Will unions kill Florida’s highly succcessful school choice program?
Posted on May 28, 2006 at 7:13 pm by Chuck Muth
Lobbying campaign against choice successfully flipped four Republican state senators
To the casual observer, last year’s decision by the Florida Supreme Court striking down the state’s school choice program might appear easily fixed: a Republican legislature, a conservative Republican governor, and a clear record of success for the “A+ School Accountability and Choice Program” should produce a political solution.
Not so fast.
Enter: the Florida Education Association union, the state affiliate of the National Education Association teachers union and ardent foe of anything threatening the public school monopoly in education.
Florida’s school choice program provides students attending consistently failing schools in the Sunshine State the option of attending another school, public or private, with the state picking up the tab. A total of 733 students, 90% of whom are minorities, are taking advantage of the program.
Last year in a bizarre ruling the Florida Supreme Court struck down the program, finding it violates the “uniformity” clause in the state constitution because, remarkably, students exercising their choice option are receiving a better quality education than those trapped in the underperforming public schools. As the Wall Street Journal opined this week, “As they used to say in the Soviet Union, everyone gets to share their poverty equally.”
The same ruling also jeopardizes Florida’s school choice program for 18,000 learning disabled students.
Looking for a solution, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Republican leaders in the legislature are working to place on November’s ballot a constitutional amendment that would exempt the voucher program from the constitution’s uniformity clause. All that’s needed is for 60% of the legislators in chamber to agree to place the measure on the ballot.
This is where the Florida Education Association (FEA) union, with its deep pockets and sophisticated lobbying campaign, comes in.
Over the last twenty years, Florida has reflected the trend in other southern states in a transformation from total Democrat to total Republican control of the executive and legislative branches of government – despite the best efforts of the FEA and other politically active labor unions to the contrary.
In adapting to the new environment in Tallahassee, the FEA recognized that simply because a legislature is majority Republican, the opportunity to block reforms such as charter schools and school choice still exists – if the union can successfully woo just enough members of the majority party to deny reformers a majority on any key vote.
To succeed, the strategy need not be successful in both houses – just one. In this case, it’s the Florida Senate, whose Republican majority has proven consistently less reliable in advancing education and other reforms than the more conservative House of Representatives.
With its headquarters filled with lobbyists and operatives just one block from the capitol, the FEA’s intensive pressure campaign directed at the Senate succeeded this week in blocking the proposed constitutional amendment to save the school choice program. The amendment fell one vote short of the 60% supermajority to proceed to the November ballot for voter approval. Needing 24 of 40 senators to vote in support, it garnered only 23.
What’s remarkable is the FEA’s success in turning four Republican Senators, including Republican Majority Leader Alex Villalobos, against the amendment, which was strongly supported by Senate President Tom Lee and Governor Jeb Bush.
(One encouraging sign: Lee immediately stripped Villalobos of his Majority Leader position, replacing him with the more supportive Sen. Dan Webster of Winter Garden).
The FEA’s successful lobbying campaign, and victory despite a significant Republican majority in the Senate, highlights the influence that comes as a result of the union’s power to funnel union dues directly into massive spending on behalf of anti-reform candidates in general elections.
A bill to end the practice by giving Florida teachers the right to choose for themselves whether to fund union political action died this year when Senate Republican leaders used a parliamentary maneuver to keep the bill bottled up in multiple committees while the session drew to a close.
Sen. Webster, along with up and coming Senators like Mike Haridopoulos of Osceola, show the Senate’s Republican majority continues to slowly drift away from union influence, but apparently not fast enough to save the choice program this year. Yet, Republican legislators not compromised by FEA pressure and Governor Jeb Bush continue to work on solutions to save the school choice program and prevent the 733 students in the program from being forced back into public schools which consistently fail to perform.
SOURCE: Alliance for Worker Freedom
