Jeb Bush compares education to milk. Flavored milk — chocolate, strawberry or vanilla

[madfloridian]

Jeb is traveling the country giving advice in education to various states. After all Florida has been such a great example. A little sarcasm there.

Jeb Bush, education, and milk.

Jeb Bush milks it for education

“I wish our schools could be more like milk. You heard me, I said milk,” a copy of Bush’s speech reads. “Go down the aisle of nearly any major supermarket these days and you will find an incredible selection of milk.

“You can get whole milk, low fat milk or skim milk. You can get organic milk, milk with Vitamin D or milk enzymes to improve you the way your brain functions.

“You can get flavored milk — chocolate, strawberry or vanilla – that doesn’t even taste like milk. Most of the time, there is a whole other refrigerator case dedicated to milk alternatives – like soy milk, almond milk and rice milk. They even make milk for people who can’t drink milk.

“Who would have ever thought you could improve upon milk? Yet, freedom, innovation and competition found a way.

Bush concentrated on vouchers and pushed charter schools when he was governor. He is strongly supportive of the efforts of this administration to have more merit pay and charter schools.

Jeb says Obama is on the right track

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) lavished praise on President Barack Obama’s education policies on Thursday, telling ABC News that the Democrat who succeeded his brother in the White House has broken from the teachers’ unions and should be applauded by conservatives.

“The fact of the matter is, the guy is on the right track, and his (Education) Secretary is as well,” said Bush. “I think he sincerely believes that the system has let down an entire generation of students, particularly students of lower income, and he’s passionate about it and the policies reflect a way to improve them.”

Shortly after Obama took office, Bush told the Wall Street Journal that the new president should break with an interest group allied with the Democratic Party.

“I hope it’s the teachers’ union,” said Bush.

Since Bush made those comments, union officials have alternately criticized and praised the new president’s education policies.

"It looks like the only strategies they have are charter schools and measurement," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told the Washington Post last month. "That's Bush III."

Jeb was happy to learn that they were crossing swords with the unions.

Reminded of his advice for Obama as well as Weingarten’s “Bush III” comments, Bush said he did not initially know that the new president was willing to cross swords with the teachers’ unions but he showered praise on the president for being willing to do so.

Actually charters and merit pay are the policy of the Secretary of Education.

One Florida paper says our state should fare well under the policy.

Starting with five charters in 1996, the number exploded to 389 this past school year, including 50 new ones that were added. I don't have the figures, but I imagine several more are to open their doors in August.

Charters are more popular in some areas than in others. Affluent, suburban Seminole County has only a handful, while metro South Florida is swarming with them. Obama and others such as former Gov. Jeb Bush see them as an opportunity in metro areas for students to escape failing regular public schools. Duncan said that the push for charters, however, will not be cover for establishing poorly run ones that get by with few checks - other than the constant flow of taxpayer cash which funds them.

That may be a word of caution to Florida, which has not been the strongest state in overseeing its charters. There have been some doozies out there, considering that the premise of a charter is it can do something better than a regular public school or there is no reason for it to exist.

Among Florida's escapades was the Liberty City Charter School in Miami, which was among the first to be opened. It limped along for a dozen years, sucking down millions of taxpayer dollars and having medicore performance even at it peak before the school district finally shut it down last year. Jeb Bush and T. Willard Fair, chairman of the state board of education, were among founders and chief cheerleaders for the school. Some suggested that was why the school was allowed to plug along, although it never fulfilled its promise.

Jeb became governor here in 1998. Here are some of the rankings in the mid 2000s. Hard to find rankings, or else I am not good at looking.

From the St. Pete Times 2005

Florida schools still rank near the bottom.

Despite six years of major changes by Gov. Jeb Bush and a Republican-dominated Legislature, Florida still ranks with its Southern neighbors near the bottom of the education rankings. In the legislative session that begins Tuesday, lawmakers will debate even more changes, including an expansion of vouchers, more independence for charter schools and the end of social promotion.

In 2003, Florida moved from 9th place to 4th place among Southern States.

