The Political Whore

Pretty stunning news in this morning’s Times that Doug Tuthill, who was a corporate exec at Creative Loafing in Tampa for three years, and St. Petersburg Times editorial writer Jon East, are joining the state’s No. 2 school-voucher advocate (behind only Jeb!), John Kirtley, in the Florida School Choice Fund.

The fund raises corporate dollars that are used as part of a state program that awards private-school vouchers. Tuthill, CL’s former chief operating officer, will be president of the Fund; East becomes its communications director.

Both had been anti-voucher in the past but told the newspaper that their new jobs do not amount to a flip-flop on the issue:

People say, ” ‘Gee, Doug, you suddenly flipped your position on school choice.’ That’s not true,” Tuthill said.

Tuthill said he heard many of the same arguments now raised against vouchers when he helped set up the International Baccalaureate program at St. Petersburg High School in the early 1980s. “Our argument was all we’re trying to do is create more learning options (for kids),” he said.

“My core values are the same,” said East, the former Times editorial writer. But, “I sincerely feel that (tax credit vouchers) don’t compete with or undermine public education, which is different than the way I used to feel.”

One wag in Pinellas who has often disagreed with the Times editorial board called me to smirkingly offer this “translation” of East’s quote: “My core values are the same; it’s just paying my bills makes my core values a luxury that I can’t currently afford.”

Ouch.

I like and respect East, who was one of the most thoughtful and informed editorial writers on that board over the past two decades, and worked directly with Doug here at CL and respect his knowledge and commitment to education. They are good guys; their move to the Fund and onto the side of tax-credit vouchers is less testimony to a flip-flop than a signal (as Ron Matus points out in his excellent story) that perhaps we’re closing in on a middle ground in Florida education reform where smart folks on both sides of the voucher issue can get something good done.

(UPDATE: East contacted me and offered a correction to the Times story, pointing out that he did not retire and take the buyout package at the newspaper and left to take this new job. “I came here not because I needed a new paycheck, but because I decided I needed a new cause,” he wrote in an e-mail.)

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