
17 schools in Quincy have done very, very well
18 here, just doing half of what I've asked them
19 to do.
20 Or -- children are phenomenal -- children
21 and animals, I say, really know when people are
22 real.
23 Or two weeks ago, I was at Quincy, and I
24 remember two or three of the young lads peeking
25 in the room, and then they would run. Well,
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1 that's what children are supposed to do.
2 That's what young people -- or, I mean, that's
3 their behavior.
4 And I stopped the teacher training seminar
5 and actually chased these kids down until I
6 found them. And the teachers kind of thought,
7 well, you know, you should continue the
8 seminar. But what you see in me is who I am.
9 I chased these kids down, and I said, my
10 wonderful bright ones, because you're so
11 wonderful, a small peek is not enough.
12 So I want you to come in the full -- in the
13 room so you can have a full view. So they sat
14 and they participated -- I involved them in the
15 teacher training sessions.
16 Every one of these kids when I left, they
17 were hanging their heads from the buses, and
18 they said, we love you, Mrs. Collins, are you
19 going to come back?
20 You know, I think somehow I worry about us
21 as Americans. We whine, we complain. The
22 greater the standards, the more unfair
23 something is for me, it really empowers me to
24 excellence.
25 I remember speaking to 30,000 people at the
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1 Astrodome in Indianapolis in the morning; and
2 flying out to Boston, speaking to 20,000 in the
3 afternoon.
4 And there are times when people will tell
5 my husband one word -- my southern accent comes
6 out in some words. They will tell my husband
7 one word that I've misenunciated.
8 But again, we can either get anger --
9 angry, we can take a negative attitude, or I
10 really feel that the higher the standards, the
11 more -- the greater it empowers me.
12 How we see the problem is really the
13 problem. I'm very worried about the standards
14 of Americans.
15 I collect old textbooks, and we've actually
16 recitivated in the name of progress. In 1890,
17 you should see the handwriting in some of the
18 textbooks, the careful calligraphy, the careful
19 handwriting.
20 Children in 1818 -- I have a second grade
21 reader where children read Oliver Goldsmith,
22 William Shakespeare, or Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
23 Emerson, Thoreau, the very same things today we
24 say are not age appropriate.
25 Our children are saying to us as
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1 cacophonously as they can, that enough is too
2 much, their behavior. I find it fascinating
3 that we say children cannot learn certain
4 facts.
5 Watch a three or four year old handle a
6 computer. Why is it then they turn to idiots
7 when they come to school?
8 Or watch a three or four year old that will
9 watch television, and do a Hopi Indian dance
10 backing out of the room to keep from using the
11 washroom.
12 Why is it that television holds their
13 interests, and they're so bored when they come
14 to school?
15 Whenever I teach a class -- and give me any
16 school, your worst achieving schools here in
17 the worst areas, the greatest problems, and I
18 will do the same thing I did with public
19 schools in Chicago. They have -- there they
20 are -- they are actually putting schools on
21 probation, and they're being taken over by the
22 State.
23 At least here, you are primarily right now
24 just being graded. Things could always be
25 worse.
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1 I took over two of the lowest achieving
2 public schools there, brought those schools off
3 probation in just three months.
4 It can be done, I think again, as I say, we
5 must once again, ourselves return to
6 excellence. The word responsible means able to
7 respond.
8 I would be truly embarrassed to have
9 someone walk in and monitor my school as an
10 F school. We have a school in the inner city
11 of Chicago, we will be beginning a high school
12 in our -- February of the coming millennium.
13 It -- really we have -- keeping true to the
14 lesson in Plato's republic, which was the first
15 noble lie.
16 Our children believe that every child is an
17 achiever. I remember the police once made a
18 mistake and came to our school.
19 And one little seven year old walked up to
20 him and said, excuse me, Officer, sir, but here
21 we are self-generated, self-motivated, and
22 self-propelled. You must have the wrong
23 address.
24 We have a school in the inner city where
25 children -- we've never had a substitute
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1 teacher. Our children keep themselves.
