Mr. FCAT, Gov. Jeb Bush,
 with wife Columba

Nobody was ever accountable for why Johnny couldn’t read, or schools were overcrowded. It was clear that something had to give.

By Rebecca Wakefield

This past week, when the Florida Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the state’s voucher program for failing schools, it marked the end of a particularly tumultuous decade for Miami-Dade public education. As usual, Miami was the initial battleground for a tsunami of change that has swept Florida. Let’s review:

It was here that Star Island resident and Miami developer Jeb Bush found the easy target that would propel him into the governor’s office – education. The school choice movement was gathering steam just as the Republican Party was gaining significant ground in political offices throughout the state.

In 1996, Bush co-founded the state’s first charter school, the Liberty City Charter School, immediately after the legislature passed a law allowing such schools’ existence. It was a calculated move on his part to gain credentials for his gubernatorial run in 1998. He dropped off the school’s board the minute he won the office and the experimental school languished for several years. Bush then pushed through the creation of the FCAT, which he touted as a necessary system of making public schools provide a good education – or else.

Meanwhile, the composition of the Miami-Dade School Board had radically changed in 1996 due to the implementation of single-member districts. This was a good thing in the sense that the new board more closely reflected the diverse community, at least on paper. Unfortunately, the net effect of an electoral system in which the political focus narrowed from countywide to nine slices of (sur)reality, was to accelerate the district’s incredible decay.

Solomon Stinson, a savvy veteran administrator, had spent decades building a bureaucratic network out of loyalty and fear, but had been passed over by the old board for the job of superintendent. So he quit and successfully ran for the board. Stinson’s power came from his deep knowledge of every level of the bureaucracy. He knew exactly where to put key lieutenants.

Stinson formed an alliance with another new board member, Demetrio Perez Jr., the owner of a chain of private schools called Lincoln-Martí. A former Miami commissioner, Perez was a classic demagogue, an old hand at froth and circumstance. (He eventually was removed from the board after getting caught essentially stealing money from the poor old people whose slumlord he was.)

These two led a majority of the board to put Roger Cuevas in charge of the system because he was easily controlled. Cuevas, a dim-witted backslapper with a mail-order degree, was the ultimate stooge superintendent. Other board members, a couple of whom might have been inclined to actual public service, got sucked into an increasingly Machiavellian situation. Michael Krop, for instance, seemed more concerned with orchestrating the naming of a school after him.

Thus, the district’s patronage system, which was already well established, ran completely and outrageously amok. Jobs and contracts were doled out to the connected, regardless of whether the beneficiaries could perform. Shady land and construction deals went through without a hitch. High-profile sexual harassers cost the district millions and still kept their jobs.

The teacher’s union, which should have been trying to protect its members from the fallout, was instead in on the game. Then United Teachers of Dade head Pat Tornillo cut deals designed to consolidate his own political and financial power. Teachers got screwed on health insurance, for instance, because Tornillo was in bed with an HMO. They also knew that unless they had their own connections, the union would do little to help them if an administrator targeted them. Tornillo eventually went to jail for stealing from UTD coffers, but he never got nabbed for what he took from the system.

I could go on about all this, but suffice to say, Miami-Dade became the poster child for what was wrong with public education in Florida. Nobody was ever accountable for why Johnny couldn’t read, or schools were overcrowded. It was clear that something had to give.

Given that track record, charter schools and Bush’s FCAT grading of schools based on student performance were good ideas. The hammer was that parents of kids stuck in irredeemably bad schools could transfer them to better public schools, or even to private schools, taking public funds with them.

But education is a horrendously complicated business. Charter schools have a mixed record. Over the years, I have looked into the working of several local charter schools and found some horrible situations (also some really good ones). It’s not clear whether it is possible to really make money on education given all the government mandates, which is the reason the majority of charters were started. These schools run into many of the same problems as traditional schools and some fare better than others. The key is almost always an active and vigilant community, led by parents.

As far as vouchers go, well, it says something that only 733 children have taken their “opportunity scholarships” to private schools, although 416 of them are in Miami-Dade. Clearly, the skirmish is here. I have to give props to the Palm Beach Post, which has had the most consistently aggressive educational coverage in the region for several years now. The Post and other media have exhaustively documented the main reason the Florida Supreme Court struck the vouchers down: Private schools are not held to the same standards of accountability as public schools.

Everyone is supposed to have an even shot at the American dream, even though we all start from different socioeconomic levels. Schools are asked to do much with little, right now. There is no such thing as a quick fix for public education, especially when most of the big ideas proposed on both ends of the political spectrum are cynically motivated by larger agendas (privatization or unionism for example). Maybe there is no real solution.

That’s not to offer excuses for the Miami-Dade schools. There is yet much to criticize, even after some reforms and the expensive acquisition of a shiny new superintendent (Rudy Crew) with real educational credentials. The district is still deeply mired in political considerations that have little to do with teaching and learning. But in a county with ever-widening gaps between rich and poor, it is critical that we at least attempt to avoid the pitfalls of separate but equal education. Choice and accountability are good, but only if they’re real.

Comments? E-mail wakefield@miamisunpost.com.