Conducted by Michael Camarda

Jeb Bush served as governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. He is founder and chair of the Foundation for Florida’s Future—a non-profit organization that advocates for education reform policies—and of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which supports programs to advance public education.

Editors’ note: The following interview was conducted via e-mail.

What do for you feel are the greatest achievements of your efforts to reform Florida’s education system?

I am proud of the bold reforms we enacted which led to rising and sustained student achievement across our state. The results speak for themselves.

Overall, 57 percent of Florida’s students in the third through tenth grades are reading at or above grade level, compared to only 47 percent in 2001. Sixty-two percent of Florida students are demonstrating math skills at or above grade level, compared to 50 percent in 2001. These numbers are more than just statistics; they represent students. Today, 211,000 more students are reading and 244,000 more students are doing math at or above grade level than when I took office as governor.

Providing a quality education that gives students the skills to succeed in school and beyond is an accomplishment to be shared by the Florida Legislature, school boards, teachers, parents, and the students themselves.

A comprehensive package of reforms created the opportunity for student success. One single component might have changed a part of the system, but all of the reforms together transformed education.

Standards are meaningless unless you measure student progress toward achieving them. Measuring doesn’t matter unless the results are used to develop and implement reforms that will change the outcome and improve results. Accountability only works when it is based on a measurement system that is clear, consistent, and credible.

I have said before that success is never final and reform is never finished. Throughout my eight years in office, we continually took steps forward. For example, since we started grading schools on a scale of A to F in 1999, we raised the standards four times. When the overwhelming number of students demonstrated proficiency in writing, we knew it was time to raise the bar.

If we had stopped at the law that was passed in 1999, we would not have seen the continued, incremental progress in student learning because the system would have normed to the new status quo.

The world in which our students will have to compete is constantly changing, and we have to continually reform the system to keep it focused.

What mentality do you feel is the biggest hindrance, in Florida or in general, to improving education?

We need to continue to change the mindset that it is unfair to hold all students to the same high standards for learning. When we started reforming education, many said it was unfair to hold poor students to the same standards as rich students, or to expect students with disabilities to learn, or to measure students who are learning English as a second language.
I believe it is unfair to blame students for an education system that is failing them. I believe all children can learn. Our responsibility is to create a system to ensure each and every student learns a year’s worth of knowledge in a year’s time.

The data proves my point.
•   70 percent of Florida’s elementary school students are reading at or above grade level, up from 54 percent in 2001.
•   67 percent of elementary school students are doing math at or above grade level, up from 52 percent in 2001.
•   Florida’s fourth graders are above the national average in both reading and math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), compared to be among the lowest performing students in 1998.
•   Middle school students are beginning to make progress, with 58 percent reading at or above grade level, up from 48 percent in 2001.
•   57 percent of middle school students are doing math at or above grade level, up from 47 percent in 2001.
•   This year, for the first time, our eighth graders are above the national average in reading on the NAEP.
•   While much more work needs to be done, we are also seeing moderate progress in high school, with six percent more students reading on grade level or higher than in 2001.
We need to continually challenge the status quo. We need to measure progress to identify the reforms that are working and those that are not. We need to clearly and consistently report the results—even those that aren’t good—to parents and the public. Then we need to develop new reforms to address weaknesses.

Of your educational policy implementations, which do you feel was the most difficult to enact and why?

Every reform I proposed was met with resistance. Reform is change, and people fear change, even change that will provide clear benefits. For example, I proposed that the state raise the starting salary for teachers to $35,000—up from an average of $31,000—and even that was attacked by the teacher’s union.

By far, the reform that is most feared by the establishment is the one that empowers parents with the ability to choose the educational setting that best meets the needs of their child.
In all other aspects of our lives, we have choices—where we work, where we shop, where we live. But in what is arguably one of the most important decisions—where our children go to school—the vast majority of parents have little or no choice.

A public education system that traps poor students in failing schools is fundamentally flawed. Low-income families that can’t afford to send their children to private school have few or no options.

