Grad Rates: Context

First the good news.

For the third consecutive year, Florida’s high school graduation rate has risen. “Florida’s education system continues to be a rising star in our nation,” gushed Gov. Charlie Crist.

Now the, well, rest of that news. The rate of graduation for Florida students within four years of entering ninth grade now stands at 76.3 percent. That means nearly one in four Florida students (23.7 percent) doesn’t graduate. More than a third of black students (35.1 percent) and more than a quarter of Hispanic students (27.9 percent) don’t yet graduate.

A more accurate context. Graduation rates are less embarrassing than they used to be. Good. But we’re a “rising star?”

Pragmatic “Win-Win” On Cig Tax

Imagine having a goal of getting more people to stop smoking – and yet still maintain health care programs that are heavily dependent on cigarette taxes. Well, mission accomplished, thanks to that $1-a-pack tax passed back in July that helped balance the state budget.

Statewide, cigarette sales are off 27 percent – in four months. But the new tax, according to economists’ forecasts, will raise nearly $900 million this year.

So, smart surtax move, legislators – one that is critical to the funding of Medicaid. And to those who are still resistant to admonitions about the proven dangers associated with tobacco: At least for now, thanks for smoking.

Debbie Does Plant City

Once again I’ll likely be missing the Florida Strawberry Festival. I’m glad we have it, mind you. It’s a big deal for Plant City; and it brings some headliner acts to the area, like Roy Clark, Mel Tellis and the Oak Ridge Boys early next year. They have plenty of fans. I’m just not among them.

Then I saw a name I did relate to. But it made me feel less nostalgic or curious than sad. Tuesday, March 9, 3:30 p.m., $10 and $15. Debbie Reynolds.

Woods In PR Hell

No need to weigh in much more about the strife and times of Tiger Woods. Except this: Why doesn’t the world’s only billionaire athlete, in effect Tiger Inc., have access to better advice? Any public relations novice could have told him that, however embarrassing and painful, he had to get out in front of that snowball of awful news that he well knew could easily turn into the nightmarish avalanche that it has. And, no, a prepared statement about “transgressions” doesn’t qualify. You go on camera for this one and dump it all out there.

The idea is to defuse and pre-empt – not enable tabloid and internet hell for yourself and family that becomes a daily drumbeat – from TMZ.com to the Today show to SportsCenter crawls.

Of course, sordid details and salacious rumors are none of our business. But that’s not relevant to the world that Woods inhabits – and capitalizes on. The one where he makes an estimated $90 million a year in endorsements. These, of course, are based on fame. And image — heretofore, sans scandal.

But when an image-shattering, perception-altering crisis hit, Woods handled it worse than Michael Vick.

Sports Shorts

*With its impressive rout of Florida on Saturday, Alabama won the de facto national championship. Now it must defend it against Texas, a team that unimpressively edged Nebraska in the last second.

*For USF, the script remains the same. The Bulls are the only BCS program to start 5-0 the last three years. Then they lose more than they win, finish as a Big East also-ran and accept an invite to one of the myriad minor bowls out there. This year it’s the Jan. 2 International Bowl in Toronto against Northern Illinois. USF is not likely to have many fans plan their holiday around the International Bowl, but the Bulls are still responsible for 10,000 tickets (at $40 a pop). Unsold tickets are part of the price of “going bowling” after another disappointing season. That scenario plus a pricey travel tab will keep USF from realizing anything but a marginal profit.

*Nice to see that an unfamiliar face — that of non-football factory Northwestern — will be one of the participants at this year’s Outback Bowl. The other is Auburn. The Wildcats, whose wins this season include Iowa and Wisconsin, still recruit legitimate student-athletes. Hope it works at the gate. Bowl games are so often about how teams “travel” (do they bring a lot of party-down fans to stay in local hotels, dine in restaurants and imbibe in bars?). NW’s home attendance averaged less than 25,000…

*Now that FSU has, however clumsily and classlessly, finally settled the Bobby Bowden retirement issue, it moved expeditiously on that “other” high-profile succession issue: the search for university President T.K. Wetherell’s replacement. National Center for Atmospheric Research Director Eric Barron, who was not a “president-in-waiting,” was unanimously selected by trustees. He’s also an FSU alum.

*The Brandon High wrestling team, top-ranked in Florida and number four in the country, routinely routs most local competition. But what happened at the recent Swamp Challenge Duals in Land O’Lakes was way beyond rout, even for the high-flying Eagles. Brandon won every match in its five duals. It beat Wesley Chapel, 81-0; Land O’Lakes (81-0); Sebring (79-0); Zephyrhills (78-0); and Pasco (84-0).