2 Imagine that, if you can.
3 Our entire school is monitored on a
4 discipline where children choose. At one of
5 the schools here, they learn from
6 choices/consequences.
7 We teach children to think critically,
8 analytically, and they can pass any test.
9 I really think the test here is a very
10 simple one. Or -- ours are much, much more
11 difficult. Or we get the law exam from
12 Princeton and Harvard and Yale and Dartmouth,
13 and we let our sixth and seventh graders
14 practice on those tests.
15 We get the medical exams. You know, no
16 one's dead. If they don't do well, I mean,
17 it's a positive enterprise.
18 Our children are given play money in each
19 of the math classes for the correct answers,
20 whatever, and we actually buy stock from the
21 Wall Street Journal and Barron's. Our children
22 have learned to get positive attention.
23 Or I remember your dad had a Board meeting
24 down in Florida, and I was the only one that
25 took a young man to the Board meeting.
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1 So President Bush is sitting here, and
2 here's this little seven year old, single
3 family home, welfare mother, sitting in front
4 of the President.
5 And or -- President Bush said to him, you
6 have impeccable manners. I see you do this
7 often.
8 And Jason said, Mr. President, sir, if I
9 didn't do this on a frequent basis, I perhaps
10 would shuffle off my mortal coil, wouldn't I?
11 So going back to the lessons from
12 Shakespeare. So I think again what we --
13 I think the indomitable spirit, I -- I look at
14 what we miss.
15 I decide what I want my students to be.
16 They are each pieces of me. I have many Marvas
17 where -- there are girls. I decide the kind of
18 mind my students are going to have, and they
19 are pieces of me. They are mirrored by who I
20 am. I think we lose the power.
21 And to me as a teacher, that is just
22 phenomenal, that I have little kids running all
23 over the west side of Chicago, or saying -- or
24 the Canterbury Tales -- Chaucer's, The
25 Canterbury Tales in old English. Memorizing
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1 one great poem every week, reciting the great
2 lines in Latin. We begin to teach children
3 Latin in third grade.
4 Or if you think the expectations here are
5 high, I don't think any of you would want to
6 work in our school.
7 Again, we stand at the door each morning,
8 we bond with every child.
9 If I ever have to put equipment in the
10 school to see whether children have weapons, I
11 will close the doors.
12 We stand at the door each morning, we bond
13 with each child, we greet each child.
14 Before each of those 200 students can leave
15 every evening, they must show us what they have
16 accomplished. They have -- the little folders
17 are all ready. That's their ticket out of
18 there.
19 They must have those folders ready to show
20 us what they have accomplished.
21 We say to our students, you bring a
22 credit card to this school each day and we
23 stamp it. We said, would you go to the
24 merchant and say, Mr. Merchant, stamp my
25 credit card. I don't want any merchandise,
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1 just stamp the card.
2 Every child learns that, without them,
3 there would be no us. I think we need to stop
4 and think, they purchase our cars, they
5 purchase our homes.
6 Right now, each of my three children get
7 three years to run the school, so I'll see
8 which child I need to yank out while I'm still
9 here on earth. They have done a phenomenal
10 job. It's that pride: Mom, your name is on
11 the school.
12 It's that personal pride of carrying on
13 that family legacy. Our children take personal
14 great pride. Imagine a group of second graders
15 keeping themselves.
16 We discipline our children with very simple
17 methods. I think we've complicated things, and
18 I'm going to repeat again, Ralph Waldo Emerson
19 was right.
20 We have thousands of people from all over
21 the world who come to see what I call plain,
22 common sense. I decide what our students will
23 be. It's -- you can use excuses, but they're
24 parents.
25 And then I must ask who educated the
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1 parents? We as a system have messed up the
2 parents, and now we're messing up the kids. So
3 it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.
4 We're either willing to bridge the gap.
5 There's a space between my hands. I either can
6 reach over and pull a child over, or they're
7 going to fall in the cracks.