But nationally, Florida still ranked 33rd, though this time among 50 states.

Meanwhile, Florida's eighth-graders wobbled in at 40th nationally in reading and eighth among 11 Southern states, down from seventh in 1998. Florida's scores are "middling to barely middling," said Mark Musick, president of the Atlanta-based Southern Regional Education Board, which seeks to push the South toward better national rankings and counts Florida as a member.

The South has historically lagged behind the rest of the United States in education. But even in the land of boiled peanuts and fried catfish, Florida is not considered a pace setter.

According to national figures, Florida's graduation rate was 55.7 percent in 2002, putting it at No. 48 nationally, ahead of only Georgia and South Carolina.

We fare very badly in education spending. All the charter schools and vouchers take up even more of the available money. Yet more is demanded of the public schools when funding is cut.

Bob Graham really was the "education governor". These stats must break his heart.

In the late 1980s, after Graham led an effort to move Florida into the top 12 state education systems, the state got as high as No. 16 in per-pupil spending.

Now it's 47th.

In the South, only Mississippi spends less.

I suspect that Jeb does not only want all the flavors of milk in the education process, I suspect he is still pushing creationism and abstinence only.

Jeb Bush really did transform education in Florida during his tenure as governor by instituting a school grading system (A to F), the now-dreaded FCAT achievement exams, and a school voucher system. One of the types of vouchers was struck down by the state Supreme Court, but other types remain. Public tax dollars are sending about 40,000 to private school with vouchers.

[onehandle]

1. Jeb Bush will never be President.

It must really twist his nuts that his fraud of a brother ruined it for him.

[Ardent15]

9. Especially after all the work Jebbie did to steal it for him. nt

[EFerrari]

17. He actually ruined for himself by getting too dirty too quickly.

Although that may be underestimating BushCo's ability to whitewash their every offense.

[niyad]

2. florida was 49th when I was there--has it improved any? oh, jeb, who in the HELL said

any of those multiple choices in milk actually improved it?

[madfloridian]

3. I had some figures much lower than the ones I posted...

but now I can't find them so I can't post them. Still looking.

[AzDar]

4. Hmmm...You know what isn't available in 'yer local supermarket aisle', Jeb?

A nice big cup of fuck off and die.

But it should be.

[Hannah Bell]

5. yeah jebby, maybe we could have a great system like ya got in florida,

you lying, scheming, thieving, criminal balloon-head.

one of the people i most hope has a heart attack.

[madfloridian]

12. He really hurt Florida.

We won't know the full extent for years.

[dotymed]

35. Amazingly, our (Indiana) Governor

has invited (paid) Jeb to consult on improving our state
educational system. Gov. Mitch Daniels, used to be W's
economic adviser. Then he rode into Indiana, two terms ago,
and his political "wins" have been eerily similar to
the W wins. I can't find anyone from either side who claims to
have voted for him. He has privatized everything he can,
leased our toll roads (for 75 years). His first official act
as Governor was to force all state employees to quit the
union. I thought that was illegal as hell....our man
Mitch......

[midnight]

39. Very interesty pattern the rep. party uses.... Privatizing everthing...

Anyone want to speculate why they do this?

[Sinti]

51. It keeps tax dollars from going out to whatever the program is

Schools, in this case. Privatizing the school system is one important step in a return to serfdom. It's keeps upstarts from getting educated. It's already working with privatization, inner city and rural schools are much less effective at educating children than suburban schools, because schools are paid for by real estate taxes (at least in every state I've seen).

It's the camel's nose under the tent, get some privatized and the government's involvement in the entire program is more easily undone.

[BlooInBloo]

6. Please tell me you're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding.

[DCKit]

7. Florida's milk is decades beyond it's expiration date.

It was already bad when Jeb took charge of the dairy section, now it's exploding all over the floor.

Got Cheese?

[juno jones]

8. What does he know about milk?

The only milking he does involves cash cows and I doubt he's done much grocery shopping in his life either.

