Extreme makeover for Florida public schools?

If you want to understand where public education reform is heading, Washington Post education blogger Valerie Strauss says, look south and east to Florida, where the governor-elect, Rick Scott, is talking about a new funding student formula that is more likely to destroy the public school system than accomplish anything else.  

Scott wants to expand a voucher program that allows low-income and disabled students to use public money to go to private schools to ALL students. State public education money would no longer flow through a public education system. The idea may well be the most radical public education idea any state has ever considered, as the St. Petersburg Times noted.  

Once upon a time in America, it may have sounded preposterous not only in concept but in chances of implementation. But the Republicans in Florida, who just tightened their control in the state capital in the last election, are making in clear they are determined to push for such a system in the state legislature next year. There are legal, constitutional and other hurdles, but in today’s political and education atmosphere, no bad idea is impossible to implement. Read more of her post in The Answer Sheet online.