8 So, again, I decide that every child will
9 be a winner, every -- those of you who might
10 have seen the 60 Minutes follow-up after
11 17 years, every one of our students go on to
12 college. We've never had a police report.
13 Our children are -- disagree the way most
14 children will, but they've learned to settle
15 those in a civil, humane, amicable way.
16 Now, we can keep using excuses. This isn't
17 about the edicts that's in place here. It's
18 about us as a nation.
19 I'm begging you to give to yourselves this
20 holiday the greatest gift -- I tell everyone,
21 don't give me anything for Christmas that I
22 can't eat, because my greatest gift to me has
23 been what I have done for children.
24 The greatest gift to me was to see these
25 bus loads of kids in Quincy yelling from -- the
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1 same kids I had chased and brought back into
2 the library -- yelling, I love you,
3 Mrs. Collins.
4 The greatest gift that has been given to me
5 is the black kids that are doctors at
6 Presbyterian St. Lukes in Chicago; the letters
7 that I get from young men in prison saying, if
8 I'd had a teacher like you, I would not be
9 here; the letters and the praises that I get
10 from young people.
11 Those are gifts that can't be purchased,
12 they can't be purchased from Tiffany's, they
13 can't be put on a credit card.
14 We as Americans are seeking -- we call them
15 holidays. I call them h-o-l-l-o-w days, or
16 h-o-l-l-e-r days.
17 We are going to find peace, we're going to
18 find the power that we innately have as
19 Americans when we stop the whining, when we
20 stop having someone put rules on us.
21 You know, my school would be an A+ school
22 because that's what I deserve. Once we
23 internalize that excellence is my birthright --
24 I say to every student that comes to my school,
25 failure is not one of your choices here, you're
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1 going to learn, or you're going to die. Now,
2 take your choice.
3 Because when they fail -- when you walk
4 into that school, you don't know who their
5 parents are. But you know that my name is on
6 that building. It says Marva Collins
7 Preparatory School. You don't know their
8 parents.
9 But when you walk in that classroom, the
10 way our children speak, just standard English.
11 All across America, I hear teachers say,
12 good morning, John, how are you? The kid looks
13 at the floor, and say, okay.
14 Our children give you the eye contact and
15 say, I am fine, thank you, Mrs. Collins. And
16 you?
17 It's speaking in complete sentences,
18 speaking in standard English. It is a sin of
19 omission to lower the standards for me.
20 I don't want anyone doing anything ever for
21 me because I'm a woman; because I am a black
22 woman; because I'm from Atmore, Alabama.
23 I tell the children, weep and you weep
24 alone for the sad old earth has troubles of its
25 own.
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1 To hear a little three or four year old
2 say, we don't give pity parties here. To hear
3 a little new three year old say to a four year
4 old who's weeping about a pencil, he has my
5 pencil. The three year old looks at that new
6 students, and say, in this school, we are here
7 to own the pencil company. We don't worry
8 about one pencil.
9 You see, the way we see the problem -- it's
10 a problem. We can't believe that that can
11 happen without discipline, common sense.
12 Now, how do we discipline our children?
13 There's no screaming, yelling, sitting kids in
14 corners.
15 I say to children, see this sheet of paper?
16 It's a nice, clean sheet of paper. Then I take
17 that paper and I do this.
18 And I hang it -- that doesn't look nice
19 decoratively. Whenever they get a little loud,
20 I -- all I do is point to that, and they go,
21 bad choice.
22 Now, as they walk the hallways, they say to
23 each other -- they monitor each other. When
24 one is out of line, they'll say, not a great
25 idea. Bad choice.
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1 I said to the teachers at one of the
2 schools in Quincy, today children -- one of the
3 really unruly classrooms, you will show your
4 teach-- you will take your teacher to lunch.
5 The teacher looked at me in disbelief.
6 I says, the teacher will follow you. You
7 will go first.
8 Now, in order for them to go first, I says,
9 you remember now, you're modeling behavior for
10 your teacher. If you misbehave, your teacher
11 will misbehave --
12 GOVERNOR BUSH: Ms. Collins, can we -- can
13 you close it down?