Maybe this is wisdom from his ancient asian Moonie spirit guide. Sounds like something 10th century chinese warrior would say. Not. :eyes:

[madfloridian]

11. It was a weird thing to say. Strange comparison.

[tomg]

21. I think his wife asked

him to pick up some milk at the grocery store and his handlers told him to go write a speech on education and he got confused.

[madfloridian]

26. lol

:hi:

[madfloridian]

10. Some more education stats on FL....mostly in the 40s.

Hat tip to the Pushing Rope blog for finding this study by the Lawton Chiles group.

Take a look at other rankings there as well. Such as health, and social and economic spending.

EDUCATION

State spending on education as percentage of total resources
Florida ranks 42nd. As a state, Florida spends only 3.1% of its resources on education.
Source: Education Week, Quality Counts, 2009

State per capita spending on corrections vs. education
Florida ranks 50th in per capita spending on education, but ranks 16th in the nation in spending on corrections.
Source: NEA Rankings of the States 2008

High School Graduation Rates
Florida ranks 43rd, with 60.8 percent of public high school students graduating with a diploma.
Source: Education Week, Quality Counts, 2009

Standardized Test Scores
Florida students rank 48th in the nation in average composite scores on the ACT, a standard college entrance exam.
Source: American Legislative Exchange Council, Report Card on American Education, 2008

[surrealAmerican]

13. What point was he trying to make?

Thanks to strict government regulation, none of those choices is toxic, and they're all required to tell you on the label exactly what's in the bottle.

[madfloridian]

14. I have no idea.

:shrug:

[Monk06]

20. The point he's trying to make is that you should be able to buy white milk, chocolate milk

and 2% fat milk but not half and half or homo milk

[madfloridian]

30. lol

That's funny.

[madfloridian]

15. Jeb having an education summit in DC right now.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/2009/10/jeb-bush-america-in-education-arms-race-.html

Many of his suggestions take personal contact out of a classroom situation, and make it more like an televised college lecture.

"We have the ability to create the iTunes of the education world where teachers and students could access rich and rigorous content from different sources to create a learning experience that meets the individual needs of the students. Aligning the content to the standards ensures students are learning what is important. But students would learn at their own pace, spending more or less time on particular areas based on their ability.

Can you imagine how liberating and empowering that would be for a student?

Technology wouldn’t replace the teacher but it would redefine their role. Lectures might be given online to thousands of students, while classroom teachers might become more like coaches or tutors available to provide one-on-one support, again based on whatever the student needed.

To make the system truly student centric, we would need to change how we fund education. We would fund achievement – not attendance. We would pay per credit hour upon completion. That would create the incentive for system to ensure each individual student learns."

They are against students learning at their own pace in traditional public schools. They want them passing a test or else, and that test is not at the student's pace at all.

[tomg]

22. But are they providing milk?

Just what we need - "The Itunes of Education." Well, his brother, Neil "Silverado" Bush, runs an educational software firm called "Ignite!Learning," so I guess Jeb really does know what he is talking about and has only our kids' interests at heart.

[madfloridian]

23. lol Neil Bush's software is actually called COW.

http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/2006/10/neil-bushs-cow-milking-and-bilking-of.html

Neil Bush's COW: The Milking and Bilking of Education Funds

"Few independent studies have been done to assess the effectiveness of Ignite's teaching strategies. Neil Bush said the company had gotten "great feedback" from educators and planned to conduct a "major scientifically valid study" to assess the COW's impact. The results
should be in by next summer, he said.

Though Ignite's products get generally rave reviews from Texas educators, the opinion is not universal.

The Tornillo, Texas, Independent School District no longer uses the Ignite programs it purchased several years ago for $43,000.

"I wouldn't advise anyone else to use it," said Supt. Paul Vranish. "Nobody wanted to use it, and the principal who bought it is no longer here."

[EFerrari]

16. And he was the smarter one.

We should kiss the ground every day that Smirk didn't blow up the world. :scared:

[Rex]

18. Rex compares Jeb Bush to a bucket of shit.

The difference being the bucket.

