Schools get no new rules but still too little money

It would be nice to think that the Legislature let Gov. Bush's latest education proposals die because lawmakers finally have concluded that the "education governor" has done enough damage to education. But that isn't what happened.

The House, which at Gov. Bush's insistence has helped to burden public schools with ever-increasing state mandates while refusing to pay for voter-approved class-size reductions, sunk his A++ Plan because private voucher schools objected to a Senate proposal requiring them to conduct thorough background checks on employees. Some voucher schools think the state would be heavy-handed if it made them check national databases -- not just Florida records -- to see if teachers and other employees were convicted of sex offenses in other states.

The unwillingness to inconvenience voucher schools indirectly helped traditional public schools because the spat prevented some bad ideas -- such as directions for "teaching" history -- from advancing. Most significantly, the governor had wanted to give vouchers to tens of thousands of students who failed the reading FCAT. But existing voucher programs are scandal-ridden, and oversight has not improved -- and won't, given the attitudes. Expanding vouchers also would be irresponsible, because lower courts have ruled similar vouchers to religious schools unconstitutional, and the Florida Supreme Court will hear the case next month.

Gov. Bush's attempts to kill or escape the class-size amendment also failed. Voter repeal, his first choice, got hung up in a school-financing squabble that alienated South Florida lawmakers. His cowardly fallback, to delay smaller classes until after he leaves office in January 2007, died in the background-check fight.

The school-financing squabble is complicated, as is assessing whether the Legislature approved an adequate education budget. Statewide, lawmakers gave public schools an additional $1.3 billion, a 6.2 percent increase. In fact, $818 million of it comes not from the state but from increases in local property taxes. And $556 million of the increase goes to the required class-size reductions, leaving too little to pay for such things as higher salaries, insurance premiums and energy costs. Once again, lawmakers used sleight-of-hand instead of real increases to lower class sizes.

Moreover, because of last year's unfair change in the formula for allocating school money, South Florida fares badly. The average per-pupil increase statewide is $355, but in Palm Beach County it's $317, in Broward $334 and in Miami-Dade a paltry $268. At $380, Martin County does better than the average, but St. Lucie will receive $325. Gov. Bush's failure to lean on lawmakers enough to fix that formula cost him votes for his other education bills.

Adequacy of the budget for Florida's new pre-K program isn't complicated at all. The $2,500 per student is too little. At least lawmakers lifted a bureaucratic ban on letting many public school districts provide a pre-K program, though it isn't clear how many will take part and whether the state will have places for the estimated 154,597 4-year-olds who will try to enroll.

Not much got fixed -- voucher schools still lack accountability, the state isn't paying enough for smaller classes and South Florida districts could get robbed again next year. But public school educators are relieved because things might have been so much worse. Given recent