To empower parents with the ability to choose, I advocated for several school choice measures, including vouchers for students with disabilities, corporate vouchers for low-income students, voluntary pre-kindergarten vouchers for all Florida’s four-year-olds, virtual education, and the expansion of charter schools.

In 1999, I proposed a very small voucher program called Opportunity Scholarships. The program allowed students who were trapped in a school that had been deemed failing for two years to make a choice. These students could choose another higher performing public school or a participating private school.

At the time this legislation passed, only two schools out of more than 3,000 would have met the criteria to trigger a voucher. The day I signed the bill into law, a lawsuit was filed challenging its constitutionality. And for the next six years, we fought to defend the law in the courts. Eventually, the Florida Supreme Court ruled against us and these needy students in one of the most tortured legal decisions I’ve ever seen. So a great program that served 753 students, 95 percent of whom were minority and 72 percent were low-income, was halted.

The program was proven, through independent research, to have improved the public education of the students who remained in the public schools.

Following the Court’s decision, I asked the Legislature to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to give the citizens of Florida the opportunity to approve or reverse that decision. The measure never made it to the voters because it fell one vote shy in the Florida Senate, the victim of political squabbling.

Politically, school choice is gaining strength as more and more Democratic lawmakers begin to see that parental choice in education is becoming a new civil rights movement for minority students. Just a few months ago, long-time Democrat and former Congresswoman Carrie Meek opened a scholarship funding organization to provide tax credit vouchers to low-income students. More and more minority lawmakers are beginning to side with the students, not the teacher’s union.

Nationally, school choice seems to be continuing to make baby steps, gaining ground in states like Arizona, which passed a tax credit voucher and recently passed a voucher for foster children. Georgia recently passed a voucher for students with special needs fashioned after Florida’s McKay Scholarship for students with disabilities. Utah passed a universal voucher that is under attack and could be reversed through constitutional referendum.

Competition is a good thing—it will create incredible improvements and innovations in our public education system, just as it does in our higher education system. But there are still too many defenders of the “system” who do not want to lose power because their strength lies in the status quo. Because of this, school choice will continue to battleground in Florida as well as nationally.

How do we make better teachers? Is there too much of an emphasis on educational courses for teachers over an actual command of the subject area they are teaching?

Research shows that quality teachers are integral to student learning. States must find ways to increase the recruitment and retention of high quality teachers. Removing barriers to entry into the profession, improving the leadership in the schools, and creating incentives to attract and keep the best and brightest in the classroom are among the policies that we implemented in Florida.

Prior to 2000, individuals who wanted to become a certified teacher had to earn an “education” degree from an approved college of education or go back to college and take 20 credit hours of “education coursework.” Requiring college graduates to go back to college before allowing them to enter the classroom is a barrier that prevents many talented individuals from entering the teaching profession.

Over the years, we enacted legislation to provide multiple pathways to enter the teaching profession. We now accept teachers with teaching degrees from other states through reciprocity. An individual who has a subject-area degree can prove they are competent in their subject matter through passage of subject area tests and become a Florida teacher while getting necessary classroom skills through alternative certification programs.

Individuals who teach at the community college and university level are now recognized as having sufficient skills to teach K-12 students. We also created an “adjunct” certification so school districts can hire retired astronauts, engineers, doctors, and accountants to teach part-time, without having to pursue state certification. We did something radical and created “competition” in the college of education marketplace. With state approval, we allow community colleges to offer four-year degrees in education. They also run “educator preparation institutes” for individuals who decide to make a career change into education.

Last year, Florida had more than twice as many individuals newly certified to teach in our classrooms through “alternative routes” than through state-approved colleges of education.
Getting quality teachers into the classroom is the first step, but keeping quality teachers also requires work. Like any job, leadership is important to the job satisfaction of employees; a poor manager will impact the morale and effectiveness of the workplace. So we created a principal leadership development program that identifies, replicates, and incentivizes high quality school leaders. We also supported programs that took successful business leaders and recruited them to become mentors of school principals. These businessmen and -women teach principals—who are typically former teachers—the basics of being great leaders.

