President Obama with Jeb! in Miami: who is schooling, who? by gimleteye

Politico reports this morning, "Jeb Bush to take Obama to school". Regular readers of EOM have a pretty good idea what that means: "mean" as in angry, petulant, and overdosed with certainty. That's Jeb! to a T.

Nationally, Jeb! is competing with Newt Gingrich for the grand old man of the Republican party. They are planning on the electorate's ultra-short memory span to propel them past their legacies of public policy errors. Gingrich, with his new found religion and values, is destined for a fast fade. It is not just age. It is history, which he teaches.

Jeb!, on the other hand, benefits from the full support of the Karl Rove/Grover Norquist School of Thieves. History is not fact, it is what you make it to be. If not for the miserable record of George W. Bush in the White House, he would have a shot at the presidency. As it is, Jeb! has successfully dodged his history in Florida, including the mess he made of public education and the mean politics of Florida's charter schools, through which politically influential entrepreneurs are institutionalizing conservative ideology in formative education of the next generations.

Politico is right, that Obama's appearance alongside Jeb! in Miami today is meant to appeal to independents and moderates. Who can be against removing bad principals and moving bad teachers out of the rank and file in public schools? The dilemma, here, is not so much for Obama-- so far, if he can raise the money he looks good in 2012-- as it is for the unions. Protecting the worst parts of a bad, broken public education system does not serve the unions' interests. So long as the unions are unclear about their responsibility to help fix what's broken, they are leaving President Obama out on a limb.

And it wouldn't be Obama sawing off the limb that holds him, up. It wouldn't necessary be Jeb!, either. But the interests behind Jeb!? Their chain saws are already revv'ing. Can you hear them in Miami? (Click, 'read more' for the Politico article)


Jeb Bush to take Obama to school
By: Abby Phillip
March 4, 2011 04:44 AM EST

Just the other day, President Barack Obama bestowed a Medal of Freedom on former President George H.W. Bush. But it’s not every day that he spends time with a member of the Bush family whose national political career could still be ahead of him.

On Friday, however, the president will tour a Miami high school with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a rare moment of bipartisan collaboration on an education reform agenda that, at least in vague terms, the two can agree on.

There’s an upside for both.

For Obama, his 2012 reelection platform will be shaped by how his reform agenda is received in swing states like Florida. And while Bush’s political ambitions remain largely unknown, an education-focused event keeps him squarely on message, if his long-term goal is using his signature issue to broaden his appeal beyond the Florida border.

“When Bush was governor he stood out as far as the reforms he put forth and still advocates for,” a Florida Republican official said.

Friday’s event is more of what Bush has done since leaving office in 2007, advocating for education reform across the country. And it provides almost no new clues about what he plans to do in the future.

As governor, Bush pushed an aggressive, and polarizing, education reform agenda that focused on testing, charter schools, merit-based pay and school vouchers. But since the state legislative battles that raged throughout his terms have died down, he has enjoyed a reputation of having been one of the nation’s strongest education governors.

“Because of high expectations for students, hard-edge policies that focus schools on learning and an array of choices for families, the Sunshine State is leading the nation in rising student achievement,” Bush said in a statement this week, adding that he looked forward to sharing the state’s “model for student success” with Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

In theory, Obama’s education reform agenda makes room for many of the same ideas.

His Race to the Top program, which requires states to produce aggressive education reform plans in order to compete for billions in federal money, has pushed states to eliminate charter-school caps, open their educational charters to merit-based-pay systems, and raise student performance standards.

But as evidence of how tricky an issue education can be for a Democratic president, Obama has also actively disavowed support for school vouchers as a “solution” to the country’s education problems and has worked hard to persuade skeptical teachers unions to support merit-based pay and the lifting of charter-school caps.

By courting Bush, Obama is aligning himself with a politician who has no regard for constituencies such as teachers, but whose overt opposition in 2012 could damage Obama’s own hard-earned credibility on education reform.

From the perspective of some of Florida’s traditional Democratic constituencies, Bush’s education reform agenda leaves a lot to be desired. Four years after Bush left office, critics see a legacy of tension with teachers unions, underfunded schools and just moderate gains in student performance.

“I think [Bush] has a very positive persona when it comes to public education outside of Florida, but the experiment has been a failed experiment in Florida,” said Dan Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida.

Miami Central Senior High School, where Obama and Bush will visit, is a school the Obama administration believes exemplifies the success of the “turnaround model” for failing schools. Bush selected the school as an example of a school that has made gains through reform.

But its approach will also be an integral part of how Obama seeks to “fix” the No Child Left Behind education reform bill that Bush’s older brother, President George W. Bush, championed.

Changing No Child Left Behind will be Obama’s next major foray into education reform, an issue on which Republicans historically have maintained a strategic advantage.

If the White House pushes Congress to take up overhauling that bill this year, as Obama says he plans to do, that debate could define Obama’s reelection platform on education.

Obama’s connection with Bush can be seen as an effort to win over independents and moderate Republicans — in the same vein as December’s tax-cut compromise — even as he soothes anxieties in his own party. Obama’s speech in Florida on Friday will very likely be geared toward striking that same balance.

“I don’t think the president standing with Jeb Bush is an endorsement of everything Jeb Bush has done as governor,” said Steve Shale, the 2008 Obama campaign’s Florida director. “The president is pointing out that there are things that were done in Florida that we can all learn from.”


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