Lead, Follow, Or Get The Hell Out of The Way

I have attempted in this blog to focus my news analysis and commentary on national issues. I find that now I am compelled to vary from that pattern and comment on an issue in my home State of Florida. The reason for this is that something very significant has come to my attention and because the State administration in Florida is governed by our Presidents brother Jeb Bush. The reason this issue is so interesting is that both the President and his brother consider themselves to be education leaders. I just finished reviewing the 2006 report from United States Department of Education Institute of Education Science’s Graduation Rates. This report showed two interesting sets of data. These data were the State or Jurisdiction freshman graduation rates from school years 2001-02 and 2002-03. These dates are significant because they both fall well within the two terms of Governor Jeb Bush (The Education Governor).

Florida 2001-02 2002-03
Graduation Rate 63.4 66.7

At first blush you would think this is good news. There has been a 3.3 increase. Well any increase is good but unfortunately when you are moving from number 50 out of 57 jurisdictions to number 44 out of 57 jurisdictions that’s not very significant progress in my book and it’s very discouraging when you think that that means that you have a 43.3 not graduating rate. Last time I checked the educational grading system anything below 70 was failing and right now using that grading scale 16 jurisdictions in this country are flat out failing with Florida snug within the failure pack. I’m sure that Mr. Bush is feeling really proud and thinking his glass is half full because he has moved his State up 6 notches. He’s the same Polly Anna that thinks the outsourcing of the State personnel system is a success but that’s a whole other story. Unfortunately I don’t think moving up in the failing group is a real success but then in my book our goal should be 100 percent and we should never be much lower than that. To me our children’s education is our future and I would say that in Florida the future looks pretty bleak. It looks even bleaker when you consider that the only way the State could get a school class size reduction through Florida’s Republican Governor and Republican controlled legislature was by an overwhelmingly approved citizen driven ballot initiative. I think when something like that occurs one has to ask the question of just who is governing and who is looking out for the citizens of Florida and most important who is leading. In the military we use to say you need to lead, follow or get the hell out of the way. Maybe for our children’s sake we should make sure that our current State administration and legislature gets the hell out of the way because they sure aren’t leading or following.

Those are The Sergeant Majors thoughts on that.