Providing financial incentives can also help retain high quality educators. All teachers are not equal, and yet we have a pay system that treats them as if they were. We created an incentive program that provides cash awards directly to schools that increase student performance. These funds are not subject to the collective bargaining process, and the school decides how to use the funds. During my tenure, more than $850 million was provided to schools through this School Recognition Program. Last year more than 85 percent of the funds were used to provide bonuses to the faculty and staff in the schools.

In my last year in office, we also passed legislation to create “differentiated pay” in the salary schedule. Instead of determining wages based solely upon years of experience and level of degree held, school districts must collectively bargain with market-based criteria such as subject area taught—subjects that are in greater demand should yield a higher salary; economic demographics of the school—all things being equal, teaching in a poorer school is a more difficult task and should demand greater pay; and job duties—taking on leadership duties in the school should be rewarded. This policy goes into effect in the current school year, so it will be interesting to see how market-based forces, if implemented effectively, impact recruitment and retention of quality teachers.

And finally, we began a policy of providing merit bonuses to the highest performing teachers determined primarily on student learning. This policy is still in its infancy and is extremely controversial, but research shows that providing economic incentives to teachers will raise student learning in the classroom.

How does one truly tackle the issue of grade inflation?

One way to deal with grade inflation is to use a standardized assessment to objectively compare student knowledge and learning across classrooms and schools. Parents whose children earn As and Bs in the classroom yet score below grade level on the state test are right to question why. Without an objective measure, parents may never know that their children need additional help in a subject.

Under your administration, schools received major increases in funding without taxes being raised on education. How was this possible?

Florida cut taxes by $20 billion during my eight years as governor. Lower taxes, fiscal discipline, reform of multiple government programs, a business environment that fostered investment and rewarded entrepreneurialism, and strategic investments in our infrastructure and human capital created one of the most robust economies in our nation. The vibrant economy increased revenue to state coffers.

During the same time, we increased education spending per student by 44 percent, from $4,875 to $7,004. Overall funding for K-12 grew by 69 percent, from $11.1 billion to nearly $18.8 billion.

Increased funding without reform was simply throwing money at the problem. The key was aligning the funding with the reforms to create incentives for raising student achievement without penalizing struggling students.

I created the School Recognition Program to provide incentive funds to schools that increased a letter grade or achieved an A. More than $850 million was distributed to schools through this program.

What do you feel were the major flaws in Bush v. Holmes, which struck down your school voucher program as unconstitutional, and what do you feel is the future of school vouchers in Florida and in the nation?

The Bush v. Holmes decision had two major flaws.

First, the decision ignored the most fundamental principle of Florida constitutional law—that the Legislature has the authority to enact any public policy that is not clearly prohibited in the state constitution. While Florida’s constitution requires a uniform and high quality system of public schools, nothing in the constitution takes away the Legislature’s discretion to create supplemental educational programs like the Opportunity Scholarship Program. Ironically, when it struck down the Opportunity Scholarship Program, the court eliminated a program that had demonstrably improved public schools by forcing them to respond to greater accountability and competition.

Second, the decision let stand a flawed and discriminatory appellate court interpretation of the provision of the Florida constitution that governs state aid to religious institutions. Specifically, the appellate court had ruled that religious schools could not participate in a scholarship program available to all private schools generally. Rather than interpret Florida’s constitution as mandating government neutrality toward religion, the court actually held that our constitution requires discrimination against religious institutions. This twisted ruling unnecessarily puts Florida’s constitution at odds with the non-discrimination principles of the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, the decision jeopardizes countless educational, social service, juvenile justice, and corrections programs in Florida, where faith-based organizations provide government-funded services.

The court’s decision was so unprecedented and erroneous that one wonders perhaps if it was predicated on the substance of the challenged program, not the cited legal rationale. Fundamental error or not, the decision is definitely final. The only way to reverse this detrimental decision is by constitutional amendment. There appears to be some movement by the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission to put the issue on the ballot next November. This Commission is created in the Florida Constitution and meets every 20 years to review Florida’s tax policy and the efficiency and effectiveness of government programs. It are given the authority to put constitutional amendments on the ballot without legislative or court approval.

