Jeb's usual lesson plan

Then-Gov. Bob Graham set up the Council for Education Policy in 1980 to provide an independent review of Florida education. Gov. Bush killed the Council for Education Policy in 2005 for doing exactly what it was supposed to do.

Failing to heed signs that objective thinking doesn't count for much in Gov. Bush's administration, the council criticized the cheap pre-kindergarten plan Gov. Bush signed into law and poured other rocks into the shoes of powerful people. For example, the council opposed letting status-hungry universities establish new medical schools when the number of doctors could be increased more quickly and frugally through other means.

This year, Gov. Bush recommended that the Legislature eliminate the council, which has 14 employees and a $1.4 million budget. When that didn't work, budget chairmen in the House and Senate simply left money for the council out of the new budget.

Gov. Bush appoints the Board of Education, almost every university trustee and top officials in the Education Department. If there still were an independent Council for Education Policy, it might note that runaway sycophancy will not improve public education.