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Jeb! Unveils His Latest Bright Ambition

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By DANIEL RUTH, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 19, 2008

When Gov. Jeb Bush left office a year ago, Florida public schools ranked somewhere between the Bermuda Triangle and Petticoat Junction.

And now the former governor, who was the Benazir Bhutto security detail of Florida classrooms, wants to start a foundation to advance his education policies, which is a bit like Jack Kevorkian opening a wellness clinic.

The Foundation For Excellence In Education, or as it should more properly be known, Jeb's Shtick To Keep His Mug In The Public Eye, is not to be confused with His Lordship's Foundation For Florida's Future, which should more properly be known as People Paying Tribute To Jeb Until He Deigns To Run For Office Again.

Nothing helps a stalled public trough career more than setting up some sham foundation masquerading as a political machine, which allows the exiled philosopher king to sit around rubbing his chin until the first viable election cycle becomes available.

Staff Apparatchik

Thus we have the Foundation For Jeb's Excellent Ambition, which includes board members, Republican Daddy Warbucks, Dr. Zach Zachariah and former Bush staff apparatchik Brian Yablonski, who is now the top flack for The St. Joe Co., a major Florida real estate developer.

Thank Gawd there's no remote hint of cronyism influence on Jeb's Foundations To Nudge Mel Martinez Out Of The Way. Whew! For a minute there, Jeb's shenanigans reeked of crass political opportunism.

For eight long years, Jeb Bush actually had the juice to change public education for the better, and the result was a school system that ranked between a Taliban madrassa and Haiti.

Need A 'Rut-Ro' From Scooby

And now Jeb! thinks getting a bunch of right-wing ideologues together to rue what a lousy job he did in the first place is going to make things better?!?!? Cue the "Rut-Ro."

During the parallel universe of the Bush Junta era, the Florida Supreme Court found his cockamamie voucher program unconstitutional while various studies put graduation rates anywhere from 48th to 50th nationally, with only about 55 percent of the state's high school students earning their diplomas on time.

Eddie Haskell

While Jeb Bush used the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test as a weapon against teachers, students and schools, the state failed abysmally in national rankings to properly fund teacher salaries, as educators were lured to better-paying states.

And indeed, even though the Eddie Haskell of the Apalachee Parkway tried to cook the books more than a Corleone Olive Oil Co. accountant to claim the state's students were veritable Rhodes Scholars (Dusty, perhaps?), at the time he skulked out of Tallahassee, U.S. Department of Education statistics noted 72 percent of Florida students failed to meet national academic standards.

It takes either an awful lot of chutzpah and/or a staggering hubris-fueled indifference to reality for a pol whose education policies were the academic equivalent of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction to now form a foundation in tribute to his own failures.

But this really isn't about schools, or students, or teachers, or "excellence."

It is simply all about Jeb! It always is.

Keyword: Book of Ruth to read and comment on Daniel Ruth's blog.

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