{"id":20572,"date":"2013-11-06T12:20:01","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T17:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=20572"},"modified":"2013-11-06T17:07:30","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T22:07:30","slug":"studentsfirst-florida-adds-new-staff-including-former-gov-scott-spokesman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/11\/06\/studentsfirst-florida-adds-new-staff-including-former-gov-scott-spokesman\/","title":{"rendered":"StudentsFirst Florida Adds New Staff, Including Former Gov. Scott Spokesman"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_20573\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Lane Wright, a former spokesman for Gov. Rick Scott, is now handling press questions for StudentsFirst Florida.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/11\/11-6-LaneWright.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20573\" alt=\"Lane Wright, a former spokesman for Gov. Rick Scott, is now handling press questions for StudentsFirst Florida.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/11\/11-6-LaneWright-300x204.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/11\/11-6-LaneWright-300x204.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/11\/11-6-LaneWright.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Lane Wright \/ Twitter<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lane Wright, a former spokesman for Gov. Rick Scott, is now handling press questions for StudentsFirst Florida.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Lane Wright, a former spokesman for Gov. Rick Scott, is now working for the Florida arm of national education advocacy group StudentsFirst.<\/p>\n<p>Wright is one of a handful of personnel moves the group announced Wednesday, including hiring a state outreach director and field coordinators for Tampa and Orlando, and Miami. StudentsFirst was founded by former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFlorida is so important, diverse and politically complex when it comes to education,\u201d Nikki Lowrey, state director for StudentsFirst, said in a statement. \u201cWe have built a team that will help get our message out and help people understand how elevating teachers, empowering parents, and spending our tax dollars wisely will improve our children\u2019s education.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rhee is a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2013\/11\/04\/how_bipartisan_antics_could_save_the_next_michelle_rhee_from_humiliation\/\">lightning rod in education circles<\/a>, in part, because of her support for test-based teacher evaluations and criticisms of teacher&#8217;s unions.<\/p>\n<p>StudentsFirst has been a leading voice pushing for <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/tag\/parent-trigger\/\">&#8220;parent trigger&#8221; legislation<\/a>, which would allow the majority of parents at a school earning a failing grade to choose how to overhaul the school. Options include firing administrators or staff, closing the school or converting to a charter school.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The bill has been the most controversial piece of education legislation the past two years. <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/03\/13\/wrapping-up-education-bills-in-the-2012-florida-legislative-session\/\">In 2012<\/a> and 2013, the bill failed on <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/05\/03\/how-parent-trigger-opponents-claimed-parentempowerment-as-their-own\/\">tie votes in the Senate<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>StudentsFirst has also donated to <a href=\"http:\/\/bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com\/2012\/08\/04\/michelle-rhees-studentsfirst-has-made-campaign-contributions-to-12-florida-legislators-and-one-curious-527\/\">a dozen legislative candidates<\/a> in 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lane Wright, a former spokesman for Gov. Rick Scott, is now working for the Florida arm of national education advocacy group StudentsFirst. Wright is one of a handful of personnel moves the group announced Wednesday, including hiring a state outreach director and field coordinators for Tampa and Orlando, and Miami. StudentsFirst was founded by former [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":20573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[1086,1109,604],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20572"}],"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=20572"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20576,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20572\/revisions\/20576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}