14 MS. COLLINS: The -- so the children did --
15 I mean, as they say, they will do --
16 GOVERNOR BUSH: Get in trouble.
17 MS. COLLINS: -- whatever we ask.
18 And I'm going to say again: While we are
19 debating about the rule that's here, let us
20 look at us, and do it because it's right to do
21 it, do it because it's excellent to do it, and
22 not because someone forced us to do it.
23 To do less than that would truly be a sin
24 of omission.
25 Okay.
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1 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Thank you.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you so much.
3 SENATOR COWIN: It's great to stand.
4 Let me tell you, you are all much better
5 than a lot of senators, sitting and listening.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: Senator Cowins (sic), I
7 know you've been waiting for a long time, but
8 if you could be very brief, I would -- I'll
9 give you a huge hug. Or -- or I won't hug you,
10 depending on which one you want.
11 SENATOR COWIN: The bottom line is that the
12 rule that we have here complies with the
13 intent, the spirit, and everything in the law
14 that the Legislature had.
15 I want to mention a -- four things that
16 I -- well, a few more -- that have -- that are
17 key in -- in this legislation, or in this
18 amendment rule.
19 One about the lowest quartile that must
20 gain as well. That was a very important aspect
21 by the legislators. All the students must
22 perform. It separates the schools by
23 performers, and separates students by their
24 performance.
25 Relaxing the regulations for student -- for
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1 schools, not only A schools, but those that are
2 doing well for two years in a row and
3 exceptionally gaining, the expectation being
4 the same for all students in schools.
5 One thing that this rule I think is doing
6 is bringing the parents and the public into the
7 loop of the education.
8 I have seen that -- when I've gone to
9 school in previous -- in the previous years
10 when we were talking about levels, that the
11 parents didn't know anything about it. By
12 actually grading schools by grades, we're
13 actually making something that's understandable
14 to all.
15 The Legislature was concerned about the
16 mobility and the stability. I believe by
17 enrolling the students, and according to this
18 rule where they're in both the second and the
19 third quartile of the -- quarter of the school
20 addresses that issue.
21 It changes the F school from what's saying
22 critically low performing to failing to make
23 adequate progress, which is, I think, a very
24 fine distinction. But what it states is that
25 we're going to be looking at the gains of the
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1 students.
2 It gives assistance and intervention to F
3 and D schools on different levels. On the
4 Commission -- Commissioner level with his
5 grants, and the improvements assistance and the
6 resources and identifying etiologically similar
7 schools; and on the District level by
8 increasing their levels of assistance; and --
9 and providing emergency action; and on the
10 State Board act-- level, for those schools that
11 are not performing well, for the F schools.
12 I did want to mention something on the
13 analysis by Pinellas County, and -- and mention
14 a few things that have been addressed.
15 Number one is the poverty factor. I don't
16 believe that that is -- really has any basis.
17 It's an inclusion of a -- a fudge factor.
18 It -- the A schools have a -- a lower percent
19 of students on free and reduced lunch than
20 F schools.
21 But we have found, as a -- we have found
22 that as we've -- with Dr. Fisher, something
23 that happens to be in a -- in a school, there's
24 not necessarily a correlation.
25 Just because something is in the same spot,
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1 it doesn't show that there's a causal
2 relationship. And we can relate that to any
3 issue, water and fish happen to be in the same
4 position, and if you throw a coin in, one
5 doesn't mean that one is always present with
6 the other.
7 The logic is false. As a scientist by
8 background -- and I didn't go into my
9 background.
10 But I was Chairman of the -- I'm Chairman
11 of the Senate Education Committee, and was
12 prime sponsor of this legislation as well, as
13 Co-Chair on the -- the Senate and the House
14 Conference Committee.
15 But -- and my background, I have my
16 graduate degrees in science. And I was very
17 interested, not only during our discussion in
18 the Legislature, but --
19 (Treasurer Nelson exited the room.)
20 SENATOR COWIN: -- in this analysis as far
21 as trying to put the poverty factor, or any
22 other factor in the data.
