News
Lee County Rescinds Vote to Opt Out of Testing - Media Coverage
September, 2014As we shared in our previous alert and our announcement of the analysis of the misleading legal memo, Lee County Board member Mary Fischer rescinded her vote after being either bullied or mislead about the alleged dire consequences. The entire meeting video is available HERE. Sixty speople spoke in public comments, the maximum allowed by board policy. It was well over 2:1 against rescinding the vote. There were many excellent speakers. Dr. Effrem covered the problems with the legal memo that caused such panic starting at 43:11.
Here is other coverage of the joint FSCCC and Florida Citizens' Alliance press conference and the board meeting:
Photo Credit Florida News Press
NBC-2.com WBBH News for Fort Myers, Cape Coral
While it is unclear why they couldn't have taken time to develop their plan before they rescinded the vote at an "emergency" meeting at 8:30 AM the day after Labor Day, all five board members, including the ones that voted to rescind say they are going to do "something" about excessive standardized testing. Time will tell what exactly that will be, and whether it will be real action, or mere political rhetoric, deflection, and delay. In her closing comments after the vote, Vice chairwoman, Cathleen Morgan, a strong supporter of national standards and tests condescendingly chastised Chairman Tom Scott and Don Armstrong for their opt vote last week. She also said that they had performed a vote of no confidence in Superintendent Nancy Graham and board attorney Keith Martin. We would submit that it was Graham and Martin by their undermining of the board vote in public, with teachers and parents and the misleading legal memo, were the ones who voted no confidence in the board for whom they work. We will be keeping a close eye on developments in Lee County.
While it is unclear why they couldn't have taken time to develop their plan before they rescinded the vote at an "emergency" meeting at 8:30 AM the day after Labor Day, all five board members, including the ones that voted to rescind say they are going to do "something" about excessive standardized testing. Time will tell what exactly that will be, and whether it will be real action, or mere political rhetoric, deflection, and delay. In her closing comments after the vote, Vice chairwoman, Cathleen Morgan, a strong supporter of national standards and tests condescendingly chastised Chairman Tom Scott and Don Armstrong for their opt vote last week. She also said that they had performed a vote of no confidence in Superintendent Nancy Graham and board attorney Keith Martin. We would submit that it was Graham and Martin by their undermining of the board vote in public, with teachers and parents and the misleading legal memo, were the ones who voted no confidence in the board for whom they work. We will be keeping a close eye on developments in Lee County.
