Small comforts in Tallahassee
The St Petersburg Times higher education reporter blogged in the late afternoon that the House leadership had pulled the senate’s constitutional proposal on education governance off the floor calendar, and according to what she wrote, that makes bringing it up in the next few days very difficult. If so, it is a tiny measure of hope that one bad measure was stopped.
It is a small consolation in a very bad budget year, and one in which the legislature took the majority of money set aside for merit-evaluated proposals for Centers of Excellence and gave it to a low-rated project. As the Tampa Tribune editorial on the subject noted, “Consider the handling of the Centers of Excellence money a preview of the shenanigans to come if this effort [to gut the Board of Governors] succeeds.”
If the university system has dodged the governance bullet, the next issue to watch is whether Governor Crist attempts to strike the modest tuition hike from the appropriations bill.