The Bush v. Holmes decision had a chilling effect on the creation of new programs and the expansion of existing ones, even though we have a waiting list of low-income families who want to participate in the corporate tax credit scholarship program. The only protection for educational choice in the future is for citizens to vote to remove the cloud created by the flawed Bush v. Holmes decision.

What is the rationale for requiring Florida’s high school students to declare a major? Will this narrow the scope of knowledge acquired in secondary education?

Many students drop out of high school because they don’t see the connection between what they learn in school and what they want to do in life. It is imperative that the education system keep students engaged in learning through graduation. High school majors can open doors. They allow students to explore an interest or pursue a passion. Majors connect the skills learned in school with the ones needed in the workplace. For many students, making this connection will give high school a clear purpose. Making school meaningful will keep kids coming to class.

High school majors won’t limit the scope of knowledge; they will enlarge it. In Florida, students must complete 24 credits for high school graduation. Sixteen of those credits are specified in law—four in math, four in language arts, three in science, three in social studies, one in physical education, and one in fine arts. The remaining eight credits are electives, from which a student selects a major. A high school major consists of four elective courses in one area of interest. Statewide, schools are offering more than 400 majors, including everything from medicine, science, and foreign language to automotive technology, music, culinary arts, and computer graphics.

Just as a college major does not dictate your career in life, neither will a high school major lock the student into a career at an early age. Students will be able to change majors, and a high school major is not required for graduation. The point is to get students engaged and involved in making educational decisions based upon interest and relevance rather than a convenient class schedule or study hall period.

You have encouraged private and corporate investment in school programs. Is there any risk of such monies being used to influence the curriculum by, for example, emphasizing job training in high school over a traditional liberal arts education?

We need to have businesses and citizens invested in and concerned with our public education system. Today’s students are tomorrow’s business leaders, small business owners, employees, and citizens.

The types of corporate investment I have encouraged are mentoring of students and mentoring of leaders in the school and provision of tax credits to give low-income students private options. These types of investments will create a stronger public education system.

At Yale, history is the most popular major—your brother George himself following that path—but under your A+ Plan for Education, history is not included among the subjects that are tested, these being only reading, writing, math, and science. Why is this so? Does civics fall by the wayside?

One of the principles of reform I have learned over the years is that reform is incremental. When I first proposed the A+ Plan for Education, I focused on the basics—reading, writing, and mathematics as the first of the core that needed to measured and emphasized in our public schools. We expanded testing in reading and math to all grades third through tenth, instead of at only one grade level each in elementary, middle, and high school. A test on science was added in 2003, and just this year, science became part of a school’s grade in Florida. Now I believe we need to raise the bar again by adding social studies to the statewide standardized test, a position for which the Foundation for Florida’s Future announced its support this year.

What areas of education still need improvement in Florida? What would be the ideal situation for education in the state? And what can current Governor Charlie Crist do to get closer to that ideal?

Merit pay—rewarding outstanding teachers based upon student learning—is still in its infancy and under attack. It is a critical policy in ensuring high quality teaching in the classroom, and Governor Crist has been very strong in his support to continue and expand that policy.

Continuing to raise the bar on how our students and schools are held accountable will be critical. Even though Florida has made tremendous progress, we have much more work that needs to be done in our middle schools and high schools to ensure our students are equipped with the skills necessary for success in the future.

Expanding choice options for parents and creating an individual, customized education system is critical.

Those who want to go back to the time prior to accountability where the only solution to low student performance was more money have not gone away. Leadership is key.

Is Florida much different than the rest of the nation in terms of education? If you had the opportunity, what steps would you take to improve the nation’s educational system? What role should the federal government play in education?

Florida has many unique challenges because of our size, our diversity, and our large migratory populations. But the basic policies we have put in place—high standards, accountability, rewards and consequences for results, and school choice—can be applied in any state and at the national level.

The federal government should create the framework and incentives for states to continue to improve their education systems, and then it should get out of the way.

The No Child Left Behind Act has some great foundations—annual testing of students and grading of schools, accountability and consequences for failure, and choices for students who need it. I have been very clear that there need to be changes to the No Child Left Behind Act so states are not incentivized to lower standards to look good and escape consequences.

---