Another reason McCain is losing Florida

Parent protests rocked Miami's Edison High this year

If you’re watching the news, you will see images of long, long early-voting lines in the key state of Florida. By all accounts, this is a good sign for Obama who was trailing badly in this state but now has pulled slightly ahead in the polls. If McCain loses Florida, there's little hope for him of winning this election.

Why has the momentum shifted?

The NYT and Boston Globe get some of the reasons right: 1) Obama has put boots on the ground, some 600 paid organizers to manage 160,000 volunteers. This is a state in which Obama didn’t even campaign during the primaries and where the Democratic Party traditionally has had a weak organization compared to Republicans. It’s also one which the McCain organization took for granted; 2) the housing crisis which has mangled Florida’s economy under the watch of two Republican governors, including Bush brother Jeb; 3) McCain and Gov. Christ are at each other’s throat over McCain’s choice of Palin over the more moderate Christ; and 4) the state’s once-powerful coalition of right-wing Cubans and Jewish retirees, which heavily supported Bush in 2000 and 2004, is in disarray. For many in the Cuban community, the economic crisis is trumping U.S. policy towards Cuba, as a voting issue, according to the Miami Herald.

But from my own work in the Sunshine State during the past seven years, I can tell you another reason for the growing grassroots support building for Obama . It’s a reason the national press hasn’t yet picked up on. It’s in large measure a response to the dismal failure of Republican education policies, especially NCLB and its testing madness which has hit here especially hard and caused havoc in many Florida districts.

Schools that have been deemed failures under NCLB’s grading system have been getting A or B grades under the former governor Jeb Bush’s grading system. The life-or-death FCAT exam has resulted in tens of thousands of kids, especially in heavily-populated Dade and Broward counties, being held back, unable to graduate on time and ultimately dropping out.

Florida has some of the largest high schools in the nation, many holding as many as 3,000 to 5,000 students. The state also has the nation’s highest dropout rate. No coincidence there.

Education privateers run wild down here and charter schools are handed out to patronage clients like Halloween candy. Then there's Neil Bush’s great Florida schools software swindle using his family connections and political clout to push his Ignite Company, which bilked schools out of millions of dollars.

Parents are upset and are taking it out on the Republicans. There is also widespread anger in Miami’s black community over the pushing-out of Rudy Crew as schools superintendent.

In the final analysis, it may be that these smoldering education issues are what push Obama over the top in a close race.