News

Doing right by pre-K

A Times Editorial
Published July 11, 2004

---

In his veto of a prekindergarten plan that sounded more like babysitting than preschool, Gov. Jeb Bush offered an important reminder about what voters intended. "The (constitutional) amendment," he wrote Friday, "specifically demands "high quality,' because research tells us that only a high-quality learning opportunity leads to improved educational outcomes for children."

Bush is right, and his veto is a step in the right direction.

Florida, which has an unfortunate history of taking financial shortcuts with public education, has a chance to start something right next fall when it opens the doors to voluntary prekindergarten for all 4-year-olds. But the bill that was passed on the final days of this year's unambitious legislative session was an insult to early learning. It set up a three-hour-a-day venture with a child care worker and a room full of children, all but ignoring the standards recommended by a task force led by Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings.

Bush had considered signing the bill in exchange for promised legislative improvements, but he has been around that block enough times to know that no commitment is safe when 160 state politicians come to town. The veto now assures that lawmakers will pass a prekindergarten law by next spring, if not sooner, because the Constitution affords them no other choice.

The governor's reference to research is also an endorsement of the Jennings blueprint. Unlike legislative committees, particularly in the House, Jennings' group heard extensive testimony from early learning experts and analyzed programs in other states. The group also achieved remarkable consensus on a pre-K framework. High quality pre-K, it said, should be similar to kindergarten itself - teachers with college degrees, six-hour school days, and small class sizes (in this case, no more than 10 children per qualified adult).

The responsibility for early learning now falls to the two men who have been designated to lead the Legislature next year - Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, and Rep. Allan Bense, R-Panama City. The budgetary pressures the state faces next year will make the task no easier, but Lee and Bense have said they consider prekindergarten a priority. They can demonstrate that commitment by showing they won't shortchange 4-year-olds.

Another good veto

The governor also used his veto pen last week to stop a bill that effectively encouraged farmers to build subdivisions. Good for him.

The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunnellon, would have allowed agricultural landowners in some cases to disregard local development limitations once three-fourths of their land was surrounded by "urban uses." But, as Bush noted, the bill's language was so vague that it could apply to such properties as the 30,000-acre Dee Dot ranch near Jacksonville. "While the bill ensures the farmers are not denied the ability to "zone up' consistent with surrounding properties," he wrote, "it also creates a potential incentive structure for farmers to "cash out' in cases where land values rise rapidly."

Argenziano and state Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson were perturbed by the veto, but Bush was right. The bill amounted to an incentive to convert pasture lands to condos. Florida hardly needs more of that.

[Last modified July 11, 2004, 01:00:43]

[an error occurred while processing this directive]