Quoteworthy

  • “Our goal is not only to build a play from scratch but to show Broadway producers that Tampa is a viable place to launch productions.” –Judy Lisi, president of the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, on what “Wonderland” could lead to.
  • “Investing in passenger rail is synonymous with investing in the future of our state.” – Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey and president pro tempore of the Florida Senate.
  • “We are in tough times. Let’s tough it out together.” Tampa City Councilman John Dingfelder in explaining his (super majority) vote to suspend step plan increases for police officers.
  • “We must come together regionally and talk about practical approaches to our sustainability efforts. …I am focused on smart environmental initiatives that will yield financial benefits to our county. We can do both.” –Hillsborough County Commissioner Rose Ferlita in announcing plans for a regional Energy Management and Sustainability Forum next month (Jan. 29) at the St. Pete Times Forum.
  • “Corruption is a stronger threat than terrorism for Afghanistan.” –Afghani Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal on the estimated $10 million a day that is smuggled out of Afghanistan, most of it through Kabul International Airport that ends up funding the Taliban insurgency.
  • “In many ways, we have quit trying to win the war on these diseases. Few cancer clinical trials are designed to ‘cure’ patients. They are commonly aimed at detecting small differences between the treatments being compared: an extension of average survival from 5 months to 6 months, for example…” –John L. Marshall, M.D., director of the Otto J. Ruesch Center for the Cure of Gastrointestinal Cancers at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University.

Peppy LeMieux’s Priorities

We thought it was problematic when Gov. Charlie Crist appointed George LeMieux, his former chief of staff and campaign manager, to replace the eminently replaceable Sen. Mel Martinez, who quit while he was behind. We feared that we would be getting Senator Surrogate. Those fears have been realized.

For a political appointee ostensibly trying to disprove that he’s the governor’s seat-warming lackey, LeMieux has been sending incongruous signals. He co-hosted a Crist fundraiser recently in Washington and formed a political action committee that Crist (and LeMieux) will be able to tap into. His stands on key issues, including health care reform (“rationing”) opposition, seem designed to help the ideology-challenged Crist in his increasingly competitive senatorial primary with conservative poster boy Marco Rubio.

And now LeMieux is messing with foreign policy as a further extension of political payback. Less than 10 weeks on the job, he has morphed into enough of an insider to block a bill and a nomination – the upshot of which could potentially help Crist with the conservative, South Florida Cuban vote.

The bill would reduce funding for the ineffectual, cost-ineffective TV and Radio Marti, which produces pro-American, broadcast messages to Cuba. Which are, of course, ultimately jammed. The nomination is that of Thomas A. Shannon Jr. as U.S. ambassador to Brazil. The exile community is known to look askance at Shannon, who was considered open-minded on Cuba when he was assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric affairs under President George W. Bush.

The Shannon implications are serious.

Brazil is a hemispheric heavyweight, an important hedge against Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and an increasingly major global player. That’s one of the reasons Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in Brazil last week visiting with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva. This is no time for Charlie Crist’s lotion boy to play geopolitical grown-up.

Brazil’s also a big trading partner of the U.S. – and Boeing is said to be less than pleased that the ambassadorial delay, which can be interpreted as a diplomatic insult, could jeopardize its $7.5-billion fighter-jet deal with Brazil. It’s hardly coincidental that LeMieux received a come-to-Jesus letter from nine former assistant secretaries of state urging him to lift his opposition to Shannon and not risk damaging U.S. relations with Latin America.

LeMieux needs to get his priorities in order, especially if he expects to run on his own and challenge Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012. Country needs to come first, no matter how much pressure is applied by self-serving, hard-line Cuba lobbies, for whom a Cold War vendetta still trumps the best interest of the U.S. – and Florida.

Will Gates Grant Be Worth IT?

It’s beyond a cliché to say our future depends on education. And never more than now when a global marketplace is increasingly unforgiving of the uneducated. It’s also beyond a truism to say this state’s – and this county’s – track records have long been a concern on this subject.

The factors are myriad and manifest. Underfunding and underperformance are not unrelated. It’s no longer assumed that students come from nice, nuclear families, and they arrive at school each morning after homework help, a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast. The best and brightest college graduates don’t go into teaching. FCAT accountability is a sham. Cell phone scenarios are disturbing.

As a former educator, including here with Hillsborough County schools, I’m inclined to applaud efforts that seek to make the learning experience more effective. But I’m also inclined to be skeptical about every would-be panacea that comes down the pedagogic pike. From “new math,” “word recognition” (over phonics) and “Ebonics” to creationism and self-esteem curricula. It’s a jumble out there.