23 The collection of the information must be
24 pure. And as we know, we can correct for these
25 variables by including controlled experiments,
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1 as you know in comparing one group to another.
2 The Board should reject the factor of -- of
3 poverty. This was completely discussed and
4 debated in the Legislature, but was rejected
5 when it, in fact, was presented by an
6 amendment. And it was never what the
7 Legislature wanted. And I believe it's
8 actually contrary to the law and its intent.
9 Furthermore, when we did an interim study
10 with the Senate Education staff, we found that
11 students that are in F and D schools have
12 inflated grades.
13 If we put those same students, and put them
14 in higher level schools, we find that they do
15 poorer. And so when we're looking at the
16 F schools, we're doing things differently.
17 We're giving students grades perhaps to make
18 them feel good. And I heard a lot about this
19 feel good attempt by different legislation.
20 I think it's important to have the learning
21 gains. The Legislature supported this as a
22 measure of performance in schools, and even
23 specifically debated this one issue, and put it
24 in as a value added model when measuring and
25 rewarding teacher performance, which in a few
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1 years hopefully we'll be coming to that point
2 by looking at the gains of the students in the
3 D and F sch-- and in the -- in the A and
4 B schools.
5 The attendance and discipline measures --
6 the Senate Committee on School Safety had
7 concerns regarding the out-of-school
8 suspensions, and this was addressed during this
9 summer as a measure of grading schools.
10 It was thought, not that it's a bad
11 indicator of actually a good school or a school
12 that has had some problems. And in a perfect
13 world, discipline data such as the
14 out-of-school suspensions might be a good
15 indicator of the grading of the school.
16 But what's -- there was a fear that the --
17 (Treasurer Nelson entered the room.)
18 SENATOR COWIN: -- some principals might
19 sacrifice doing the right thing for discipline
20 to get a better grade for the school.
21 Attendance was a major concern. But,
22 in fact, we put in an average daily attendance
23 in the formula as a way of achieving dollars in
24 FTE, instead of doing FTE week, so I would
25 think that it would be also a great indicator.
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1 I think the -- there is one problem, which
2 I have noticed, and I only -- it -- it came to
3 me actually very early this morning from
4 something that was said to me yesterday.
5 And I think we really need to look at this,
6 and perhaps by administrative rule, that when
7 we're doing the measurements, especially in
8 elementary schools and in the fourth grade,
9 that we should look particularly to the
10 movement of the students mid-year, because
11 there is an attempt at least in one school to
12 move students from the fourth grade into the
13 fifth grade mid-year so that they don't test in
14 the fourth grade reading and writing, and
15 actually test in the -- perhaps in the -- in
16 the math.
17 I -- I think we should monitor the student
18 acceleration mid-year in all grades as a --
19 when we discuss that social promotion, but
20 specifically before we get to the testing this
21 year.
22 The use of other data to measure schools.
23 The Legislature wanted each school to have a
24 profile. And this is -- this is important in
25 that the -- when they're talking about the
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1 school accountability reform, the profiling and
2 all those extra things that we put in the law,
3 like school suspension and the distribution of
4 the grades and the graduation rate and the
5 stability and the dropout rate and attendance,
6 that was put in not as a way necessarily of
7 only grading schools, but as giving information
8 to -- to parents so that they would know what
9 schools they would go to.
10 And --
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: Can I ask you -- just --
12 the -- the rule as amended complies with
13 legislative intent.
14 SENATOR COWIN: Yes.
15 GOVERNOR BUSH: You started that. And --
16 and we -- you have -- we have a letter from --
17 I don't know what it -- the Joint
18 Administrative --
19 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: JAPC.
20 GOVERNOR BUSH: I don't want to say that.
21 Whatever it's called -- that -- that also
22 states that as well.
23 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: That's correct.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: Which seldom do we have
25 rules that have already gotten kind of a
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1 Good Housekeeping seal of approval by the
2 Legislature in advance. I've not seen that
3 before.
