Horne resigns

[QCao009@aol.com]

      _http://www.orlandosentin
el.com/news/education/orl-bk-horne081004,0,5493551.story_ 
(http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/orl-bk-horne081004,0,5493551.story)    
State Education Commissioner Jim Horne resigns
The Associated  Press

August 10, 2004, 12:47 PM EDT

TALLAHASSEE -- Jim Horne, Gov.  Jeb Bush's choice to overhaul Florida's 
education system from kindergarten  through college, resigned Tuesday after three 
years on the job, citing family  concerns.

In a brief note to Bush, the education commissioner wrote,  "There is no 
greater responsibility or higher priority than being a great dad  and good 
husband." He has been commuting between his home in the Jacksonville  area to 
Tallahassee the past three years. His resignation is effective Aug.  31.

Horne, 45, was tapped to head up the department after serving in the  
Legislature from 1995 to 2001, including a stint as chairman of the Senate  committee 
that writes the state budget.

A top priority for Bush has been  revamping the education system, including 
added accountability through testing  for school children and more choices for 
parents in where their children can go  to school.

One of the most controversial elements of the plan has been  issuing vouchers 
to children attending failing public schools so they can attend  private 
schools at state expense.

Horne's department has come under  intense scrutiny in recent months over the 
accountability of private schools  that accept vouchers, after some of the 
schools were accused of fraud and other  wrongdoing.

But people close to Horne said it was not the scrutiny over  the voucher 
program but the pressure of being apart from his family that led  Horne to quit 
the job, which paid him $230,742 last year.

And under the  measuring system that Bush has championed, Florida schools 
have made  improvements on Horne's watch.

In May, state officials announced that  more than half of the students who 
took the Florida Comprehensive Assessment  Test are reading at or above grade 
level, for the first time since officials  started measuring it.

The results were even better in math, with 56  percent of students at grade 
level or better. Bush and Horne have also been able  to tout a narrowing gap 
between achievement by black students and white  ones.

Still, Horne's public face was often defending Bush's education  reforms.

He had to deal with embarrassments over the state's corporate  voucher 
program, in which corporations receive tax credits for providing private  school 
scholarships to poor children. Among those were the revelation in 2003  that 
corporate vouchers were being used to pay tuition for students at an  Islamic 
school in Tampa co-founded by a professor accused of terrorist  ties.

In June, seven people were arrested from a Polk County Christian  school, 
amid allegations it accepted state voucher money for disabled children  who 
didn't attend the school.

The Legislature this year took a look at  the voucher program, considering 
proposals to add accountability measures for  the private schools that take the 
money. But nothing passed, and Senate  President Jim King called the program a 
"disaster waiting to happen." 
 
 
Quan