[valerief]

41. LOL!!!! That should get him rushing back into the subway closet again!!!

:rofl:

[Roland99]

19. And look at all the articles now of admins of charter schools being FIRED for questioning spending

where a large portion of spending is going to the "rent" of the land, owned by certain parties, and not going to education!

[Brickbat]

24. God bless freedom. It gave us chocolate milk. Without freedom, we have no chocolate milk.

Wait, that was what he was saying, right?

[livetohike]

25. I used to think Jeb was smarter than Dubya. Now this proves

me wrong. Neither one of them can speak well, apparently.

[jmowreader]

27. Let's milk education for Jebbie just a bit

One John Ellis Bush, former governor of Florida, seems to want education to be like milk. O-kay-fine...

Imagine a dairy case labeled "Education Milk." In it you would have...

Rich milk, from only the best cattle. Groomed to perfection, not only is this milk delicious and nutritious, when it's used in recipes you can use a third less because it's so strong.
Poor milk from cattle that are grazed on half-bare land.
Milk from cows that didn't get breakfast this morning, or dinner last night.
Some of the milk comes from cows whose parents get them everything they need, but there's not much money for CowWii games or cow skateboards.
Milk from cows whose mom lets them stay up all night.
And from cows whose parents never check to see if they've done their homework.
There is milk from cows whose parents have full medical coverage, and some from cows whose parents make just enough to disqualify them from Medicaid but not quite enough for them to afford medical insurance.
Oh, and there's some milk here with a strange label: "Doesn't get much sleep because the cows' moms fight all night with their drunken boyfriends."
There's milk from abused cattle, milk from abandoned cattle, milk from cattle whose moms tell them "I wish I had never had you."
Some of the milk is from cows whose moms try real hard and give them good homes. There's also milk from cows whose moms work two jobs, so they have to cook dinner for their little sisters every night.

The store opens every morning at seven. There's never much rich milk available, but the ladies from Private School Street come over right when the store opens and buy it all. These same ladies know some of the other milk is really good too, and they use this special credit card labeled "Vouchers" to get it. There's another street called Charter School Lane, where they run their homes kinda like the ladies on Private School Street do except they get paid by the government to live there. Lots of good milk winds up on that street. And why shouldn't it?

But what about the ladies who live on Public School Promenade? Well...they're stuck with the other milk. It doesn't taste like the milk the Private School Street and Charter School Lane ladies get. Some of it's downright rotten, in fact. You can even see through some of it. There's lumps in it and no one knows why. The cartons are half-full sometimes, and once they even got a whole truckload of it that was blue. You ever taste blue milk? It's not very good and it smells funny. But on Public School Promenade, there's no choice in the matter--they HAVE to take all the milk the ladies on the other two streets don't want. I guess they could fix some of this milk if they had to, make it good enough to drink or at least make hog feed out of it. That takes money, though, and Jeb gave that money to the ladies on Private School Street and Charter School Lane.

If Jebbie wants education to be like milk, maybe he should start by admitting that not only is there chocolate, vanilla and strawberry milk on the market, there's also spoiled milk--and the public schools have to take it all.

[madfloridian]

28. Good summary.

You make a lot of good points.

"If Jebbie wants education to be like milk, maybe he should start by admitting that not only is there chocolate, vanilla and strawberry milk on the market, there's also spoiled milk--and the public schools have to take it all."

Yes, public schools can not dismiss students, they can not send them back to anywhere. Only the charter or private get to do that.

[madfloridian]

29. FL Dems mostly support vouchers....one says lines have blurred...

I would oh hell yes, there are no more lines. No lines in the sand, no lines anywhere. Not in education. This article gets it right.

Jeb Bush Hits Road to Pitch School Reform

Meanwhile, the political lines that used to divide education reformers into predictable camps are blurring rapidly.

In Florida, a majority of Democratic lawmakers now support tax-credit vouchers, which Bush backed in 2001 over near-universal Democratic opposition. And nationally, it's a Democrat - D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee - who is most gung-ho about gutting teacher tenure.

