Graham decries Florida's direction in education, economy

Education is weaker, ill-equipping residents to take advantage of the 21st century economy, says Florida's senior U.S. senator.

By ADAM C. SMITH, Times Political Editor
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 20, 2002

ST. PETERSBURG -- He's a Democratic icon who has helped shape Florida's future as a state lawmaker, governor and U.S. senator. These days, Bob Graham says he seriously worries about the direction Florida's headed.

"There is no excuse for Florida in the 21st century to miss the major economic transformation that will affect our country for the next 100 years," he told more than 200 people Tuesday at a Suncoast Tiger Bay forum. "And yet there is very disturbing evidence that we might be about to miss this new economy."

The speech, sprinkled with barbs against Gov. Jeb Bush and easy-going quips about how the Tiger Bay format limited his wisdom, highlighted an unusual element of this campaign year: the Bob Graham factor.

Florida's popular senior senator is not running for governor, much to the disappointment of many Florida Democrats.

But in pushing for a constitutional amendment that would resurrect the university system's Board of Regents, he is effectively running a statewide campaign against Bush. While Bush is running for re-election as the education governor, Graham, himself widely credited with improving Florida's education system, is bashing Bush's record as disastrous.

To the Tiger Bay crowd at the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida, and later talking to the St. Petersburg Times editorial board, Graham fretted about Florida being ill-equipped to join the 21st century economy. The state's education system is getting weaker, he said, and increasingly politicized through sweeping changes pushed by Gov. Bush.

Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also offered sobering assessments on the terrorist threat. Over the next five years, he said a major terror attack on America is likely, and he predicted Afghanistan will prove to be by far the easiest chapter in America's war on terrorism.

He also tip-toed around the controversy surrounding University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian. USF president Judy Genshaft is considering firing Al-Arian, who was investigated by the FBI in the 1990s for suspected terrorist ties but never charged with a crime.

The FBI recently gave him a classified briefing about Al-Arian, but Graham said "they didn't have an overwhelming amount of information." He said he presumed Genshaft would only fire him based on actions Al-Arian took, rather than statements, because speech is "at the heart of academic freedom."

Most of Graham's remarks focused on how Florida's poor education system is threatening Florida's economic future. In the 1990s, Florida lost manufacturing jobs for the first time in the 20th century, he said, and the main reason was education.

"The new economy depends upon people and their knowledge," he said, "and as Florida has been seen increasingly as not being a state that has made a commitment toward its people, we are paying a price in losing that momentum toward a stronger economy."

He cited a Florida Chamber of Commerce report that detailed bleak Florida education statistics, from ranking 45th in science and engineering degrees to having only 49 percent of high school graduates going on to college.

The final chamber report hasn't been released yet, and Graham scoffed at the attempts the governor's office made to edit the draft. The Bush administration wanted a sentence deleted that said Florida can't compete in the global economy with low-skilled labor, Graham said, reading the sentence aloud.

"Anybody with walking-around sense knows that Florida's future success is not in low-skilled labor," Graham said.

Bush spokeswoman Katie Baur said the Florida Chamber report is mainly an indictment on Democratic leadership in Florida through during the 1990s. Bush, she said, is trying to correct the problems that began in the 1980s and 1990s.

"Turning around the ship of state did not occur until Gov. Jeb Bush took office," she said.

Graham asked people to fill out his petition for a proposed constitutional amendment bringing back the Board of Regents. He criticized the creation of new universities and professional schools, including a new medical school at Florida State University that will cost $300-million over 10 years.

"Those are the kinds of political decisions that are being made, which are sapping the resources that we should be spending on improving the quality of education from kindergarten through the university system," Graham said.

He recounted Phil Handy, a Republican activist and key advocate for abolishing the Board of Regents, telling him the regents had not been not sufficiently deferential to state lawmakers.

Apologizing in advance for his language, Graham recounted his response: "I said, "g-- d--- it, Phil, that's why we have a Board of Regents. If the only thing the Board of Regents did was to stamp approval on every idea legislators had, what's the point of having a Board of Regents?' "

Handy said by phone later he did not recall that conversation. But he did not see how Graham's recreated Board of Regents would do anything to limit political involvement in higher education. It would merely recreate a big, expensive bureaucracy, he said.

Most university and community college presidents publicly support the changes, Handy noted, and Graham shows "a sense of arrogance that he knows better than they all do."

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