Day three on the job brought Florida Governor Rick Scott to South Florida, where he toured Florida International Academy, a charter middle school in Opa-Locka, with education guru Michelle Rhee by his side.
Scott and Rhee have big changes in mind for Florida’s public schools.
"Our joint goal is to do what's right for kids and what's right for kids is having the most effective teachers in the classroom,” said Rhee.
Rhee was on Scott's education transition team, and the new governor said she would continue to serve Florida as an informal education adviser. Rhee said she made Florida the first state to partner with her new nonprofit education organization, StudentsFirst, because Scott shares her focus on improving teacher quality, on giving parents and students more options and on school accountability.
"I believe that he has the courage and the vision, unlike a lot of leaders across this country, to actually make those three things a priority," Rhee told parents, teachers and students at the school, which once was considered a failing school but is now an "A"school under the state's school grading system.
Scott said he wants to give Florida parents and students more choices in education to meet the learning needs of each individual student. That includes school vouchers for low-income students, and Scott said he would support expanding vouchers to more children.
"If we create competition, everybody will improve," Scott said. "We see it in the business world and the same thing will happen in education."
Scott praised Rhee's work as schools chief in Washington, D.C. Her celebrated but stormy tenure included firing teachers who received poor evaluations. Both said they supported merit pay plans for teachers, even if the teachers unions oppose such plans.
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"The unions and their policies aren't really of much concern because we're going to be focused on the kids," Rhee said before touring classes held in trailers while a new school building is built.
A spokesman for the Florida Education Association, the statewide teachers union, said he hoped Scott would consider the expertise of Florida's 170,000 teachers along with Rhee's proposals for vouchers and merit pay plans.
"We're hopeful the new governor will reach out and talk to everybody involved in education to make the best education plan," FEA spokesman Mark Pudlow said.
