StateImpact Florida spoke with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush about his role as a national education leader, and how he's using his experience in Florida to convince other states to adopt reforms pioneered in the Sunshine State.
Bush spoke about Republicans and Democrats finding common ground on education, his lukewarm support for federal reforms and the defeat of the parent trigger bill during the last legislative session.
Here's an excerpt:
Q: Let me ask you about the foundations, how they work together. You mentioned taking the Florida model and kind of talking to people about these ideas in their states. Do these foundations have the ability to test drive ideas and then market them nationally once you have some results to show folks?
A: I haven’t looked at it that way, but in fact, Florida, because it continues to be a leader under the leadership of Gov. Scott and the Florida Legislature, they’re very open to new thinking and they’ve embraced reform.
So Florida continues to be a model that other people look at. It’s not designed that way though.
There are other states, like Indiana and Louisiana now, that in our incredibly competitive federalist system are vying for incredibly important leadership positions and they’ve achieved it. And there are quite a few other states that are doing interesting things.
We’re now at a point, I think, where sharing the Florida experience is part of what we do. The other part is to share the experience of the success – the strategic success and the tactical success – of getting really bold reforms done as Mitch Daniels and the Indiana legislature did last year and as (Louisiana Gov.) Bobby Jindal is doing right now.
Read the full interview at StateImpact Florida.