Then I see the recent Second Coming celebration among Hillsborough County School officials over winning a $100-million teacher effectiveness grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Congratulators included Gov. Charlie Crist and his predecessor, Jeb Bush. This obviously is a very big deal. Hillsborough — with some 190,000 students — is one of only a handful of school districts nationally to have won Gates’ largess. It could put Hillsborough on the cutting edge of educational reform.

A couple of points.

The county will be on the hook to match the Gates’ money – plus at least $30 million a year after the grant runs out in seven years. School officials hope to raise part of that through additional grants, plus the redirection of funds that would have otherwise gone for more traditional teacher development. But, still, those are big numbers for uncertain times.

However, new teachers will now get a full-time mentor and “tenure” will be scrutinized like never before. Dead wood should anticipate dismissal. Improved teacher-evaluation systems will be implemented and tips on recruiting proffered. Merit pay will be emphasized. Standards will be higher. Who could argue with such pro-activity?

But while schools prepare to get on board with more test scores, surveys and classroom videos, here’s a suggestion: Remember the basics. No Foundation need point them out.

Go into any school — regardless of geography and socio-economic levels — and ask around. You’ll quickly find out who the best teachers are – from students, teachers, librarians, an involved PTA parent or an administrator who’s more than an ex-coach who always wanted to be a principal. And you’ll quickly discern what those teachers have in common, even if nobody has it on video.

They have a presence.

They command respect because they’ve earned it – and it doesn’t take long for the word to get around. They also have a command of their subject or subjects. They are fair. They care. They are teachers because they obviously like kids, not because the college of education had the lowest standards. They have a sense of humor. They are creative – without being gimmicky or chaotic. And they’ve never quite forgotten what it was like to be 10 or 14 or 17 years old.

And remember that we’re talking learning environment. The classroom is not a social experiment. Neither is it a redress rehearsal for grievance-mongering later in life. And discipline — fair and consistent — matters. Does it ever.

Presumably that will all be borne out by the Gates Foundation-subsidized research.

Bowden Bows Out

Finally.

Bobby Bowden will retire as head football coach at Florida State University next month. He will stay through FSU’s bowl game and then leave.

Too bad it wasn’t gracefully. Bowden deserved better than this poorly orchestrated exit. His successor, “head coach in waiting” Jimbo Fisher, had already been anointed. It was hoped Bowden could ride off into the sunset a winner, maybe even on the shoulders of his players after one last big win.

But it wasn’t to be for a coach whose team had gone from unbeatable in the Atlantic Coast Conference to eminently beatable by the Wake Forests. Whose team was routinely embarrassed by the University of Florida. Whose team will now need a bowl win to avoid a losing season this year.

Bowden tried to hold out for one more year, but it didn’t happen. The program was in relative free fall. And everyone saw through the “retirement.” He chose that over the humiliation of a final year as figurehead without portfolio. A year’s worth of being more relic than icon. More Charlie McCarthy than Edgar Bergen.

But this also should be said – and it may be a minority opinion. While Bowden deserved a better sendoff, he didn’t deserve to “call his own shot” and “go out on his own terms.”  

Here’s why. Naïve as it may sound, Bowden is still a COACH, albeit a very successful one for a very long stretch, but he’s still a coach at an institution of higher learning. You don’t tell the president when it’s time to find your replacement.

Cure a disease. Win a Nobel Prize. We’ll talk. But a football coach, even a “legendary” one? No.

Dissident’s Cuba-Travel Take

We know all too well the Cold War rationale of South Florida hard liners on further relaxation of restraints on Americans wanting to travel to Cuba. We also know their obvious, and disappointing, impact on the Obama Administration. Well, here’s a travel take by someone who can’t be accused of being soft on the Cuban dictatorship: Miriam Leiva, a founder of the Cuban dissident group Ladies in White. She is a prominent — and very vocal — critic of the Cuban government.

“Those in the United States who oppose the visit of its citizens invoke the financial impact of tourism in the Cuban economy, for fear it may invigorate the totalitarian regime,” Leiva recently told — via teleconference — a House committee hearing on the travel-to-Cuba ban. “But, without a doubt, many thousands of Americans visiting Cuba would benefit our society and therefore our people.

“In the first place, through the free flow of ideas, and also by pressuring the government to allow self-employment for the offer of products and services such as room rentals, because hotel accommodations would be swamped.

“Of course the Americans would spend money. It would be collected by the Cuban government, which is so inefficient that it could only keep small amounts, not enough to cover its major needs. …The money spent by the Americans would return through the purchases made from American farmers and other traders to supply the hotels, restaurants and stores.

“The Cuban authorities have used the embargo to justify their arbitrariness, economic inefficiency, mismanagement and repression. They fear losing that pretext, just as they panic at the idea of losing the excuse to keep the Americans out. …We are convinced that a lessened tension in the relations between Cuba and the United States would help our objectives.”