4 And that kind of -- that's the bottom line,
5 isn't it?
6 SENATOR COWIN: Absolutely. And I want to
7 encourage you --
8 GOVERNOR BUSH: Not the -- it's not the
9 final line, but it's the bottom line.
10 SENATOR COWIN: Exactly.
11 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: It's the bottom
12 line.
13 SENATOR COWIN: There -- there's a book,
14 Who Moved My Cheese? And I'm -- obvious-- it's
15 a very short book, but it really tells us --
16 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: She's going to
17 read it to us.
18 SENATOR COWIN: And I'm -- I'm not going to
19 read it to you.
20 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Even though it's
21 short, it's too long.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: It's been a long day, Anna,
23 and I -- first of all, I -- it's been a long
24 day. That -- that is for sure.
25 I appreciate everything that you did. This
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1 was a comprehensive bill that took a lot of
2 work and a lot of leadership to get passed, and
3 we haven't commended --
4 SENATOR COWIN: And you shouldn't change a
5 thing.
6 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- the reporters said I
7 haven't commended you for it, and I want to
8 publicly commend you again. But I think we got
9 the gist as it relates to the rule. Don't --
10 SENATOR COWIN: Don't -- don't change a
11 thing, just move ahead and vote -- vote for the
12 rule.
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Okay, Governor.
15 To set the parameters, I'd like to move that
16 the State Board of Education adopt the proposed
17 amendment to Rule 6A-1.09981 as modified by the
18 changes presented in my memorandum of
19 December 14th, 1999, to the members of the
20 State Board of Education.
21 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Second.
22 GOVERNOR BUSH: There's a motion and a
23 second.
24 Any discussion?
25 Commissioner Nelson.
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1 TREASURER NELSON: Are we in the posture --
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: We have now --
3 TREASURER NELSON: -- to discuss?
4 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- eliminated -- there's no
5 more public discussion. We've -- there's been
6 a motion and -- of the -- of the rule as
7 amended. And there's been a second.
8 There's discussion now.
9 TREASURER NELSON: Well, Governor, I have
10 not said much today, and I've listened
11 carefully to all of the testimony.
12 And I -- I want to point out a couple of
13 things that I think that have been very
14 important statements of policy here today.
15 The first is something that
16 Superintendent May said that what he is looking
17 for is a year's worth of progress in a year's
18 worth of work and learning.
19 And as we look to the future on how we are
20 going to measure and hold accountable our
21 school system, of which all of us are trying to
22 get to the same goal, it seems to me that his
23 suggestion is a very worthwhile one in bringing
24 about accountability of the students' progress.
25 My concern is not the FCAT, which we've had
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STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 402
December 14, 1999
1 a lot of testimony about that today. The FCAT
2 is designed to measure what it's designed to
3 measure. My concern is the system that we have
4 set up, and then the distribution of resources
5 according to that system.
6 It seems that the system distributes
7 resources to those who do the best. And now
8 you're trying to amend that in this rule, and
9 I think that's a -- a salutatory amendment.
10 But there's a provision in the basic law,
11 perhaps you and the Legislature may want to
12 address that as a policy matter by the
13 year 2002, the salary schedule adopted by the
14 School Board must base at least 5 percent of
15 the salary of school administrators and
16 instructional personnel, teachers, on the
17 annual performance measured by the grading
18 system that we've seen, which you're measuring
19 the school instead of the individual students'
20 performance, and that school is ranked with
21 other schools.
22 And I just don't think that that's the
23 appropriate way to measure the progress.
24 If a -- if a wonderful teacher were to go
25 into an F school and give tremendous vitality
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December 14, 1999
1 to her class, and there were substantial
2 progress, and yet that overall school is still
3 rated an F school, that tremendous measure of
4 accomplishment is not being recognized in this
5 particular system.
6 And as a matter of policy, I wanted to
7 state my concern for the record, and let
8 you know why I will be voting -- for this
9 member of the State Board of Education, that I
10 will be voting against this proposed rule.
