Palm Beach Post Editorial

State Education Commissioner John Winn says Florida’s K-12 schools should get all of a $480 million budget surplus. Does that mean that Mr. Winn has become a champion for K-12 schools?

Of course not. Mr. Winn merely is trying to start a fight among groups that should be education allies in hopes that the class-size amendment will take it on the chin.
Mr. Winn says the voter-approved requirement to lower class size in K-12 schools will eat up all of the surplus so colleges and universities should have to forgo their 31percent share.

“I really do believe that this is a sign of the impending funding crisis associated with the full implementation of the class-size amendment,” said Florida Atlantic University President Frank Brogan.

Not quite. It’s a sign that Gov. Bush and his education bureaucrats haven’t given up on their strategy to inflict pain — for example by forcing districts to cut electives — in hopes that voters will repeal the class-size amendment.

Gov. Bush relentlessly has overestimated the cost of lowering class size and underfinanced the actual, more modest needs.

Instead of fighting over a state-invented shortage, university presidents should join K-12 principals in asking how the state can plead poverty even as Gov. Bush proposes $1.5 billion in tax cuts that predominantly enrich Florida’s wealthiest residents.
From K-12 through colleges and universities, education needs real champions.

Source: Palm Beach Post Editorial