"It's definitely a good time (for Bush) if he wants to engage on the issue," said Andy Rotherham, an influential blogger and former education adviser to President Bill Clinton. "The debate is scrambled enough that the labels don't apply."

Did you get that? Scrambled debate, no labels, gutting tenure.

[frog92969]

31. More like fresh, sour, or pepsi

good, bad, or wrong.

And in the fine bu$h tradition,
I'm sure he'll relentlessly push for pepsi all around.

[Umbral]

32. I saw Mitch Daniels on Charlie Rose the other day...

he had nothing but praise for Obama's SoE and this administration's education policies. With so much approval coming form Republicans, surely someone or something is getting fucked over.

[Sancho]

33. I think the "milk" analogy and charter schools are really racism; poorly disguised

Jeb was a hugh disaster for schools in Florida, and charter schools are the ticket to privatize schools so that we have Halliburton ownership of public functions. I'm convinced that there are some racists falling in behind the charter school movement; maybe not all but clearly in cases around here. The milk analogy is more than weird - he may be making an allusion for separate (and unequal) schools.

[Harry Monroe]

34. Sorry, I tried to read the whole thing, I really did!! But I couldn't get past the first sentence..

...without laughing and spraying my keyboard with coffee this early in the morning!! "Jeb is traveling the country giving advice in education to various states." :spray:

[WinkyDink]

36. MONEY and LIES: Jeb was right in his metaphor, for THESE are the Mother's Milk of the Republicans.

Voucherists never, ever grasp the realities of PLANNED budgeting: staff; supplies; transportation. Are public school buildings to languish one year, if too many parents Voucher Out (tm Me), only to wax the next, with their return? Are teachers to be hired and fired every year, based parental whim, instead of having staffing stability based on a census?
Are books and supplies to be treated as whimsical "cash register" purchases?
Are athletic schedules TBD until the last minute?

IOW: It isn't, and has never been, about "choice". It has ALWAYS been about:
~~destroying the public school sytem, the historic means of improving one's life for lower- and middle-class people;
~~channeling tax---public---money to privatized, for-profit schools;
~~using privatized education systems to proselytize and propagandize;
~~weakening and destroying a Democratic staple in the form of teachers' unions (AFT and NEA).

[goclark]

37. $$$$'s for Jeb ~ break the backs of the Unions with Charters

The pockets of so many have been lined with the smoke and mirrors of Charter Schools,

It's about $$'s, not about Education first.

That is my strong opinion and you can believe me now or believe me later.

[Orsino]

38. You know why he likes the milk in the supermarket.

Because it's sold by private corporations.

[valerief]

40. America's crappy education system is making kids lactose-intolerant.

Yes, it's still a metaphor.

[TheCowsCameHome]

42. Jeb should lay off the milk shakes.

His waist is nearly as big as his head.

[jeremyfive]

43. America Doesn't Need This Type of Education Czar

His brother was "Dubya" for god's sake. And his Dad's VP was Dan Quayle!!!

Educational reform starts at home, I say!

[Major Hogwash]

44. As of now, I'm lactose intolerant. Fuck Jeb Bush and the entire Bush clan.

Where does Jeb work these days?

Or doesn't he have to earn a paycheck like everyone else?

[rocktivity]

45. Does Jeb still have an interest in that educational software industry?

x(
rocktivity

[vinylsolution]

46. Please go away, Jeb....

.... and never come back. Enough is enough already.

[dysfunctional press]

47. "Florida moved from 9th place to 4th place among Southern States."

"But nationally, Florida still ranked 33rd, though this time among 50 states."

so why is it that so many people here get all indignant and defensive when it's pointed out just how badly the south REALLY sucks?

because it DOES.

[hmorehead]

48. Jeb's been drinkin' some of that flat earth milk.

[hmorehead]

49. Jeb's been drinkin' some of that flat earth milk.

He sound more George like by the day.

[edc]

50. Jeb is the most cunning

member of a sociopathic family of congenital idiots to rich to fail.