11 Thank you.
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: If I --
13 GOVERNOR BUSH: Commissioner Gallagher.
14 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- may, just
15 quickly correct a statement that you made,
16 Commissioner Nelson, and that is that if,
17 in fact, under the rule that you read there in
18 regards to teacher pay, that would be based not
19 on where the school is, but on where that
20 teacher's students are, and the improvement
21 that those students made.
22 And the truth of the matter is, that there
23 are many teachers in D and F schools today that
24 are doing a tremendous job, and we can use
25 exactly what Superintendent May said about
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1 Bibbs and Dixon and the increases of learning
2 in those students.
3 And that law that you're referring to
4 allows those teachers in that school to get the
5 rewarded increase of 5 percent based on the
6 outcome of those students that they deal with.
7 And so what you're saying is that you think
8 it's good, actually is what happens under the
9 law as it now exists. And so that's probably a
10 good reason --
11 GOVERNOR BUSH: What --
12 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: -- why it
13 shouldn't change.
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: To clarify this for a
15 second, we also -- year 2002 will be when there
16 will be annual student learning --
17 COMMISSIONER GALLAGHER: Measurement.
18 GOVERNOR BUSH: -- gains measured, because
19 you'll have the baseline and the second year's
20 test -- you know, the first year's test.
21 So the -- which, you know, again, for a
22 sense of history, this proposal was outlined in
23 a campaign, got beat up pretty good, was
24 proposed by people in the Legislature, annual
25 learning gains was always part of it, was
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1 passed. The rule reflects the law.
2 And it's always been our intent to do that,
3 because not only is Superintendent May an
4 advocate of -- of annual student learning
5 gains, so am I, and so are you, and so is
6 everybody else that I'm aware of. And teacher
7 performance should be measured by how teachers
8 do in that regard.
9 And by year 2002, they'll be able to do it,
10 based on an individual child's year-to-year
11 performance, based on their -- their FCAT test
12 scores I think.
13 TREASURER NELSON: Governor, if I might --
14 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes, sir.
15 TREASURER NELSON: -- true accountability
16 means creating positive consequences for
17 success, and negative consequences for failure.
18 And when you judge that success or failure
19 on the basis of the whole school, you have
20 missed a major part of the incentives that we
21 are trying to induce into the system.
22 That's why I hope that you all as -- as --
23 and I will be here for the next year, and will
24 continue to articulate this. I think you're
25 moving in the right direction.
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1 I think the legislation that was passed by
2 the Legislature was significantly flawed. It
3 had a reverse Robin Hood philosophy of taking
4 from the poor, and giving to the rich.
5 And I think you are beginning to start to
6 correct that with some of the changes
7 articulated in this rule today.
8 But ultimately, we're going to have to be
9 able to measure a student's progress, and the
10 ability to reward a teacher in the classroom
11 for that teacher's performance, not based on
12 some bell curve of all schools rated against
13 each other.
14 And so I -- I commend you, Governor, for
15 the progress that I think is starting on a
16 flawed system that was adopted by the
17 Legislature, which in large part was driven by
18 a political objective of vouchers.
19 But in the process, I think that, as so
20 many have articulated here today, that the
21 discussion is -- is very healthy.
22 I commend you, Governor, as I have stated
23 on many occasions, for being able to have
24 policy discussions, as we have, and I think
25 that we're moving in the right direction.
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1 Thank you.
2 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
3 Commissioner.
4 COMMISSIONER CRAWFORD: Yes, Governor, just
5 briefly.
6 My wife taught this -- public school in the
7 state for many years, my -- my kids went to
8 school here. In fact, my daughter's still in
9 public school.
10 I -- I think we've got a -- a very -- a
11 great public education system in Florida.
12 In fact, some of our best schools in the nation
13 I think are -- are maybe not too far from where
14 we sit.
15 But I think also our leaders here, and --
16 and across the nation are -- are asking more
17 out of this country's education system,
18 particularly as we're compared to other
19 nations. When you see Japan and Germany, even
20 Russia, have achievements in some areas that
21 are greater than ours, I think we have to ask
22 for more.
