{"id":19401,"date":"2013-07-03T10:17:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T14:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=19401"},"modified":"2013-07-03T10:17:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T14:17:32","slug":"teachers-praise-gov-scott-in-new-online-ad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/07\/03\/teachers-praise-gov-scott-in-new-online-ad\/","title":{"rendered":"Teachers Praise Gov. Scott in New Online Ad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FSUNjQH3nkA\" height=\"315\" width=\"420\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Republican Party of Florida is out with a new web ad featuring teachers praising Gov. Rick Scott.<\/p>\n<p>The teachers aren&#8217;t identified, but appear to have been recorded at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flgov.com\/2013\/06\/26\/governor-scott-hosts-inaugural-teacher-of-the-year-summit\/\">recent teacher summit Scott hosted in Tallahassee<\/a>. Most of the teachers thank Scott for investing in education, particularly his push for across-the-board raises.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think Gov. Scott is a visionary. He&#8217;s a brilliant businessman,&#8221; one teacher says in the video. &#8220;What he&#8217;s done for the business world in Florida, I think he can incorporate that in education.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Another says she feels teachers have the governor&#8217;s ear.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know that he listens to us,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n<p>Education has been a key issue for Scott as he <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/10\/18\/rick-scott-eyes-reelection-softens-stance-on-public-education\/\">focuses on his reelection efforts next year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Scott took office and immediately pushed to cut education spending. The <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/tag\/senate-bill-736\/\">first bill he signed into law<\/a> required teachers are evaluated based &#8212; in part &#8212; on student test scores, requires teachers are paid based on those evaluations and ends long-term teacher contracts for new hires or those who change districts.<\/p>\n<p>The law is unpopular with many teachers and the <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/05\/15\/what-the-florida-teacher-evaluation-lawsuit-could-mean-for-other-states\/\">state teacher&#8217;s union has filed a suit challenging the law.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scott was one of the <a href=\"http:\/\/miami.cbslocal.com\/2011\/12\/06\/poll-rick-scott-is-least-popular-governor-in-country\/\">most unpopular governors in the country<\/a> according to polls during his first year in office.<\/p>\n<p>Since then he has turned education into a priority. Last year he gave an ultimatum to state lawmakers to <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/01\/13\/inside-gov-scott%E2%80%99s-1-billion-education-plan\/\">add $1 billion to the K-12 budget<\/a> and restore some of what had previously been cut during the Great Recession. This year <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/03\/05\/gov-scott-is-asking-nicely-please-pay-teachers-more\/\">he asked for across-the-board teacher raises<\/a>, keeping the pressure on when lawmakers wanted to base raises on performance instead.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/news\/blogs\/political-pulse\/os-osscottelectionpoll-20130618,0,2606641.post\">Recent polls show the public&#8217;s opinion of Scott is improving<\/a>, though next year&#8217;s gubernatorial race is expected to be <a href=\"http:\/\/fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com\/2013\/04\/08\/which-governors-are-most-vulnerable-in-2014\/?_r=0\">one of the most competitive in the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This is not the first time the Republican Party of Florida has put out an online ad <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/05\/14\/florida-republican-party-ads-praise-gov-scotts-education-record\/\">emphasizing Scott&#8217;s education<\/a> record. Scott also said he was <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/08\/21\/in-new-ad-gov-rick-scott-says-hes-listening-to-complaints-about-fcat\/\">listening to parent and school district complaints about the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test<\/a> in another RPOF ad (though we should note the state had already decided to mostly eliminate the FCAT).<\/p>\n<p>We know a few teachers read this blog, so have at it: What do you think of Gov. Scott? What do you think of the new ad? Add your thoughts in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Republican Party of Florida is out with a new web ad featuring teachers praising Gov. Rick Scott. The teachers aren&#8217;t identified, but appear to have been recorded at the recent teacher summit Scott hosted in Tallahassee. Most of the teachers thank Scott for investing in education, particularly his push for across-the-board raises. &#8220;I think [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":19403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[849,1069,825,1027,90,1079],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19401"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19496,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19401\/revisions\/19496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}