23 And that's the quote that Governor Bush
24 read from President Clinton, I think that's
25 what got President Clinton to make those
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1 statements.
2 I read another quote of a leader: All
3 students must be expected to achieve at higher
4 levels, even the face of unpleasant results on
5 new tests.
6 That's Governor Lawton Chiles in his
7 commission on education in 1998.
8 So I think what we're here -- saying here
9 today to the public education, we're raising
10 our -- our standards. The heat is on. And I
11 think in the end, we won't have any failing
12 schools in this state, and our students will
13 benefit from that.
14 And -- and I think this rule today will go
15 a long way in achieving that, and that's why
16 I'm voting for it.
17 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: Governor, if
18 I can --
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Yes, General.
20 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: -- I agree
21 with what most people have said about this
22 being a very good, strong, positive step and
23 corrects a lot of the problems in our past.
24 And I do think that what we are doing is
25 dramatic for education, and especially the
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1 person we care about the most, that being a
2 child.
3 What concerns me though is that we -- that
4 we appear to be blaming public education as the
5 sole cause for our children's failure in
6 school. I don't think we want to -- we don't
7 want it to be that way. When I set forth, it's
8 not.
9 That's why, as I advocated before, we have
10 to put money into that early childhood
11 learning, we have to deal with the children, we
12 need a principal in the feeder neighborhoods
13 before they get to school.
14 The one thing I don't like about this,
15 and -- is the fact that we can have a -- a D or
16 an F school do real, real great things, and --
17 in providing, as was stated in Pensacola, more
18 than one year of education in one year.
19 Therefore, for that, I'm going to vote
20 against this also.
21 GOVERNOR BUSH: Any other discussion?
22 COMPTROLLER MILLIGAN: Well, I -- I guess I
23 might as well ring in here, too. Everybody
24 else seems to want to talk, so I might as well
25 talk.
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December 14, 1999
1 Let me -- let me just say, I -- I've been
2 sitting on this Board now for five years. And
3 four and five years ago, I heard the dialogue
4 about the level of education we were providing
5 to our young people in this state, and how
6 atrocious it was, how ill-prepared they were to
7 go into the marketplace.
8 And I listened to a guy sitting down at the
9 other end there named Frank Brogan, who talked
10 about trying to bring a world class education
11 system to Florida, about raising the bar of
12 academic standards.
13 And, by God, the bar has been raised. And
14 I'm not going to be one of those that's going
15 to even lower it an inch. If anything, I want
16 to see it go higher.
17 So I enthusiastically support the direction
18 we're going, and I support this rule.
19 GOVERNOR BUSH: Thank you.
20 Any other discussion?
21 Well, there's a motion and a second.
22 All in favor, say aye.
23 THE CABINET: Aye.
24 GOVERNOR BUSH: All opposed?
25 ATTORNEY GENERAL BUTTERWORTH: No.
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December 14, 1999
1 TREASURER NELSON: No.
2 The ayes have it.
3 Thank you all very much.
4 (The State Board of Education Agenda was
5 concluded.)
6 * * *
7 (The Cabinet meeting was concluded at
8 4:12 p.m.)
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412
December 14, 1999
1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
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3
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5 STATE OF FLORIDA:
6 COUNTY OF LEON:
7 I, LAURIE L. GILBERT, do hereby certify that
8 the foregoing proceedings were taken before me at the
9 time and place therein designated; that my shorthand
10 notes were thereafter translated; and the foregoing
11 pages numbered 342 through 411 are a true and correct
12 record of the aforesaid proceedings.
13 I FURTHER CERTIFY that I am not a relative,
14 employee, attorney or counsel of eddy of the parties,
15 nor relative or employee of such attorney or counsel,
16 or financially interested in the foregoing action.
17 DATED THIS 28TH day of DECEMBER, 1999.
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20 LAURIE L. GILBERT, RPR, CCR, CRR, RMR
100 Salem Court
21 Tallahassee, Florida 32301
850/878-2221
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